The Five Stages of Prisoner Reentry: Toward a Process Theory

Sampling

The first priority for us was to recruit a wide variety of prisoner’s profiles. To do that, we used a purposeful sampling method, more precisely the maximum variation sampling as described by Patton (1990). The main variables that we used were ethnicity, length of sentence, age, criminal history, domicile, level of education, marital status, and the level of support during incarceration (calculated in term of number of visits and telephone calls). At the end, we recruited a number of 58 informants.

The study took place in Jilava Prison, and therefore some contextual information about this prison may be of use. Jilava Prison is about 40 min drive from Bucharest. It is one of the oldest prisons in Romania, being established in 1907. The prison hosts about 1,400 prisoners at any one time, most of them for theft. Jilava provides open and semi-open regimes. According to the Penal Code, only prisoners in these two regimes can be conditionally released. At the time of this research, the only obligation of the conditionally released person was not to reoffend during the conditional release. All our participants were conditionally released—mostly after serving two thirds of their sentence. The conditional release procedure comprises two stages: First, the parole board in the prison coordinated by the surveillance judge makes a proposal to the court, and second, the court makes the final decision if a prisoner should be released on parole or not. Prisoners may also address the court directly. It is very seldom that the court takes the decision without a support letter from the parole board. The main difficulty in relation to conditional release is that prisoners perceive this practice as highly unpredictable. They are never sure if they hit all the positive points necessary for the judge to grant their conditional release. They have many examples when prisoners in more or less the same situation received different decisions. Here it seems that the legal conditions such as “to have a good behaviour during incarceration” and “the court is of the opinion that the prisoner has changed and is ready to reenter the society” create a lot of room for interpretation and therefore for unpredictability.

Access to Jilava Prison was secured prior to beginning the research. The director of the prison was informed about the aim, the length, and the methodology of the study. The benefits of the research were explained both for the prison and the society.

All participants close to release in Jilava Prison were informed in general terms about the research. They were invited in a large room where they were informed about the study, its aims, and what was expected from them. Once they expressed an interest in taking part, they were fully informed about the study and its methodology. This was done during individual interviews when they were also invited to complete a questionnaire that assisted us in gathering basic demographic information about the participants. To clarify issues of ethnic identification, we asked questions about the cultural and social characteristics of their families covering the last three generations (e.g., occupations, languages, etc.). At the end of the questionnaire, they were asked about their ethnic origin. There was only one case (out of 58 participants) where all the cultural features made us think that the participant is Roma but he stated he is Romanian. We duly considered him as Romanian in our study. For more information about positive self-identification, see Durnescu, Lazar, and Shaw (2002). Once they agreed to participate in the study, the participants were asked to provide contact details from “significant others” (i.e., family or close friends) outside to be able to stay in touch after release. They were also informed that they can withdraw at any time with no justification and also that anything they disclose during the research is protected under the confidentiality principle. However, they were also informed that, according to the Romanian Penal Code, confidentiality will not protect them if they disclose information regarding a deed that had or may have as a consequence the death of a victim. They were also asked to complete consent forms where all this information was listed in writing. We had no participant in our sample that could not read or write. However, three had difficulties in reading and thus we offered ourselves to read the paperwork aloud for them.

Data Collection and Analysis

For both observational research and semistructured interviews, detailed protocols were designed and researchers were instructed how to use them in the same manner. Interviews were conducted prior to release, 1 week after release, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, and 1 year after release. This article records the findings from the first 6 months after release. As others have argued (Rosenfeld, Wallman, & Fornango, 2005), we found that the most important period after release is the first 3 to 6 months. The interviews covered questions regarding the participants’ expectations, understandings, identity, obstacles, sources of support, priorities, and plans.

The observational research took place mainly on the day of release, when researchers accompanied the participants to their destination, and during the interviews that took place in the participants’ houses or in their communities. Observation looked at participants’ behaviour, emotions, interactions with others, environment, and so on. All observations were recorded on a Google Drive (password protected and using codes rather than real names) and accessible to all researchers at all times.

