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Obstacles Faced by Former Offenders Upon Re-entry into Society

Vanessa Hayden Phillips

University of Houston-Downtown

Socw-3350

Professor Gloria Pereira

October 10,2022

Follow template posted on Bb for title page and APA style; I won't make any of those comments here.

Good level of detail on studies; maybe at times too much (details on independent/dependent variables for example). I think you need to integrate the document in a different way. You list the details of all the studies, then you detail all the results. It does not make for an integrated narrative story. You should organize by obstacles maybe.

One comment I have is I don’t know how you are going to do the study itself. It reads like a paper but not like a research proposal – how are you going to study this? That will also alter or influence how you write the literature review part. You want the reader to end up with a clear picture of what you are going to study in your research – not just a general idea of what the research says. In terms of how you are going to study all these obstacles that people face in one study? Are you going to survey people to see which factors affect them? You also might want to end the literature review with a little of what you are contributing to the existing research (which there is a lot on the obstacles) so what are you adding? How is your study different? How are you contributing to the body of research?

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Obstacles That Former Offenders Are Faced with Upon Re-entry into Society

Re-entry is the process through which former offenders from jails or prisons transition back into society (Hipes & Clever, 2018). Thousands of offenders are released from federal and state prisons every year, and they proceed to re-enter their communities (in text citation). Studies – since you mention studies in plural you shoul show that out of the number of offenders released, 75% of them are re-arrested in five years (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018). The statistics on recidivism are also not positive, showing increased rates of recidivism in recent years (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018). Recidivism is highest in the United States than in any other country (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2018). Presently rate of recidivism in the United States is his even higher than in developed countries that spend less on their criminal justice system (Katsiyannis et al., 2018). It points to unsuccessful re-entries for former offenders released after their incarceration (in text citation).

Issues such as difficulty securing employment, a lack of support from family members, unstable housing, and healthcare can all be obstacles to a former offender re-entering society (Tharshini et al., 2018). With upwards of 600,000 former offenders re-entering society each year, their re-entries must be successful (Treitler & Angell, 2020). Stakeholders must develop interventions that can address the obstacles that former offenders face during re-entry, which makes them relapse into criminal behavior. Therefore, this review proposal or study – since we are writing a research proposal (first part is this literature review) aims to answer the research question: What are some obstacles that former offenders face upon reintegration into society? The studies reviewed in this paper will explore different aspects of re-entry and how they correlate with particular obstacles that make re-entry a challenge for former offenders.

Literature Review

The study by Abebe and Kimo (2019) aimed to investigate the challenges that former offenders who have been released from incarceration face in their attempts to re-enter society. The study based the sampling on the research problem and focused on 80 individuals who had served time in prison (Abebe & Kimo, 2019). The participants were also selected with the help of administrators in correctional facilities who were conversant with the criminal profile of the offenders (Abebe & Kimo, 2019).

Part of the inclusion criteria involved individuals of all ages and only males (Abebe & Kimo, 2019). The crimes they committed were not factored in, so the participant pool was made up of offenders who had committed different crimes (in text citation). Pękala-Wojciechowska et al. (2021) investigated researched the criminological perspective of health problems of former prisoners and how it relates to their re-entry into society. The population studied comprised 130 participants, including adult and juvenile offenders, among them recidivists (Pękala-Wojciechowska et al., 2021). You mentioned two studies but do not say what they actually found; what were the results?

Staton et al. (2019) identifies the factors that lead to former offenders staying out of prison and being re-arrested after relapsing into criminal behavior. The participants in the study were randomly screened and selected from various jails (Staton et al., 2019). Adult women in the study were selected as participants if they had a moderate risk of smoking, alcohol use, and substance abuse (Staton et al., 2019). Brame et al. (2018) conducted a study to identify the patterns that show criminal offending over a lifetime, including recidivism during the phases when individuals attempt to re-enter society. The study population involved serious juvenile offenders during their transition into adulthood (Brame et al., 2018).

The study had a total of 1,354 individuals. In order to be eligible for the study, the participants must have been less than 18 years old at the onset of the study (Brame et al., 2018). They must also have been found guilty of serious offenses. Harris and Levenson (2021) researched to explore the lived experiences of registered sex offenders as they re-enter society after serving time for their offenses. The participants in the study involved 74 men who had been convicted of sexual offenses and re-entered the community upon their release (Harris & Levenson, 2021).

