Prisoner Reentry in the 21st Century

Keesha M. Middlemass, Ph.D., is an associate professor of public policy in the Department of Political Science at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She specializes in studying race, reentry, food insecurity, and public policies using interdisciplinary frameworks to integrate knowledge from different disciplines and across multiple data sources, including participant observations, in-depth interviews, focus groups, policy analysis, and archival research. Her most recent book, Convicted & Condemned: The Politics and Policies of Prisoner Reentry, won the W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award in 2018. Her research is also published in Public Health Nutrition, International Journal of Eating Disorders, Aggressive Behavior, Criminal Justice & Behavior, The Prison Journal, and Punishment & Society. Dr. Middlemass is a member of the Racial Democracy, Crime and Justice Network, a former Andrew Mellon Post-Doctoral Fellow on Race, Crime and Justice at the Vera Institute of Justice in New York City, and a former American Political Science Association Congressional Fellow. Dr. Middlemass earned her Ph.D. in public policy, American politics, and public administration from The School of Public & International Affairs at the University of Georgia. CalvinJohn Smiley, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of sociology in the Department of Sociology at Hunter College–City of New York (CUNY). He specializes in studying race, reentry, and citizenship. His work is published in numerous peer-reviewed journals such as: The Prison Journal, Race Ethnicity and Education, Punishment & Society, Deviant Behavior, Journal of Human Behavior in the Social Environment, and Contemporary Justice Review. He is currently working on a book manuscript based on his research on reentry that explores the various ways men and women navigate the reentry process with diminished legal rights and amplified social stigmas. His future work will investigate the role of human and nonhuman interactions, particularly in carceral settings (e.g., prison-based animal therapy programs). Dr. Smiley is a member of American Sociological Association, American Society of Criminology, and Kappa Alpha Psi Inc. He is the Vice-President of the Board of Trustees of the New Jersey Association on Corrections. Dr. Smiley earned his Ph.D. in Sociology from the CUNY Graduate Center.

List of Tables

List of Contributors

Introduction: Critical Reentry in the 21st Century

KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS AND CALVINJOHN SMILEY

SECTION I

Institutions, Community, and Reentry

1 Halfway Home: The Thin Line Between Abstinence and the Drug Crisis

LIAM MARTIN

2 Triaging Rehabilitation: The Retreat of State-Funded Prison Programming

ALLISON GORGA

3 The State’s Accomplices? Organizations and the Penal State

NICOLE KAUFMAN

4 Idaho: A Case Study in Rural Reentry

DEIRDRE CAPUTO-LEVINE

5 Life Courses of Sex and Violent Offenders After Prison Release: The Interaction Between Individual- and Community-Related Factors

GUNDA WOESSNER, KIRA-SOPHIE GAUDER, AND DAVID CZUDNOCHOWSKI

SECTION II

Health, Embodiment, and Reentry

6 Mothers Returning Home: A Critical Intersectional Approach to Reentry

REBECCA REVIERE, VERNETTA D. YOUNG, AND AKIV DAWSON

7 Release From Long-Term Restrictive Housing

LINDA CARSON

8 Resilient Roads and the Non-Prison Model for Women

L. SUSAN WILLIAMS, EDWARD L. W. GREEN, AND KATRINA M. LEWIS

9 Alcohol Use Disorder: Programs and Treatment for Offenders Reentering the Community

SARA BUCK DOUDE AND JESSICA J. SPARKS

10 Carceral Calisthenics: (Body) Building a Resilient Self and Transformative Reentry Movement

ALBERT DE LA TIERRA

SECTION III

Gender, Criminality, and Reentry

11 Black Women Excluded From Protection and Criminalized for Their Existence

KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

12 The Gendered Challenges of Prisoner Reentry

HALEY ZETTLER

13 An Intersectional Criminology Analysis of Black Women’s Collective Resistance

NISHAUN T. BATTLE AND JASON M. WILLIAMS

14 Gender Differences in Programmatic Needs for Juveniles

LAURIN PARKER AND KYLIE PARROTTA

15 Prison Is a Place to Teach Us the Things We’ve Never Learned in Life

BREEA WILLINGHAM

SECTION IV

Access, Rights, and Reentry

16 “. . . Except Sex Offenders”: Registering Sexual Harm in the Age of #MeToo

DAVID BOOTH

17 Reentry in the Inland Empire: The Prison to College Pipeline With Project Rebound

ANNIKA YVETTE ANDERSON, PAUL ANDREW JONES, AND CAROLYN ANNE MCALLISTER

18 The Politics of Restoring Voting Rights After Incarceration

TANEISHA N. MEANS AND ALEXANDRA HATCH

19 Restoration of Voting Rights: Returning Citizensand the Florida Electorate

KENESHIA GRANT

20 Perpetual Punishment: One Man’s Journey Post-Incarceration

TOMAS R. MONTALVO AND JENNIFER MARIE ORTIZ

SECTION V

Voices, Agency, and Reentry

21 Thoughts, Concerns, and the Reality of Incarcerated Women

CALVINJOHN SMILEY AND KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

22 Reflections on Reentry: Voices From the ID13 Prison Literacy Project

HALLE M. NEIDERMAN, CHRISTOPHER P. DUM, AND THE ID13 PRISON LITERACY PROJECT

23 Being Held at Rikers, Waiting to Go Upstate

MARQUES M.

24 Reentry, From My Perspective

ABDUL-HALIM N. SHAHID

25 The Journey of a Black Man Enveloped in Poverty

STEVEN PACHECO

26 My First 24 Hours After Being Released

JOSE LUMBRERAS

SECTION VI

Activism, Liberation, and Reentry

27 Money for Freedom: Cash Bail, Incarceration, and Reentry

CALVINJOHN SMILEY

28 Agents of Change in Healing Our Communities

LIZA CHOWDHURY, JASON DAVIS, AND DEDRIC “BELOVED” HAMMOND

29 Rehabilitation Is Reentry: Breathing Space, a Product of Inmate Dreams

ROBERT GAROT

30 Making Good One Semester at a Time: Formerly Incarcerated Students (and Their Professor) Consider the Redemptive Power of Inclusive Education

JAMES M. BINNALL, IRENE SOTELO, ADRIAN VASQUEZ, AND JOE LOUIS HERNANDEZ

31 “I Can’t Depend on No Reentry Program!”: Street-Identified Black Men’s Critical Reflections on Prison Reentry

YASSER ARAFAT PAYNE, TARA MARIE BROWN, AND CORRY WRIGHT

Conclusion: What’s Next for Critical Reentry

CALVINJOHN SMILEY AND KEESHA M. MIDDLEMASS

Index