Smart Decarceration is a forward-thinking, practical volume that provides concrete strategies for an era of decarceration. This timely work consists of chapters written from multiple perspectives and disciplines including scholars, practitioners, and persons with incarceration histories. The text grapples with tough questions and builds a foundation for the decarceration field.

This groundbreaking edited volume evaluates prisoner reentry using a critical approach to demonstrate how the many issues surrounding reentry do not merely intersect but are in fact reinforcing and interdependent. The number of former incarcerated persons with a felony conviction living in the United States has grown significantly in the last decade, reaching into the millions. When men and women are released from prison, their journey encompasses a range of challenges that are unique to each individual, including physical and mental illnesses, substance abuse, gender identity, complicated family dynamics, the denial of rights, and the inability to voice their experiences about returning home. Although scholars focus on the obstacles former prisoners encounter and how to reduce recidivism rates, the main challenge of prisoner reentry is how multiple interdependent issues overlap in complex ways. By examining prisoner reentry from various critical perspectives, this volume depicts how the carceral continuum, from incarceration to reentry, negatively impacts individuals, families, and communities; how the criminal justice system extends different forms of social control that break social networks; and how the shifting nature of prisoner reentry has created new and complicated obstacles to those affected by the criminal justice system. This volume explores these realities with respect to a range of social, community, political, and policy issues that former incarcerated persons must navigate to successfully reenter society. A springboard for future critical research and policy discussions, this book will be of interest to U.S. and international researchers and practitioners interested in the topic of prisoner reentry, as well as graduate and upper-level undergraduate students concerned with contemporary issues in corrections, community-based corrections, critical issues in criminal justice, criminal justice policies, and reentry.

This book tackles the important issue of the effects of co-occurring substance abuse and mental health disorders on criminal offenders as they make the transition from incarceration back into society. It provides estimates of the prevalence of these disorders among criminal justice populations, and examines the various screening and assessment instruments used to diagnose co-occurring disorders. The volume further offers an inside look at an experimental community reentry program at a jail facility and uncovers how co-occurring disorders jeopardize the transition back into the community for offenders who suffer from them. It incorporates a historical account of the reentry issue to show how the current reentry problem is rooted in criminal justice policies dating back to the 1980s. As such, the text will be a valuable resource for criminal justice and criminology students, as well as practitioners in the corrections field, particularly those who work with inmates or released individuals with substance abuse and mental health disorders.

One of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Best Criminal Justice Books of 2019 America’s high incarceration rates are a well-known facet of contemporary political conversations. Mentioned far less often is what happens to the nearly 700,000 former prisoners who rejoin society each year. On the Outside examines the lives of twenty-two people—varied in race and gender but united by their time in the criminal justice system—as they pass out of the prison gates and back into the world. The book takes a clear-eyed look at the challenges faced by formerly incarcerated citizens as they try to find work, housing, and stable communities. Standing alongside these individual portraits is a quantitative study conducted by the authors that followed every state prisoner in Michigan who was released on parole in 2003 (roughly 11,000 individuals) for the next seven years, providing a comprehensive view of their postprison neighborhoods, families, employment, and contact with the parole system. On the Outside delivers a powerful combination of hard data and personal narrative that shows why our country continues to struggle with the social and economic reintegration of the formerly incarcerated. For further information, including an instructor guide and slide deck, please visit: http://ontheoutsidebook.us/home/instructors

"The 2024 Release of Corrections in the 21st Century has been shortened to better reflect aspects of the correctional process. Chapters are grouped into four parts, each of which is described in detail in the following paragraphs. Part One, "Introduction to Corrections," provides an understanding of corrections by explaining the problem of mass incarceration and the goals underlying the correctional enterprise and by describing the how and why of criminal punishments. Part One identifies professionalism as the key to managing correctional personnel, facilities, and populations successfully. Standard-setting organizations such as the American Correctional Association, the American Jail Association, the American Probation and Parole Association, and the National Commission on Correctional Health Care are identified, and the importance of professional ethics for correctional occupations and correctional administrators is emphasized. Part Two, "Community Corrections," explains what happens to most convicted offenders, probation, and intermediate sanctions. Part Three, "Institutional Corrections," provides a detailed description of jails, prisons, and parole. The reentry challenges facing inmates released from jail and prison are explained. Education, vocational preparation, and drug treatment programs that are intended to prevent reoffending also are explored. Part Four, "The Prison World," provides an overview of life inside prison from the points of view of both inmates and staff. Part Four also describes the responsibilities and challenges surrounding the staff role. Chapter 12 focuses attention on special correctional populations, including inmates who are elderly, have HIV/AIDS, are substance abusers, and are mentally and physically challenged. We have chosen to integrate our coverage of women in corrections-including information about the important NIC report titled "Gender Responsive Strategies: Research, Practice, and Guiding Principles for Women Offenders"-throughout the body of the text rather than isolating it"--

Winner, W. E. B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award presented by the National Conference of Black Political Scientists Examines the lifelong consequences of a felony conviction through the compelling words of former prisoners Felony convictions restrict social interactions and hinder felons’ efforts to reintegrate into society. The educational and vocational training offered in many prisons are typically not recognized by accredited educational institutions as acceptable course work or by employers as valid work experience, making it difficult for recently-released prisoners to find jobs. Families often will not or cannot allow their formerly incarcerated relatives to live with them. In many states, those with felony convictions cannot receive financial aid for further education, vote in elections, receive welfare benefits, or live in public housing. In short, they are not treated as full citizens, and every year, hundreds of thousands of people released from prison are forced to live on the margins of society. Convicted and Condemned explores the issue of prisoner reentry from the felons’ perspective. It features the voices of formerly incarcerated felons as they attempt to reconnect with family, learn how to acclimate to society, try to secure housing, find a job, and complete a host of other important goals. By examining national housing, education and employment policies implemented at the state and local levels, Keesha Middlemass shows how the law challenges and undermines prisoner reentry and creates second-class citizens. Even if the criminal justice system never convicted another person of a felony, millions of women and men would still have to figure out how to reenter society, essentially on their own. A sobering account of the after-effects of mass incarceration, Convicted and Condemned is a powerful exploration of how individuals, and society as a whole, suffer when a felony conviction exacts a punishment that never ends.

State and local policies are key to understanding how to reduce prison populations. This anthology of critical and personal essays about the need to reform criminal justice policies that have led to mass incarceration provides a national perspective while remaining grounded in Michigan. Major components in this volume include a focus on current research on the impact of incarceration on minority groups, youth, and the mentally ill; and a focus on research on Michigan’s leadership in the area of reentry. Changes in policy will require a change in the public’s problematic images of incarcerated people. In this volume, academic research is combined with first-person narratives and paintings from people who have been directly affected by incarceration to allow readers to form more personal connections with those who face incarceration. At a time when much of the push to reduce prison populations is focused on the financial cost to states and cities, this book emphasizes the broader social and human costs of mass incarceration.