The study by Abebe and Kimo (2019) used a sequential explanatory design where quantitative data was collected; after that, qualitative data was also collected. The explanatory missed method approach enabled the researchers to obtain quantitative, statistical data from the sample (Abebe & Kimo, 2019). This was followed up by probing the data and exploring it in depth. Quantitative data was collected from the offenders and re-offenders. This data included substance use histories, educational backgrounds, employment statuses, criminal history, and demographic information (Abebe & Kimo, 2019).

The collected data was used as contextual information on the selected sample, which enabled the researchers to identify obstacles that offenders faced during re-entry into society. In the study by Abebe and Kimo (2019), the independent variable was the time all the offenders had spent in jail. The dependent variable was the contextualized obstacles the offenders faced during re-entry into society. The study by Pękala-Wojciechowska et al. (2021) relied on the use of open-ended biographical tools designed to enable the interview respondents to submit statements relevant to their contexts and spontaneous. The respondents were also involved in creating scenarios factored into the interviews, which they did by editing the questions formulated by the researchers or adding questions that they felt were relevant to the study based on their experiences (Pękala-Wojciechowska et al., 2021).

The researchers also used data triangulation because of outside collaborators and observers dealing with sensitive data. Analysis of the data was done using ATLAS software. Theoretical saturation, theoretical sampling, and inductive reasoning were used in the study. The variables in the study were independent variables: all the participants had spent time in prison (Pękala-Wojciechowska et al., 2021). The independent variables were the factors that led to the successful or unsuccessful re-entries of the participants (Pękala-Wojciechowska et al., 2021).

In the research conducted by Staton et al. (2019), descriptive statistics were used to investigate the factors that influenced whether a former offenders stayed out of prison or jail or whether they were re-arrested (Staton et al., 2019). The independent variable was the time spent in incarceration by all the participants. The dependent variables were the participants' demographics, peer relationships, housing, service utilization, and drug use (Staton et al., 2019). Since the study did not reveal any considerable differences between other potential variables, they were not included in the study. The study also compared the participants who were re-arrested after unsuccessful re-entries and those who stayed out of jail or prison due to successful re-entries (Staton et al., 2019). The control used in the study was the participants' criminal histories, including the number of arrests before the baseline (Staton et al., 2019).

Brame et al. (2018) tracked adolescent offenders for seven years to determine their pathways to desistance. The research was a longitudinal study focused on adolescents who had committed severe offenses (Brame et al., 2018). The analysis reviewed FBI arrest histories and petition records in local juvenile courts. The analysis was done for 84 months across the entire span of the study (Brame et al., 2018). In the article by Harris and Levenson (2021), a qualitative database was subjected to secondary analysis. The database was analyzed using the qualitative narrative method, focusing on specific themes that had emerged in the study (Harris & Levenson, 2021). The study relied on an emergent design customized to be exploratory and not confirmatory.

The results from Abebe and Kimo (2019) showed that lack of a family was one of the obstacles that former offenders had to deal with during re-entry. Participants in the research who were married were more likely to have successful re-entries than those who were single (Abebe & Kimo, 2019). Individuals with a family that welcomed them upon their release were also more likely to have successful re-entries than those without families. Another obstacle to successful re-entry, according to Abebe and Kimo (2019), was the lack of a supportive community environment. If the community is not supportive of the former offenders re-entering society, they will likely relapse into criminal behavior. Another obstacle was the stigma attached to their status as previous offenders, which made it challenging to secure employment (Abebe & Kimo, 2019).

The results from the study by Pękala-Wojciechowska et al. (2021) showed that one of the obstacles facing former offenders during re-entry to society is the lack of access to healthcare. The study revealed that most offenders who experience homelessness and lack economic and social resources found it easier to access healthcare while in prison than outside prison (Pękala-Wojciechowska et al., 2021). Another challenge is the lack of material support upon release from prison is also another challenge for former offenders who do not have a starting point upon release from incarceration Pękala-Wojciechowska et al. (2021).

Staton et al. (2019) showed that former offenders who did not have protective factors, such as supportive families, were likely to have unsuccessful re-entries. The race was also an issue upon re-entry, with the study showing that whites tended to have more successful re-entry rates than other minority groups (Staton et al., 2019). Another challenge faced by former offenders during re-entry was drug and substance abuse (Staton et al., 2019). Factors such as a lack of employment, support, and stigma-related frustrations increased the risk of former offenders abusing drugs and substances (Staton et al., 2019).

