IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/anname/v635y2011i1p192-215.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Incarceration and Prisoner Reentry in the United States

Author

Listed:
  • Steven Raphael

    (University of California, Berkeley)

Abstract

This article addresses the reentry challenges faced by low-skilled men released from U.S. prisons. The author empirically characterizes the increases in incarceration occurring since 1970 and assesses the degree to which these changes result from changes in policy as opposed to changes in criminal behavior. The author discusses what is known about the children of inmates and the likelihood that a child in the United States has an incarcerated parent. The article then addresses the employment barriers that former prison inmates face, with a particular emphasis on how employers view criminal records in screening job applicants. Finally, the author discusses a number of alternative models for aiding the reentry of former inmates. Transitional cash assistance, the use of reentry plans, traditional workforce development efforts, and transitional jobs for former inmates all are among the tools used across the United States. The author reviews the existing evaluation literature on the effectiveness of these programmatic interventions.

Suggested Citation

  • Steven Raphael, 2011. "Incarceration and Prisoner Reentry in the United States," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 635(1), pages 192-215, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:635:y:2011:i:1:p:192-215
    DOI: 10.1177/0002716210393321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0002716210393321
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0002716210393321?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Holzer, Harry J & Raphael, Steven & Stoll, Michael A, 2006. "Perceived Criminality, Criminal Background Checks, and the Racial Hiring Practices of Employers," Journal of Law and Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 49(2), pages 451-480, October.
    2. Jeffrey R. Kling, 2006. "Incarceration Length, Employment, and Earnings," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(3), pages 863-876, June.
    3. Devah Pager, 2003. "The mark of a criminal record," Natural Field Experiments 00319, The Field Experiments Website.
    4. Charles D. Mallar & Craig V. D. Thornton, 1978. "Transitional Aid for Released Prisoners: Evidence from the Life Experiment," Journal of Human Resources, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 13(2), pages 208-236.
    5. Peter Z. Schochet & John Burghardt & Steven Glazerman, 2001. "National Job Corps Study: The Impacts of Job Corps on Participants' Employment and Related Outcomes," Mathematica Policy Research Reports db6c4204b8e1408bb0c6289ec, Mathematica Policy Research.
    6. repec:mpr:mprres:2951 is not listed on IDEAS
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. LePage, James P. & Walters, Scott T. & Cipher, Daisha J. & Crawford, April M., 2023. "Development and evaluation of an online vocational program for veterans with legal convictions and psychiatric illness," Evaluation and Program Planning, Elsevier, vol. 97(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. John Schmitt & Kris Warner, 2010. "The High Budgetary Cost of Incarceration," CEPR Reports and Issue Briefs 2010-28, Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR).
    2. Yang, Crystal S., 2017. "Local labor markets and criminal recidivism," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 16-29.
    3. Steven Raphael, 2010. "Improving Employment Prospects for Former Prison Inmates: Challenges and Policy," NBER Working Papers 15874, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Darolia, Rajeev & Mueser, Peter & Cronin, Jacob, 2021. "Labor market returns to a prison GED," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 82(C).
    5. Keith Finlay, 2009. "Effect of Employer Access to Criminal History Data on the Labor Market Outcomes of Ex-Offenders and Non-Offenders," NBER Chapters, in: Studies of Labor Market Intermediation, pages 89-125, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    6. Steven Raphael, 2010. "Improving Employment Prospects for Former Prison Inmates: Challenges and Policy," NBER Chapters, in: Controlling Crime: Strategies and Tradeoffs, pages 521-565, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Ali M. Ahmed & Elisabeth Lång, 2017. "The employability of ex-offenders: a field experiment in the Swedish labor market," IZA Journal of Labor Policy, Springer;Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 6(1), pages 1-23, December.
    8. Joseph J. Sabia & Taylor Mackay & Thanh Tam Nguyen & Dhaval M. Dave, 2018. "Do Ban the Box Laws Increase Crime?," NBER Working Papers 24381, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Bruce Western & Christopher Muller, 2013. "Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the Poor," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 647(1), pages 166-189, May.
    10. Becky Pettit & Carmen Gutierrez, 2018. "Mass Incarceration and Racial Inequality," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 77(3-4), pages 1153-1182, May.
    11. Holzer, Harry J., 2007. "Collateral Costs: The Effects of Incarceration on the Employment and Earnings of Young Workers," IZA Discussion Papers 3118, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    12. Allison Dwyer Emory, 2019. "Unintended Consequences: Protective State Policies and the Employment of Fathers with Criminal Records," Working Papers wp19-04-ff, Princeton University, School of Public and International Affairs, Center for Research on Child Wellbeing..
    13. Steven Raphael, 2014. "The New Scarlet Letter? Negotiating the U.S. Labor Market with a Criminal Record," Books from Upjohn Press, W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, number nsc.
    14. Bastien Michel & Camille Hémet, 2022. "Custodial versus non-custodial sentences: Long-run evidence from an anticipated reform," PSE Working Papers halshs-03899897, HAL.
    15. Andrew Leigh, 2020. "The Second Convict Age: Explaining the Return of Mass Imprisonment in Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 96(313), pages 187-208, June.
    16. Christopher Wildeman & Kristin Turney & Youngmin Yi, 2016. "Paternal Incarceration and Family Functioning," The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, , vol. 665(1), pages 80-97, May.
    17. Magnus Lofstrom & Steven Raphael, 2016. "Crime, the Criminal Justice System, and Socioeconomic Inequality," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 30(2), pages 103-126, Spring.
    18. Amanda Agan & Sonja Starr, 2016. "Ban the Box, Criminal Records, and Statistical Discrimination: A Field Experiment," Working Papers 598, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Industrial Relations Section..
    19. Alexandra Baier & Loukas Balafoutas & Tarek Jaber-Lopez, 2023. "Ostracism and theft in heterogeneous groups," Experimental Economics, Springer;Economic Science Association, vol. 26(1), pages 193-222, March.
    20. Christy A. Visher & Laura Winterfield & Mark B. Coggeshall, 2006. "Systematic Review of Non‐Custodial Employment Programs: Impact on Recidivism Rates of Ex‐Offenders," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(1), pages 1-28.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:anname:v:635:y:2011:i:1:p:192-215. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.