Questionnaires were also used in this research although these data are not yet available for analysis. Only three questions from the questionnaire will be considered in this article, mostly relating to questions of citizenship.

Participants were given disposable cameras and invited to take pictures of what they perceived is important for the first 2 to 4 weeks from release. After the 4-week interview, they were asked to select the three most important pictures they took. These discussions were recorded and analyzed with the other interviews.

All interviews were recorded and transcribed verbatim. Fieldnotes were also recorded in the Google Docs mentioned above. The data were analyzed using grounded theory, as described in Strauss and Corbin (1990) and Gobo (2008). The coding started after the first round of interviews so we were able to adapt our approach to the emerging themes. The quotes were attributed to participants using the initials of the names and also numbers. For the sake of simplicity, in this article only the initials will be used.

In the deconstruction stage, researchers (five researchers) were asked to code independently 30% of the interviews for each stage (e.g., prerelease, first week, first month, etc.). The interview and observation protocols were used as “checklists.” After coding each stage, all five researchers gathered together and decided which codes to keep and which to dismiss. In this construction stage, we also identified the emerging themes and decided on whether we needed to recruit more participants of particular profiles or whether we should explore different issues, interpretations, or understandings (see Table 1). The confirmation stage was reached once the researchers agreed—in consensus—on the codebook and the themes that emerge from the data.

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Table 1.

The Participants Profile.

Ethnicity	Roma—28				Non-Roma—30
Age	22-30 years old—15		31-40 years old—21	41-60 years old—18	Over 61—4
Marital status	Single—12	Free union—29	Married—15	Widow—1	Divorced—1
Education	No school—3	1-4 classes—7	5-8 classes—21	9-10 classes—9	11-12 classes—14	Over 12 classes—4
Professional qualifications	No—25	Yes—33
No. of visits in the last 12 months	No visits—2	1-5 visits—12	6-12 visits—20	13-24 visits—7	Over 25 visits—17
Length of the sentence	<2.9 years—16		3-5 years—30	Over 5 years—12
Released in	Urban—46				Rural—12
No of previous sentences	No—20	1 previous conviction—10	2-5 previous convictions—23	6-10 previous convictions—4	Over 10 previous convictions—1
Disciplinary punishments	No penalties—38	1 penalty—10	2-5 penalties—10	6-10—0	Over 10—0
Rewards	No rewards—3	1 reward—7	2-5 rewards—33	6-10 rewards—15	Over 10 rewards—3
Work in prison	No—13				Yes—45

Prerelease-Anticipation

This stage is a very emotional one for the participants. As the day of release is not certain for those who apply for conditional release in Romania, the participants experience a mixture of hope, anxiety, and uncertainty:

I would give anything to be free, to be close to my family. Now when I don’t have so long until the release, I feel like I have to wait five years or more. The time passes very slowly when you know you don’t have so much left. But I have to wait for the court to decide. They [the judges] can postpone my release. I cannot even anticipate my chances. As it happened, sometimes prisoners with no criminal history, with no disciplinary issues in prison, with work record inside prison got postponed by the court in spite of the positive report from the prison. You simply don’t know . . . (H.D.)

or

I may escape from one jungle and go to another. Anyway, I am happy and nobody could take this feeling away from me. Maybe this happiness will last one, two, three days and after life will become real . . . (Z.G.)

Sometimes these feelings are very powerful and prevent prisoners from sleeping or participating in daily routines: “I could not sleep and cried a lot” (C.G.); “stress, I could not sleep, I could not take the unfair treatment and this was the most painful experience” (C.G.); “a nightmare” (D.D.); “I had the impression that my bed is my grave, that I cannot come out. I thought I will never get released” (D.D.).

Many participants defined themselves as an “average John,” as simple and “normal” men. A small proportion of them described themselves as “second class men” or even “garbage.” This identity seems mostly triggered by adverse prison experiences and the loss they experienced while in prison. Loss is a constant feeling among our participants and is configured in the participants’ accounts in different forms and shapes: loss of time, loss of family, loss of material goods, loss of health, loss of job, loss of status/face, and so on. Once again, as in other studies (see Sykes, 1958), prison proves to be a lot more than deprivation of liberty.

