The high rate of incarceration in the United States contributes significantly to the nation's health inequities, extending beyond those who are imprisoned to families, communities, and the entire society. Since the 1970s, there has been a seven-fold increase in incarceration. This increase and the effects of the post-incarceration reentry disproportionately affect low-income families and communities of color. It is critical to examine the criminal justice system through a new lens and explore opportunities for meaningful improvements that will promote health equity in the United States. The National Academies convened a workshop on June 6, 2018 to investigate the connection between incarceration and health inequities to better understand the distributive impact of incarceration on low-income families and communities of color. Topics of discussion focused on the experience of incarceration and reentry, mass incarceration as a public health issue, women's health in jails and prisons, the effects of reentry on the individual and the community, and promising practices and models for reentry. The programs and models that are described in this publication are all Philadelphia-based because Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of incarceration of any major American city. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

In their journeys to prison and community re-entry, women leaving prison tend to share overarching challenges connected to lives of poverty, trauma, and abuse. Community Re-Entry: Uncertain Futures for Women Leaving Prison provides a rare opportunity to hear directly from women who have spent time in a Canadian federal penitentiary. Based on more than a decade of engagement with women in prison, the authors gathered rich and personal information on women’s lived experiences during incarceration and what they anticipated and hoped for on release. This book relates their narratives and the authors’ critical analysis of their experiences both within and outside prison. By bridging relational and other critical theories (critical feminist, critical race, critical disability, and post-structural understandings) with lived experience, this volume sheds light on the challenges incarcerated women face as they seek to return to the community as valued and contributing citizens. Community Re-Entry’s unique perspective on women’s post-imprisonment policy will appeal to academics, community-based advocates and activists, and undergraduate and postgraduate students studying criminology and social science courses on gender and crime, correctional policy, and qualitative research methods.

The iron law of imprisonment is that “they all come back”. In 2002, more than 630,000 individuals left U.S. federal and state prisons. Thirty years ago, only 150,000 did. In this study, Travis decribes the new realities of imprisonment, and explores the impact of returning prisoners on seven policy domains: public safety, families and children, work, housing, public health, civic identity, and community capacity. Travis proposes a new architecture for the criminal justice system, organized around five principles of reentry, to encourage change and spur innovation.

Understanding and Improving Prisoner Reentry Outcomes "Mass imprisonment and mass prisoner reentry are two faces of the same coin. In a comprehensive and penetrating analysis, Daniel Mears and Joshua Cochran unravel the causes of this pressing problem, detail the challenges confronting released prisoners, and provide an evidence-based blueprint for successfully reintegrating offenders into the community. Scholarly yet accessible, this volume is essential reading—whether by academics or students—for anyone wishing to understand the chief policy issue facing American corrections." Francis T. Cullen Distinguished Research Professor, University of Cincinnati Prisoner Reentry is an engaging and comprehensive examination of prisoner reentry and how to improve public safety, well-being, and justice in the "era of mass incarceration." Renowned authors Daniel P. Mears and Joshua C. Cochran investigate historical trends in incarceration and punishment policy, the salience of in-prison and post-prison contexts and experiences for reentry, and the importance of understanding group differences in offending, punishment, and social context. Using extensive reliance on both theory and empirical research, the authors identify how reentry reflects criminal justice policy in America and, at the same time, has profound implications for crime prevention and justice. Readers will develop a diverse foundation for current policies, identify the implications of reentry for families, community, and society at large, and gain a conceptual and empirical toolkit for analyzing and improving the lives of those released from prison.

Explores the challenges faced by convicted offenders over the course of rehabilitation and reintegration. Each chapter focuses on a specific phase of the process.

The contributors question the causes of public concern about the number of returning prisoners, the public safety consequences of prisoners returning to the community and the political and law enforcement responses to the issue.

Overall, 67.8% of the 404,638 state prisoners released in 2005 in 30 states were arrested within 3 years of release, and 76.6% were arrested within 5 years of release.