Pains of Reentry Revisited

Abstract

Based on an ethnographic study with 58 participants released from a Romanian prison, this study revisits the pains of release and illustrates the complexity of the reentry process. Some of the pains of reentry seem universal while others seem to be context dependent. In the same time, some pains of release are personal, others social, while others are structural. Concepts of intersectionality and the multi-level model of reentry are discussed, and further suggestions for research are advanced.

Keywords

reentry reintegration ex-prisoners pains of release Romania

Introduction

This article aims at describing the pains of reentry as 58 ex-prisoners released from a Romanian prison nearby Bucharest—Jilava Prison—experience them. In the same time, the pains of release are discussed in their context. As 28 of the participants are of Roma origin, we were also able to observe how ethnicity interact with the release experience.

By pains of reentry or release, we understand obstacles or frustrations reported as such prior and post release by the participants themselves. To some extent, this definition is based on the ones used previously in the pains research (Durnescu, 2011; Hayes, 2015; Sykes, 1958). By using this definition, we avoid the discussions over the fact that some pains could be instrumental in reaching desistance (as in Nugent & Schinkel, 2016). As this study will not explicitly look at the desistance or recidivism, we cannot place the pains into this context.

Previous Research

Although prisoners are released from prisons since the middle of the 19th century, interest for how ex-prisoners experience this stage is quite recent. One of the classic studies in this area is the one conducted by Irwin (1970) who compares the prisoner’s career inside prison and post-release with an obstacle course. One of the most striking conclusions of Irwin (1970) was that

A common dimension in the nature of these obstacles and the ignorance which surrounds them is the disparity of perspectives of the officials and the felons. The programs and policies obstructing the felon’s progress instead of facilitating it are planned and implemented from an official or conventional viewpoint. (p. 2)

In many ways, this conclusion still applies across many jurisdictions and across time. Obstacles hindering the process of reintegration into the society after release include the lack of employment, accommodation, or rejection from schools or universities (Allender, 2004; Levenson & Hern, 2007; Nagin & Waldfogel, 1993). The unemployment rate among ex-prisoners in United States is high (between 25% and 40%, in Petersilia, 2003) compared with the one among the general population. Seven out of 10 prisoners in United States function at the lowest level of literacy and numeracy (Report of the National Institute for Literacy, 2001). Very often ex-inmates experience serious social or health problems that are not dealt effectively by the State (Fletcher, 2001; Petersilia, 2003). Stigma, goal failure, sense of hopelessness, and lack of social support are often mentioned in the ex-prisoner narratives (Bahn & Davies, 1991; Cullen, 1994; Funk, 2004; LeBel, 2012), while some other pains begin to be perceived even before the release: confusion, anxiety and boundlessness, ambiguity, and relative deprivation (Shammas, 2014).

Other important body of research scrutinizes the experience of ex-prisoners as subjects to parole supervision. Work of Werth (2011, 2017), Bosworth (2007), or Hörnqvist (2007) demonstrate how parole supervision adds to the pains of release by subjecting ex-prisoners to different forms of social control that treats people in a contradictory way as less capable to encourage them to become competent. The author argues that this parole treatment forces individuals on parole to going straight but doing so in their own terms, which involve often hostility, contestation, or other forms of resistance. Exception to this reaction is when parolees meet with helpful and supporting parole authorities ready to make an extra step to help ex-prisoners in their desistance efforts (Schinkel, 2016). Shapland, Sorby, Farrall, and Pride (2016) develop further what “good supervision” might mean for the probationers and parolees: togetherness, the desire to help, taking problems seriously, and so on.

Pains of probation (Durnescu, 2011), pains of the community penalties (Hayes, 2015), or pains of desistance (Nugent & Schinkel, 2016) were described in the literature emphasizing the way the penal actors contributed to the lived experience of the probationers. In their case, the identity of the participants is still under the spell of the State power: they are not in prison but they are not free either, and therefore, they seem to float in a liminal state of affairs.