Despite their negative accounts of imprisonment (or perhaps because of them), almost all participants at the time of release express a super-optimistic view over their successful reintegration. The vast majority of them describe this moment as a “second chance,” “a new start in life,” or a “new birth.” The reasons behind this attitude are complex: Some, due to the bad experience, do not want to come back to prison again; some participants wish for a fresh start in life; others have a strong sense of underachieving or loss and they want to recover; and so on. What remains important is that their cognitive orientation or the orientational change is directed toward a new and prosocial life (see also Giordano et al., 2002; Shover, 1985).

First 2 Weeks—Recovery and Reunion

On the release day, prisoners follow a slow and complicated prison routine. In some cases, they do not even know if they are going to be released or not on that day. This is the case for those on conditional release where the prosecution may appeal up until the last moment. A good sign is when the funds available in their account are removed to be handed over to them at the gate. When the money is not there anymore, it means they are to be released. Release normally takes place after 3:00 p.m.

Based on the number of people who wait for the prisoners at the gate, we divided them into three categories: “the heroes,” the “family men,” and the “lone crusaders.” The heroes are those awaited by a large number of people, usually from the extended family. This is common for Roma people coming from large and high-status families. People come with many expensive cars and with music to welcome their kin back into their family. Usually, they are noisy and the released prisoners get a lot of attention from other people waiting at the gate. As one of the participants explained, this behaviour displays status and solidarity:

. . . This is how we do it. When one of my mother’s brothers was released more than 20 people went there to wait for him with six cars. This is how we show that we are together and we support each other. Being there shows that you missed the person who spent time in prison. (B.S.)

Often this “welcoming ritual” is continued at home where the whole family comes together to celebrate with a barbecue and music until the middle of the night. Again, this ceremony is very noisy and attracts attention from the whole neighborhood. Based on our own observations and conversations with the participants, it seems that the symbolism around this ritual is related to the idea of welcoming home. At the same time, this ritual is an opportunity for the family to show status. For example, famous musicians are invited to perform to celebrate the high status the family enjoys in the community.

The second category of released people is the “family men.” In their case, someone from the family—one parent, one brother, or others—comes to wait at the gate. After short greetings, they leave the scene as quickly as possible. Most often, this ritual is continued at home with some close relatives and with maximum discretion. Neither the extended family nor neighbors are expected to take part in this process. On the contrary, the less people know that the person served a prison sentence, the better. This seems to be the most frequent welcoming ritual for the Romanian participants.

In some isolated cases, there were no people waiting at the gate for the released person. We called these prisoners “lone crusaders” because they seem to be socially isolated and enjoyed little or no support, even from the beginning of the release process. The next step for these ex-prisoners is to ask someone to give them a lift or take the bus to their city/village where they either live alone or share a house with an elderly parent. Prisoners in this category include those from both Romanian or Roma communities that are situated economically and sometimes even geographically at the margins of society. For the “lone crusaders,” the absence of the family means a deep and painful social isolation. As we will see later, this isolation has multiple consequences for the experience of release.

For the rest, the centrality of the family is one of the most common features among ex-prisoners in the first 2 weeks:

I spent most of the time in the house, with the family. (B.D.)

or

I spent a lot of time with the family, with the kids. I knew this will happen. I just want to stay together with them. (P.A.)

or

Family, family is the most important. I enjoy their warmth and their attention. I am like a small spoiled child these days . . . I am grateful to God to find my family still here, around me. There are so many prisoners losing their families while in detention . . . (P.I.)

Some participants explain spending time with the family as a consequence of missing them while incarcerated. In this sense, spending time with them seems a symbolic attempt to recover for the time spent away from each other.

