David J. Harding - On the Outside: Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration

DAVID J. HARDING, JEFFREY D. MORENOFF, AND JESSICA J. B. WYSE

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

CHICAGO AND LONDON

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2019 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2019

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-60750-4 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-60764-1 (paper)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-60778-8 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226607788.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Harding, David J., 1976 author. | Morenoff, Jeffrey D., author. | Wyse, Jessica J. B., author.

Title: On the outside : prisoner reentry and reintegration / David J. Harding, Jeffrey D. Morenoff, and Jessica J. B. Wyse.

Description: Chicago ; London : The University of Chicago Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2018037843 | ISBN 9780226607504 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226607641 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9780226607788 (e-book)

Subjects: LCSH: PrisonersDeinstitutionalizationUnited States. | Employment re-entryUnited States.

Classification: LCC HV9304 .H265 2019 | DDC 365/.647dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018037843

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI / NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

We are indebted to the twenty-two individuals who shared their experiences of imprisonment, reentry, and reintegration with us as research participants in what came to be known as the Michigan Study of Life after Prison. For up to three years they participated in regular interviews, opening their lives to us and trusting us with sensitive information about their past and present experiences and hopes and fears for the future. While it would be impossible to capture the nuances of all their lived experiences in a book such as this, we hope we have lived up to the trust they placed in us by faithfully representing the common experiences they shared as they left prison and began the process of reintegration.

This project would not have been possible without the cooperation, support, and advice of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC), especially its research and evaluation unit and senior management. MDOC staff should be acknowledged for seeing the value of collaboration with academic researchers despite the potential risks of sharing their administrative data and granting us access to prisoners for interviews. They aided us in the process of securing access to administrative data, explained the workings of Michigans prisons and parole systems, and advised on the interpretation of our data. Although the conclusions we have drawn from the data they helped us collect and analyze are our own and they are unlikely to agree with everything we have written in this book, we hope we have been faithful to the lessons they have imparted to us based on their years of experience in corrections and public service. We thank in particular Doug Kosinski, Steve DeBor, Jeff Anderson, Ken Dimoff, Dennis Schrantz, and former director Patricia Caruso.

We are especially grateful to Paulette Hatchett and Charley Chilcote. Paulette was a partner in this project from the very beginning, managing the process of securing our access to research participants in MDOC prisons, providing us with administrative data, and supervising research assistants who worked on the project in the MDOC headquarters in Lansing. As the project progressed and Paulette eventually retired from MDOC, she continued to advise us on a weekly basis for many years regarding MDOC practices and data systems and to track down answers to our many queries. Charley joined the project at a crucial time, developing and managing the process of coding the parole agent case notes that became the backbone of the administrative data on families and communities. His commitment to producing data of the highest quality was integral to the success of the project. This project would not have been possible without Paulettes and Charleys dedication and generosity.

Many research assistants labored tirelessly to code, clean, and analyze both qualitative and statistical data for the Michigan Study of Life after Prison. We thank Brenda Hurless, Bianca Espinoza, Andrea Garber, Jonah Siegel, Jay Borchert, Amy Cooter, Jane Rochmes, Claire Herbert, Jon Tshiamala, Katie Harwood, Elizabeth Sinclair, Carmen Gutierrez, Joanna Wu, Clara Rucker, Michelle Hartzog, Tyrell Connor, Madie Lupei, Elena Kaltsas, Brandon Cory, Elizabeth Johnston, Ed-Dee Williams, Cheyney C. Dobson, Erin Lane, Kendra Opatovsky, Adam Laretz, Emma Tolman, Josh Seim, Keunbok Lee, Zawadi Rucks-Ahidiana, Carla Ibarra, Steve Anderson, Megan Thornhill, Tyler Sawher, and Phoebe Rosenfeld.

We are also grateful to colleagues whose advice and feedback were critical to the design and execution of the project. We thank Silvia Pedraza, Al Young, Sarah Burgard, Elizabeth Bruch, Bill Axinn, Yu Xie, Jennifer Barber, Sandra Smith, Loc Wacquant, Michele Lamont, Black Hawk Hancock, Bruce Western, Chris Winship, Rob Sampson, Heather Harris, Dave Kirk, Chris Wildeman, Kristin Turney, Sara Wakefield, Chris Uggen, Megan Comfort, Andrea Leverentz, Issa Kohler-Hausman, Shawn Bushway, John Laub, Mario Small, Scott Allard, Kurt Metzger, David Martin, Steve Heeringa, and Zeina Mneimneh.

Finally, we are grateful to the entities that have funded our research. This project was supported by the Office of the Vice President for Research, Rackham Graduate School, Department of Sociology, Joint PhD Program in Sociology and Public Policy, National Poverty Center, and the Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan, as well as the Russell Sage Foundation, the National Institute of Justice (2008-IJ-CX-0018), the National Science Foundation (SES-1061018, SES-1060708), and the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (1R21HD060160 01A1); by center grants from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Population Studies Centers at the University of Michigan (R24 HD041028) and the University of California, Berkeley (R24 HD073964); and by the National Institute on Aging to the Population Studies Center at the University of Michigan (T32 AG000221).

The Mackinac Bridge, one of the worlds largest steel suspension bridges, connects Michigans Lower and Upper Peninsulas. DeAngelo Cummings, then twenty-seven years old, crossed that bridge for the first time around noon on a blustery winter day in 2007, in route from the Reception and Guidance Center prison in Jackson to the Hiawatha Prison in the Upper Peninsula, where he would live for the next six months. He peered through the grated windows of the prison bus at the icy gray waters connecting Lake Michigan and Lake Huron hundreds of feet below. It was during this crossing, over two miles in length, that he realized the full weight of this separation, both geographic and symbolic. Though he had been to prison once before, it was in the Lower Peninsula. He was now over three hundred miles from the streets of Detroit where he grew up, from the restaurant where he worked as a waiter, and from his four-year-old son. The only bridges back to his former life would be few and far between; the long trip up north to the UP would mean no visitors, and phone calls, at a cost of $8 for twelve minutes, would be brief. Thats when I realized I was really in a different world, just how far away from home I was, DeAngelo explained almost a year later as he awaited his parole date in the Cooper Street Prison back in Jackson, wondering with some anxiety how he would find work, reconnect with his family, and avoid the depression and drinking that contributed to his incarceration. The challenges of reentry and reintegration lay before him again, and his anxiety was palpable, as his prior reentry failure was constantly in the back of his mind. In the months and years ahead, he would succeed at finding a job, establishing his own household, gaining custody of his son, and forming new relationships, but he would also struggle with depression and anxiety, alcohol, and unemployment and eventually find himself back in prison, only to start over again.