The study's results by Brame et al. (2018) showed that pathways to repeat offending that lead to unsuccessful re-entry were mainly influenced by lack of social support and stigma among the adolescents considered in the study. Stigma was the leading cause of former offenders not continuing their education and relapsing into criminal behavior (Brame et al., 2018). The relapse into criminal behavior was also the result of stigma that pushed them into negative associations (Brame et al., 2018). Harris and Levenson (2021) found that the main obstacle to former offenders during re-entry was a lack of coping skills and strategies to deal with negative factors impeding their successful re-entry. While the study highlighted other obstacles that may influence the re-entry of former offenders, it noted that the lack of coping skills and strategies meant that the former offenders who struggled with re-entry could not react positively to the negative factors affecting them (Harris & Levenson, 2021).

Conclusion

The objective of this literature reviewstudy is was to answer the research question: What are some obstacles that former offenders face upon reintegration into society? Summarily, re-entry is challenging for former offenders upon release because of the obstacles they face as they attempt to adjust to life outside prison. Such obstacles and how former offenders respond to them determine whether or not their re-entries will succeed. Successful re-entries also reduce the risk of a former offender relapsing into criminal behavior, directly impacting recidivism rates. Some obstacles that stand in the way of former offenders during re-entry include a lack of family and social support, stigma from society, difficulties securing employment and housing, limited access to healthcare, homelessness, substance use histories, and low levels or lack of vocational skills and education. If interventions are implemented to address these challenges, former offenders stand a better chance at successful re-entries that will reduce their risk for recidivism.

Your literature review will end with a hypothesis. Given the existing research what will you expect your study to find. At the end the reader should follow your narrative, and be able to know where you are going with your research – without giving details of Methods because that will be the next section. You can have a small conclusion of the literature review and end with your hypothesis. This conclusion sounds like the end of the paper which is not because we will continue to describe the Methods of how you are conducting the study.

References

Abebe, S., & Kimo, K. (2019). Challenges of Re-offenders in Their Reintegration into Their

Respective Communities: Ziway Federal Correction Center in Focus.  Arsi Journal of Science and Innovation,  4(1), 111-138.

Brame, R., Mulvey, E. P., Schubert, C. A., & Piquero, A. R. (2018). Recidivism in a Sample of

Serious Adolescent Offenders.  Journal of Quantitative Criminology,  34(1), 167–187. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-016-9329-2

Bureau of Justice Statistics. (2018).  2018 Update on Prisoner Recidivism: A 9-Year Follow-up

Period (2005-2014)  https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/18upr9yfup0514.pdf. not peer reviewed

Harris, D. A., & Levenson, J. (2021). Life on “the list” is a life lived in fear: Post-conviction

traumatic stress in men convicted of sexual offenses.  International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology,  65(6-7), 763-789. doi: 10.1177/0306624X20952397

Hipes, C., & Clever, M. (2018). Successful Ex-offender Re-entry: An Interactive Game.  TRAILS:

Teaching Resources and Innovations Library for Sociology.

Katsiyannis, A., Whitford, D. K., Zhang, D., & Gage, N. A. (2018). Adult recidivism in the United

States: A meta-analysis 1994–2015.  Journal of Child and Family Studies,  27(3), 686-696. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0945-8

Pękala-Wojciechowska, A., Kacprzak, A., Pękala, K., Chomczyńska, M., Chomczyński, P.,

Marczak, M., ... & Rasmus, P. (2021). Mental and Physical Health Problems as Conditions of Ex-Prisoner Re-Entry.  International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health,  18(14), 7642. doi:  10.3390/ijerph18147642

Staton, M., Dickson, M., Tillson, M., Webster, M., & Leukefeld, C. (2019). Staying Out: Re-entry

Protective Factors Among Rural Women Offenders.  Women & Criminal Justice,  29(6), 368–384. https://doi.org/10.1080/08974454.2019.1613284

Tharshini, N. K., Ibrahim, F., Mohamad, M. S., & Zakaria, E. (2018). Challenges in Re-Entry

among Former Inmates: A Review. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(4), 970–979. http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i4/4126.

Treitler, P. C., & Angell, B. (2020). Prisoner Re-entry. In  Encyclopedia of Social Work.

https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780199975839.013.1081 not peer reviewed

you are short on your 10 peer reviewed