Other participants report strong guilty feelings toward their families. As in other studies (Arditti, 2016; Comfort, 2009), imprisonment impacts not only on the offenders but also on their families:

They have done prison time with me. We were released together. (B.A.)

or

My children would not have been sent to child protection if I had been a free man. Because I got sent to prison, they were sent to child protection . . . (C.A.)

or

They were very affected that I was there. The family stayed outside, alone and with no help. This was very painful for me. (B.D.)

In some cases, the family was interpreted in a wider sense, especially among the Roma participants. In their case, participants reported short visits to the close relatives or to the cemetery, to visit family members who had died while they were incarcerated. All these actions around the family and the social networks seem to be interpreted as a negotiation and a confirmation process that the ex-prisoner is accepted back into the social fabric where he belongs.

The centrality of the family was also reflected in the pictures the participants took in the first 2 weeks. Most of their pictures were with mothers, fathers, wives, children, and relatives. Moreover, most of them were taken in the intimacy of the participants’ homes.

Related to the centrality of the family, most participants reported limited mobility in the first 2 weeks. The idea of spending time with the family was pictured in most cases in the “home” context:

I just stayed inside. I was not out at all on Wednesday. On Thursday I went downstairs for a little bit. Even now I don’t feel like going out. (I.M.)

or

I don’t want to go out. I was away for too long. (A.C.)

But staying inside is also related to the postprison adaptation. Many participants reported in the first 2 weeks confusion and dizziness:

I see too much movement. I am not used to this. (B.A.)

or

I could not deal with the cars. I see them moving so fast I get dizzy. (N.E.)

Some other participants report flashbacks and behaviours that are typical in the prison: waking up at 5.00 a.m. and waiting for tea, hiding mobile phones, asking permission to switch off the light or the TV, and so on. In some cases, these symptoms were so strong that they can be defined as discrete subtypes of posttraumatic stress disorder or postincarceration syndrome, in Liem and Kunst’s (2013) terms.

In a few instances, participants complained about medical problems related, in their view, to the prison conditions: stomach pain, asthma, heart problems, insomnia, and so on. In their terms, recovery means sleep (without worries that somebody will steal their goods), spending time with the dear ones, long discussions with the family about how it is to be behind bars, medical checks and treatment, and so on.

For a limited number of participants, staying in the house is also a strategy to avoid trouble by avoiding people:

If I go back to the same groups of people I don’t know what will happen. This life runs too fast . . . (S.A.)

For others, avoiding trouble means avoiding places:

I don’t like this area where I am living. It was cleaner in the prison and you can find only bad people. (I.M.)

or

I went for a walk last night and some old friends came to me and said: come and have a drink with us!! I told them: I am home now. Are you crazy? Why do you try this with me? I don’t need your drink. (P.A.)

Apart from staying out of trouble, participants reported many obstacles in the first 2 weeks: dealing with temptation (“Temptation is big. Your mind may slip away. Jealousy starts working. You see a telephone, some keys forgotten in a car . . . Temptation is big”—B.V.), fear of failure (“I was in prison . . . I don’t want to go back there . . . I know that something bad can be done quickly”—B.V.), lack of financial help, social isolation, stigma, shame, and difficulties in dealing with children. Most of these difficulties are already mentioned in the reentry literature (Horney et al., 1995; Schinkel, 2014) which may indicate that they are not necessarily context dependent.

In overcoming these obstacles, the participants drew heavily on their family resources (e.g., wife, brothers and sisters, parents). Friends are also important especially when it comes to finding employment. In some cases, different churches were mentioned as providing practical help. It is important to mention that the State—as a potential source of help—is almost absent from the participants’ narratives. Although ex-prisoners are eligible for different forms of benefits or social services, participants know that the procedures to access these rights are long and complicated and the level of help is substandard. For instance, the social benefit for one person was about 30 Euros per month in 2016 (http://www.asistentasociala.info/social.html).

Another reason for the absence of State assistance might be that the participants reported in the questionnaires a deep distrust of the State. The questionnaires included three questions (adapted from Farrall et al., 2014) about citizenship. Almost all participants in the study stated that the State does not care for people like them, the State does not listen to people like them, and it does not matter if one lies to the State.