As noted above, most of the literature exploring the pains of release is developed in the Western European countries or United States and in connection to the State power. Exception to this rule is the work of Jefferson (2016) in Sierra Leone where, although there is no supporting or controlling post-release supervision, ex-prisoners experience pains of release such as stigma, temptation, or lack of employment. Furthermore, due to extreme poverty and the lack of State support, ex-prisoners find themselves in impossible situations where they have to offer parts of their bodies in exchange of food.

In this article, we will explore the pains of release in an Eastern European country where poverty has not reached such a severe level but the State is also absent or absurd in its manifestations. Although it does not exert any direct penal controlling function over the released participants, its actions often frustrates and keeps the ex-prisoners at the margins of the society. The absurdity of the State is more visible when considering that the State is interested in making its members useful and productive for the whole society and yet, through its actions, prevents them to have access to the means to participate in the mainstream society (e.g., new non-criminal identity, identity papers, jobs, etc.).

Method

Jilava Prison is one of the oldest prisons in Romania and holds approximately 1,400 male prisoners at any given time. The prison has semi-open and open regime. The 58 male participants were selected as they were approaching the end of their sentence and their future domicile after release was likely to be in or nearby Bucharest. To capture the wide variety of participants and situations, the sample was build up to incorporate this complexity, in terms of age, length of the sentence, nature of the last offense, social support, level of education, and so on. More details of the sample can be found in Table 1.

Table 1.

The Profile of the Participants.

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 convictions	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

Twenty-eight of them were Roma. The reason Roma were selected in the sample is that, although they represent 3.3% of the population (Romanian Census, 2011¹), they are over-represented in the prison population. According to some studies, Roma people make 17% of the adult prison population and 40% of the juvenile inmates (Durnescu, Lazar, & Shaw, 2002). This over-representation makes this group a favorite target for mass media attacks and discriminatory practices. It is, therefore, important to understand how this group makes its way back into society after serving a prison sentence. Both groups share the Romanian nationality but only Roma group share the Roma ethnicity.

Six participants were lost after release (after the first interview) and were not included in the sample. Facebook or Skype facilitated the follow-up with the participants who emigrated or traveled long distances from Bucharest. The methodology employed was an ethnographic one based on in-depth interviews (one before release—Interview 1, one on the release day, one after 1 week, one after 1 month, one after 3 months, one after 6 months, and one after 1 year from release—Interview 7), observation, and photovoice² and questionnaires were also used. The pictures taken by the participants in the first month of release were used mainly as photo-eliciting technique to help informants express better their perceptions and feelings. In the vast majority of cases, the pictures emphasized the social pains—social isolation, family difficulties, and so on—that are common in the first few months from release. All interviews followed more or less the same structure, focusing on daily experience, obstacles, challenges, opportunities, resources, identity issues, and plans for the future. Observation followed the same items with more focus on environmental factors (e.g., quality of living, neighborhood, etc.). All observations were collected in a research diary where all five researchers placed their notes. The interviews were all transcribed verbatim and analyzed together with the field notes using thematic analysis (Guest, MacQueem, & Namey, 2012). Researchers coded the text individually and then agreed on the final codes in a consensus coding session.

The benefit of employing such a variety of research methods is that the conclusions based on one method could be confirmed by the findings from another. For example, based on the interviews, we were able to understand that some of the first pains of reentry are social isolation or family difficulties. The photos taken by the participants were also suggesting that parents, children, and partners are very important in the first month of release. Most of the pictures captured by the participants presented these important actors suggesting that reentry has an important relational dimension.

Accounts on the economical precarity of the participants were confronted with observations of the housing conditions and the neighborhood features. Findings from both directions consolidated the perception that some participants are trapped in contexts that do not offer too much hope for a successful reentry.

Each participant received a code composed of the initials of his name and surname and a number reflecting his order on out-list of participants. We believe that this way of coding guarantees the protection of the participant’s identity (nobody outside the research team can guess the real name of the participants) while helping the research team keep track of the correspondence between the real name and the code.

