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.
Bonczar, Thomas P.2003. Prevalence of imprisonment in the U.S. population, 1974-2001 . Special Report, NCJ197976. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
2.
Bloom, Dan, Cindy Redcross, Janine Zweig, and Gilda Azurdia.2007. Transitional jobs for ex-prisoners: Early impacts from a random assignment evaluation of the Center for Employment Opportunities Prisoner Reentry Program. New York, NY: MDRC.
3.
Bloom, Howard S., Larry L. Orr, George Cave, Stephen H. Bell, Fred Doolittle, and Winston Lin .1994. The National JTPA Study, overview: Impacts, benefits, and costs of Title II-A. Bethesda, MD: Abt Associates.
4.
Cave, George, Hans Bos, Fred Doolittle, and Cyril Toussaint .1993. JOBSTART: Final report on a program for school dropouts. New York, NY: MDRC.
5.
Craig, Scott R.1987. Negligent hiring: Guilt by association. Personnel Administration, October, 32-34.
6.
Donohue, John J., III.2009. Assessing the relative benefits of incarceration: Overall changes and the benefits on the margin. In Do prisons make us safer? The benefits and costs of the prison boom , eds. Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll, 269-342. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
7.
Glaze, Lauren E., and Laura M. Maruschak .2009. Parents in prison and their minor children. Special Report, NCJ222984. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics.
8.
Hahn, John M.1991. Pre-employment information services: Employers beware . Employee Relations Law Journal17 (1): 45-69.
9.
Holzer, Harry J., Steven Raphael, and Michael A. Stoll .2006. Perceived criminality, criminal background checks and the racial hiring practices of employers. Journal of Law and Economics49 (2): 451-80.
10.
Holzer, Harry J., Steven Raphael, and Michael A. Stoll .2007. The effect of an applicant’s criminal history on employer hiring decisions and screening practices: Evidence from Los Angeles. In Barriers to reentry? The labor market for released prisoners in post-industrial America, eds. Shawn Bushway , Michael Stoll, and David Weiman, 117-50. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
11.
International Centre for Prison Studies.2007 . World prison brief. Available from www.prisonstudies.org/ (accessed 1 January 2007).
12.
Johnson, Rucker.2009. Ever-increasing levels of parental incarceration and the consequences for children. In Do prisons make us safer? The benefits and costs of the prison boom, eds. Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll, 177-206. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
13.
Johnson, Rucker, and Steven Raphael.2007. How much crime reduction does the marginal prisoner buy? Working Paper, University of California, Berkeley.
14.
Kling, Jeffrey R.2006. Incarceration length, employment, and earnings. American Economic Review96 (3): 863-76.
15.
Lattimore, Pamela K., Christy A. Visher, and Danielle M. Steffey .2008. Pre-release characteristics and service receipt among adult male participants in the SVORI Multi-Site Evaluation. Washington, DC: Urban Institute.
16.
Lochner, Lance, and Enrico Moretti.2004. The effect of education on criminal activity: Evidence from prison inmates, arrest, and self reports. American Economic Review94 (1): 155-89.
17.
Mallar, Charles D., and Craig V.D. Thornton.1978. Transitional aid for released prisoners: Evidence from the life experiment. Journal of Human Resources13 (2): 208-36.
18.
National Research Council.2008. Parole desistance from crime and community integration. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
19.
Pager, Devah.2003. The mark of a criminal record. American Journal of Sociology108 (5): 937-75.
20.
Petersilia, Joan.2003. When prisoners come home. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
21.
Pettit, Becky, and Christopher Lyons .2007. Status and the stigma of incarceration: The labor market effects of incarceration by race, class, and criminal involvement. In Barriers to reentry? The labor market for released prisoners in post-industrial America, eds. Shawn Bushway, Michael Stoll , and David Weiman, 206-26. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
22.
Pettit, Becky, and Bruce Western.2004. Mass imprisonment and the life course: Race and class inequality in U.S. incarceration. American Sociological Review69 (2): 151-69.
23.
Raphael, Steven.2005. The socioeconomic status of black males: The increasing importance of incarceration. In Poverty, the distribution of income, and public policy, eds. Alan Auerbach , David Card, and John Quigley, 319-58. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
24.
Raphael, Steven, and Michael Stoll.2005. The effect of prison releases on regional crime rates. In The Brookings-Wharton papers on urban economic affairs, vol. 5, eds. William G. Gale and Janet Rothenberg Pack , 207-55. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.
25.
Raphael, Steven, and Michael Stoll.2009. Why are so many Americans in prison? In Do prisons make us safer? The benefits and costs of the prison boom, eds. Steven Raphael and Michael Stoll, 27-72. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
26.
Rossi, Peter, Richard A. Berk, and Kenneth J. Lenihan .1980. Money, work, and crime: Experimental evidence. New York, NY: Academic Press.
27.
Sabol, William J.2007. Local labor-market conditions and post-prison employment experiences of offenders released from Ohio state prisons. In Barriers to reentry?The labor market for released prisoners in post-industrial America, eds. Shawn Bushway, Michael Stoll, and David Weiman, 257-303. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
28.
Schochet, Peter Z., John Burghardt, and Steven Glazerman .2001. National Job Corps Study: The impact of Job Corps on participants’ employment and related outcomes . Princeton, NJ: Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.
29.
Travis, Jeremy.2005. But they all come back: Facing the challenges of prisoner reentry. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
30.
Tyler, John H., and Jeffrey R. Kling .2007. Prison-based education and reentry into the mainstream labor market. In Barriers to reentry? The labor market for released prisoners in post-industrial America, eds. Shawn Bushway, Michael Stoll, and David Weiman, 227-56. New York, NY: Russell Sage Foundation.
31.
Uggen, Christopher.2000. Work as a turning point in the life course of criminals: A duration model of age, employment, and recidivism. American Sociological Review65 (4): 529-46.
32.
Wilson, Kate J.2007. State policies and procedures regarding "gate money."Center for Public Policy Research Working Paper, University of California, Davis.