Weeks 3 and 4—Activation

If family is the main priority for the first 2 weeks of release, becoming economically active is the priority for the third stage of release. Family is still present in the participants’ discourses but when asked about what is very important now, almost all of them start talking about employment:

What shall I say? Only good things happened: work, home, children, and nephews. I cannot believe I am close to them now . . . (I.M.)

or

I tried to survive, to find work with the help of a friend and my brother . . . (D.V.)

For those with wide social networks (family and friends), finding work was slightly easier than for those socially isolated, confirming findings from other studies (see Neumann & Pettersen, 2013). The social network influenced the prospects of getting a job either by sharing information about the availability of a job or by vouching for the ex-prisoners. In some cases, families employed ex-prisoners in their own small family enterprises. Roma participants seem to be more entrepreneurial than the Romanian ones as they tended to create their own jobs rather than to search for an existing one. In so doing, they created their own construction teams, they started or resumed playing musical instruments, and so on. What appears to be quite common among the participants is their involvement in the so-called informal economy or “hustle” economy, as defined by Thieme (2013). This is not the right place to discuss the challenges, opportunities, and the strategies of finding, creating, or maintaining work. This will become the subject of another article. What we wish to emphasize here is that work or individual autonomy becomes a priority for ex-prisoners from a couple of weeks from release onward.

The relationship between family and work in our study is more complex than the one described in the literature so far. Family is not only a space that supports or facilitates work but also an important pressure for ex-prisoners to become active economically speaking. In many participants’ narratives, we found a mutual pressure that families place on ex-prisoners. During detention, families were expected to visit, to send money and parcels. After release, they were also expected to provide material and psychological support. However, after 2 or 3 weeks, if not sooner, participants started to perceive a reciprocal moral and implicit pressure to start providing for the family. As I.M. stated,

I think day and night: can’t I do something to help my family, can’t I work at something? I told you, I have a child in prison. It is very hard . . . I cannot sit down and wait. I cannot stand to stay on my wife’s money. I cannot wait for my wife to bring me cigarettes or to ask me if I want a juice . . .

or

To wait for your children to feed you is a shame . . . (B.D.)

or

I need to make my children proud of me. How else I can show my gratitude? (B.D.)

This pressure is also promoted by the gendered cultural expectations, whereby men are expected to be the head of the family and also the main provider (see also Popescu, 2010):

If you don’t have everything you need in the house, what kind of men are you? (B.D.)

As participants are involved in more activities outside their household and have different priorities, they become more and more distant from the prison experience. Although the marks of prison are still present, the participant’s discourses are not dominated anymore by the prison talk. After 2 to 3 weeks, ex-prisoners start talking less and less about prison, they started to forget the prison experience, reported less postprison syndromes, and became engaged in discussion frames that made prison less relevant.

These transformations are reflected in identity shifts. As ex-prisoners become more autonomous and useful for their families, they stop describing themselves as prisoners or ex-prisoners but more like “normal Johns” or fathers, husbands, and so on, confirming the importance of the self-identity (Maruna, 2001):

Now? I am father of five children, grandfather of 9 nephews. I am not nobody anymore. (I.M.)

In many cases, these identity transformations are accompanied by work around the house: painting and decorating, redoing the fences, repainting the outside walls, and so on. Although these works may be justified by pragmatic reasons, they also seem to play more symbolic functions. At least in some cases, these actions seem to communicate to the family and the local neighborhood the message: Now I am back and things will be better.

This trend is not so visible among the socially isolated lone crusaders. Most of them did not succeed in finding work or other meaningful activity within the first month from release. In their case, prison and its consequences are still very present in the prisoners’ narratives. Hope for a successful reentry starts fading away.

When work is not accessible or is not satisfactory, participants employ an “I’ll go abroad” strategy. But even this is not easy: The participants need to have information about where work is available; they need somebody to host them in the destination country until they receive their first wage; and they need some funds to pay for the travel. As with finding work in Romania, the informal social networks play an essential role. Those with little social capital are again disadvantaged compared with those with wide and potent social networks.