To better understand the institutional context of the research, it must be explained that the participants were conditionally released but received no supervision from any agency. The only obligation for them was not to commit further crimes during the period of conditional release. In case of re-conviction during the conditional release time, the un-served time of the previous prison sentence will be added to the new sentence. According to the new Penal Code (in force since 2014), the Probation Service will supervise all conditionally released prisoners who have more than 2 years to serve. The first prisoners to be supervised under this rule will start coming into the system in 2018. It is not yet clear how the parole supervision will add or elevate the pains of release. This will depend on how the supervision will be configured in practice: as a surveillance tool, as assistance toward reintegration, as an administrative or passive mechanism of State penal power, and so on (Armstrong & Durnescu, 2016; Durnescu, Enengl, & Grafl, 2013; Durnescu, Kennefick, Sucic, & Glavak Tkalic, 2018).

Pains of Reentry Revisited

In this section, we will describe the pains of release as they are experienced by the 58 ex-prisoners from Jilava Prison. The pains of the first 6 months after release are described in this article, as they seem to be the most acute. Furthermore, the first 6 months are acknowledged in the literature as the most vulnerable period in terms of recidivism (Glaser, 1969; Rosenfeld, Wallman, & Fornango, 2005).

The Pain of Adaptation/Readjusting to the New Environment

As acknowledged already in the literature, many participants complained about what can be defined as a real “shock of release.” A few participants mentioned negative physical reactions to freedom, especially in the first weeks from release:

I adapted very hard with the cars . . . when they pass by your eyes move fast and I get dizzy. . . I also have headache quite a lot. (NE57 Interview 3)

Some participants—especially those with long sentences—described strong feelings of surprise regarding some social changes:

. . . when I entered the prison we used to pay with millions but now money has changed and this got me confused. World has evolved. (TV5 Interview 4)

Most of the participants mentioned family or children as significant presence they needed to adapt. It seems that the family is the scene where many adaptation processes take place.

If they have divorced during detention, they tend to report huge difficulties in visiting or re-connecting with the children:

I had many fights with my ex-wife in the first two months. She was with another man and did not want to let me visit my child. She wanted me to visit him only in certain days when I could not. I told her I come to see my boy. But she said she needs to be home when I come . . . One day he wanted to sleep over in my house but she did not approve and we fight . . . (ZI24 Interview 5)

I went to school to speak with the professors for my elder son. He has fights with his mates sometimes. Slowly I have to re-gain influence over him. Otherwise he tells me: “go back to prison!” (PG53 Interview 4)

In some cases, the break up happens after release due to the extreme emotional anxiety and neediness:

I was abandoned by my ex girlfriend. She complained that I suffocate her with my romance. Now she is with someone else. (GA12 Interview 4)

Even when they are still in a relationship, they still need to adapt to the changed roles within the family:

I feel very bad now. She wakes up at 5 o’clock in the morning and goes to work and I stay home. Anyway I wake up when she wakes up and make her coffee. I ask her what to cook today. I cook for the family. I have no choice. . . (IM1 Interview 4)

There are some conflicts in the house. Usually I am very calm but if you push me I can become very angry. I change very fast. . . (AC37 Interview 3)

As an important observation here, family break ups or divorce was never found among the Roma participants. Although some of them were not legally married but in consensual unions, the relationship was maintained during and after the detention. Moreover, the process of ex-prisoner’s reintegration was more like a collective project rather than as an individual one. Close and large family took an active part in providing material and emotional support for the ex-prisoner while also offering information regarding the work available. Using these social networks, ex-prisoners were able to find or create work.

As noted above, with or without a family, ex-prisoners need to invest a lot of energy and effort in adapting to the new milieu. Those with families around them seem to manage better the process but nonetheless they need to understand, engage, cope, and adapt with the new personal and social realities within their own families. As captured in some of the quotes above, the process is not easy, and there are many risks the ex-prisoners need to be aware of.

