PRISONER REENTRY: PUBLIC SAFETY AND REINTEGRATION CHALLENGES JOAN PETERSILIA
Irvine Changes in sentencing practices, coupled with a decrease in prison rehabilitation programs, have placed new demands on the U.S. parole system. Nearly 700,000 parolees are “doing time” on the streets. Most have been released to a parole system that provides few services and imposes conditions that almost guarantee failure. This article examines the state of parole in today’s corrections environment—from indeter–minate and determinate sentencing policies to investing in prisoner reentry programs.
Specifically, the article analyzes the following collateral consequences involved with
recycling parolees in and out of families and communities: community cohesion and
social disorganization, work and economic well-being, family matters, mental and
physical health, political alienation, and housing and homelessness. The future of
parole is also discussed, and the author urges a rethinking of discretionary parole
release.
State prisons admitted about 591,000 people in 1999 and released almost
the same number—about 538,000. If federal prisoners and those released
from secure juvenile facilities are included, nearly 600,000 inmates—about
1,600 a day—arrive on the doorsteps of communities throughout the country
each year.
Virtually no systematic, comprehensive attention has been paid by policy
makers to deal with people after they are released, an issue that has been
termed prisoner reentry. There are a few studies of various parole innova–
tions, some research on distinct populations such as sex offenders, and some
evaluations of programs such as drug treatment systems that link prison-
based and community-based interventions. But, as a general matter, we know
very little about correlates of success and failure in the process of reintegra–
tion. Failure to better understand the ingredients of successful integration is
critical, and the crime reduction gains made in recent years may erode unless
we consider the cumulative impact of tens of thousands of returning felons on
families, children, and communities. Failure to pay attention to parole services is unfortunate from another standpoint as well because at the point of
release, most inmates have an initial strong desire to succeed.
Of course, inmates have always been released from prison, and officials
have long struggled with how to help them succeed. But the current situation
is decidedly different. The numbers of releasees dwarf anything in our his–
tory, the needs of parolees are more serious, the public and parole system is
less tolerant of failures, and the corrections system retains few rehabilitation
programs—either in prison or in the community.
A number of unfortunate collateral consequences are likely, including
increases in child abuse, family violence, the spread of infectious diseases,
homelessness, and community disorganization. And with 1.3 million prison–
ers, many more people have real-life knowledge of the prison experience.
Being incarcerated is becoming almost a normal experience for people in
some communities. This phenomenon may affect the socialization of young
people, the ability of prison sentences to scare and deter, and the future trajec–
tory of crime rates and crime victimization.
PAROLE IN THE UNITED STATES: MANAGINGMORE PEOPLE, MANAGING THEM LESS WELL
Changes in sentencing practices, coupled with a decrease in availability of
rehabilitation programs, have placed new demands on the parole system.
Support and funding have declined, resulting in dangerously high caseloads.
Parolees sometimes abscond from supervision, often without consequence.
It is not surprising that most parolees fail to lead law-abiding lives and are
rearrested.
Determinate sentencing means automatic release. Parole in the United
States has changed dramatically since the mid-1970s, when most inmates
served open-ended indeterminate prison terms—10 years to life, for exam–
ple—and a parole board, usually appointed by the governor, had wide discre–
tion to release inmates or keep them behind bars. In principle, offenders were
paroled only if they were rehabilitated and had ties to the community—such
as a family or a job. This made release from prison a privilege to be earned. If
inmates violated parole, they could be returned to prison to serve the balance
of their term—a strong incentive not to commit crimes.
Today, indeterminate sentencing and discretionary release have been
replaced in 14 states with determinate sentencing and automatic release
(Tonry, 1999). For example, in California, where more than 125,000 prison–
ers are released each year, no parole board asks whether the inmate is ready for release because he or she must be released once the prisoner has served
the determinate term imposed by the court. Offenders receive fixed terms at
the time of their initial sentencing and are automatically released at the end of
their prison term, usually with credits for good time. In 1990, 39% of inmates
were released to supervision by parole board action and 29% by mandatory
release; by 1998, those figures had been reversed, and 26% were released
by parole board decision and 40% by mandatory release. With widespread
adoption of truth-in-sentencing statutes, we can expect these trends to con–
tinue, so that release by the parole board will become a vestige of a bygone
era, retained in some states and, in others, reserved for an aging prison cohort
sentenced under the old regime.
A parolee must generally be released to the county where he last resided
before going to prison. Because offenders overwhelmingly come from poor,
culturally isolated, inner-city neighborhoods, those are where they return.
The greatly expanded use of incarceration in the United States has a particu–
larly acute impact on communities that are already characterized by great
concentrations of disadvantage. According to recent research, in some com-
munities, up to 15% of the young Black males are incarcerated on a given day
(Lynch & Sabol, 2001), up to 13% of adult males enter prison or jail in a
given year (Center for Alternative Sentencing and Employment Services
[CASES], 2000), and up to 2% of all residents enter prison in a given year
(Rose, Clear, & Scully, 1999).
Indeterminate sentencing was abolished because of its discretionary qual-
ity. Studies showed that wide disparities resulted when the characteristics of
the crime and the offender were taken into account and were influenced by
the offender’s race, socioeconomic characteristics, and place of conviction.
But most corrections officials believe that some ability to individualize is
necessary because it provides a way to take account of changes in behavior
that occur after the offender was incarcerated. Imprisonment can cause psy–
chological breakdown, depression, or mental illness or reveal previously
unrecognized personal problems, and the parole board can adjust release
dates accordingly.
More parolees have unmet needs. State and federal incarceration rates
quadrupled between 1980 and 1996, and the U.S. prison population now
exceeds 1.3 million persons. If one includes people in jail, there are now 2
million individuals behind bars. The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) has
calculated that an African American male has a 29% lifetime chance of serv–
ing at least a year in prison—a rate six times higher than for Whites. Sen–
tences for drug offending are the major reason for increases in admissions—
accounting for approximately 45% of the growth. Aggravated assault and
362 THE PRISON JOURNAL / September 2001