Besides finding work, this period seems to also be populated with many and diverse challenges: anxiety and disorientation, difficulties in dealing with children, fighting temptation, fighting bureaucracy, and so on. Once the “honeymoon” of return is over, ex-prisoners have to deal with the real life and real difficulties. In so doing, they tend to count mostly on their family’s and friends’ support. This support can be moral, psychological, and also practical or financial. As in the previous stage, the State is almost entirely absent.

After Week 4—Consolidation or Relapse

As described above, almost all participants were very optimistic and wished for a new life at the point of release. If the first 2 weeks were dedicated to family and recovery and the next 2 weeks were focused on becoming active and autonomous, in this stage participants who succeeded in the previous stage tend to “settle down” and consolidate their new career as “virtuous citizens.”

Once they found employment or other means to generate income, they tended to have access to new social networks and developed new daily routines. These changes seemed to consolidate their self-respect and new identity. Prison is described more and more as an accident or as an exception in their biography:

I was minding my own business. I would not go to prison if there hadn’t been one or two “friends.” I have never done any crime in 54 years and now? Why should I start now? (N.E.)

or

For me going to prison was a mistake. I will never go back there. I went to prison and I had five years to think about this. Never again . . . (B.C.)

Another interpretation offered by some participants regarding their offending past is related to maturity. Many participants explain their offending past as having “a childish mind” or “not thinking twice before acting.” In their case, life seems to be divided into two parts: before the prison sentence and after the prison sentence. Contrary to how they were before, they are now more mature, they “think twice,” they “shut up and go out” when a tense situation occurs, and so on. This narrative seems to be specific to those over 30 who consider also that they “are too old to go back to prison” (B.D.). This observation resonates quite strongly with previous research on the age–crime curve (Farrington, 1986; Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990).

Those participants with little social capital have very limited chances to find a job and fuel their hope for a new life. After 3 or 4 weeks, almost all their possible reserves—money borrowed from distant family or friends, small help from neighbors, and so on—are exhausted. In this case, participants start growing a very strong sense of helplessness. Life outside prison is increasingly perceived as more difficult than life inside prison:

One cannot live in this country. You have my word for it, outside is far worse than inside prison . . . We wonder why thieves reoffend and go back to prison? Of course they do. Because of poverty, despair. You don’t have anything today. You don’t have anything tomorrow. Day after day the same. After that you need to go stealing again or do something . . . (B.C.)

Life in prison is not remembered as dreadful as it was described at the time of release. On the contrary, as Z.G. puts it, prison life becomes romanticized:

For better or for worse, you have three meals a day. If you are smart you can find a coffee and a cigarette . . .

In these depressing circumstances, the presence of the “old friends” willing to help seems to be very welcome for some participants but at the same time a very powerful force to return to crime.

The routes to going back to crime are very diverse and almost individualized in our sample. In many cases, factors, such as gambling, old conflicts, complicated situations, impossible problems, impulsivity or lack of self-control, and so on, are associated with relapse. However, what seems to be most common among our participants who reoffended (15 out of 58) is the strong feeling of hopelessness and the perception that a better life is not possible. These feelings and perceptions can also be identified in some participants who managed to secure a job for which the level of income was far below their expectations. In both cases, the phantom of “going abroad” was prevalent. For some participants, “going abroad” means a chance for a better paid job and a decent life. For other participants, “going abroad” represented a good chance to start a new life where their criminal record cannot reach them anymore. In a limited number of cases, “going abroad” was for committing crimes. In almost all cases, these were petty crimes like pickpocketing or shoplifting. The destination countries were selected according to the participant’s knowledge of penal law or perceptions regarding the risks of apprehension. For instance, countries like Switzerland, Italy, and Spain seemed to be perceived as quite lenient toward shoplifting, as long as the value of the stolen goods does not go beyond a certain level.

The discussion around reconviction after release is, of course, more complex and deserves more space. However, in this article, we only intended to outline the process by which ex-prisoners experience reentry as they leave prison.