Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities. Anthony C. Thompson

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      Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities

      Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities

       Reentry, Race, and Politics

      Anthony C. Thompson

Image

      NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS

      New York and London

      www.nyupress.org

      © 2008 by New York University

      All rights reserved

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Thompson, Anthony C.

      Releasing prisoners, redeeming communities : reentry, race, and

      politics / Anthony C. Thompson.

      p. cm.

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN-13: 978-0-8147-8303-0 (cloth : alk. paper)

      ISBN-10: 0-8147-8303-1 (cloth : alk. paper)

      1. Ex-convicts—United States. 2. Criminals—Rehabilitation—

      United States. 3. Minorites—United States—Social conditions.

      I. Title.

      HV9275.T56 2008

      365’.6470973—dc22 2007043248

      New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability.

      Manufactured in the United States of America

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      For My Parents, Elena and Leo Hopkins and Teddi and Billy Taylor. You have taught me a great deal about love, faith, and redemption.

      Contents

       Acknowledgments

       Introduction

      1 Reentry, Race, and Stigma

      2 Media Influence on Public Perceptions of Prison Life

      3 Women: The Afterthought in Reentry Planning

      4 Reentry and Housing

      5 Reentry and Health Care

      6 Reentry and Unemployment

      7 Reentry and the Political Process

      8 Reentry and Parole

      9 Reentry Courts

       Conclusion

       Notes

       Index

       About the Author

      Acknowledgments

      I gratefully acknowledge financial support from the Filomen D’Agostino and Max E. Greenberg Research Fund at the New York University School of Law as well as the continued support from a number of colleagues, especially Professor Deborah Schenck, who has been a great support in this project. I would like to thank Susan Hodges and Damaris Marrero for their impeccable administrative support. I would like to thank Michael Chen, Tom Leith, Tara Mikkilineni, Cynthia Pong, and Andrew Stanner for their research assistance. I would also like to thank Jenna Johnson for her edits of an early draft. I would like to thank Oscar Bobrow and Jennifer Gonnerman for their comments on an earlier draft. I want to thank my editor, Debbie Gershenowitz, for identifying the importance of the issue and for her insightful editorial assistance. Finally, I want to especially thank Kim Taylor-Thompson for her support and substantive assistance in this effort.

      Introduction

      Reentry is a term few people outside the criminal justice system know. Some individuals and communities have experienced firsthand the consequences of our national failure to facilitate meaningful reintegration of recently released prisoners. Far too few individuals can either articulate or imagine the benefits of a comprehensive approach to reentry. This is due largely to the fact that this country has never devoted the time, care, or attention necessary to create such an approach. Instead, our efforts to address reentry have, at best, remained an afterthought and, at worst, have been dismissed as someone else’s concern. What has led our choice as a nation to ignore this crisis is the pervasive interplay of race, power, and politics that infuse and confuse our attitudes about crime.

      So permit me to begin with a definition to ground our discussions. Reentry is the process by which individuals return to communities from prison or jail custody. The focus of this book is the way that race, power, and politics all conspire to make reintegration more difficult, if not impossible. In conversations, studies, and reports, we often discuss crime statistics, drug use, and incarceration rates. In addition, significant attention has been paid to prison conditions and to the philosophy and approach to incarceration. Whether we are talking about rehabilitation, retribution, or incapacitation, we have spent precious little time considering what happens when individuals leave custody. We rarely consider, for example, the obstacles for men and women who have been separated from family and community for significant periods of time. Alternatively, we have also failed to examine in depth the communities themselves. The cycle of

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