The Pain of Social Isolation

Linked with the family or relationships is the pain of social isolation. At least 10 of the total of 58 participants complained of social isolation. This seems to be the case in particular among the older participants, those over 50 with long criminal careers:

It was for the first time when I really felt alone. Not having anyone is truly very hard. (ZD21 Interview 3)

The loneliness is killing me. All I care about is to have some food, some cigarettes and one beer every evening. When you are with someone else you tend to do more things. I am not going out at all. I am afraid of going out. . . (DV14 Interview 3)

Age and the length of the criminal career seem to associate quite often with social isolation. This observation comes in line with other studies that argue that elderly prisoners have rather special needs and concerns prior to release where loss of familial contacts plays a central role (see Crawley & Sparks, 2006). Living in an urban or rural area or having more or less education, however, do not seem to influence the sociability of the ex-prisoners.

Stigma

Those socially isolated in particular explained their isolation mainly as a consequence of stigmatization:

There are people who feel pity for you—“poor guy he was in prison.” Others blame you for committing crimes. However, both groups try to avoid meeting you. (ZG21 Interview 6)

Past experiences or current incidents make some ex-prisoners feel as if they are severely discriminated against and with no hope for the future:

. . . although we served our sentences, for them we are nothing. In their eyes we are outlaws. (CA27 Interview 5)

There is no way to rehabilitate. It is exactly as the HIV person. Once infected always infected. (CA27 Interview 6)

How stigma underpins the social rejection and blocks relational routes into employment opportunities was often described in the literature (Jefferson, 2016; LeBel, 2012; Moran, 2012; Petersilia, 2003). Furthermore, stigma and prejudice can also feed into powerlessness and fatalism (Halsey et al., 2017). Some of the participants developed what psychologists call learned helplessness (see Seligman, 1972). In brief, this theory suggests that if people perceive events as uncontrollable or negative, they develop symptoms that prevent them from improving that situation. As they perceive a weak position (Winnick & Bodkin, 2008) on the labor market, some ex-prisoners do not even try to engage with the potential employers: “they would not employ someone like me” (ZG21 Interview 5). This attitude could be defined as a self-stigmatization one as some ex-prisoners display very low self-esteem and no confidence in their competence. Arguably, this position could be also explained by the practical realism of ex-offenders. Knowing from the past experience or the experience of others that employment is a difficult target, they may save their energy and interest for other purposes.

It can be already observed how different pains tend to relate with each other, supporting and amplifying each other. For instance, due to stigma, ex-prisoners tend to be socially isolated. As social networks are very important in finding employment, those socially isolated are less likely to find work and, therefore, are more likely to be affected by poverty and instability. This intersectionality between different pains will be emphasized further down.

The Pains of Instability—Walking on Thin Ice

Stigma and social isolation make it harder for the ex-prisoners to settle down. In many cases, they cannot find work in one region and they have to move or even to emigrate. Criminal record is a major obstacle for finding and keeping a job. During our interviews, we were able to read many rejection letters from different employers. Based on the statistics offered by the Criminal Record Inspectorate, we note a fast increase in the number of requests for criminal records for the purpose of employment (background checks, in United Kingdom), from 163,616 requests in 2013 to 779,677 requests in 2016.³ In many cases, due to the criminal record, they had to accept very low paid jobs and even in the informal economy:

We are working on the black market. We don’t need papers . . . (IA56 Interview 6)

This places them in a very vulnerable position on the labor market. Some participants have experienced incidents such as sudden dismissal, salary not paid, receiving lower wages than expected, and so on. Almost all of them reported very low salaries—around 300 Euros per month—which does not allow them to lead a decent life. The low income was especially burdensome for those with children and who have the habit of smoking. In their case, there was no “light at the end of the tunnel” and therefore only two options remained available: emigration or going back to a criminal career. In some cases, emigration proved to be a good option: they found jobs that ensured them a decent life and allowed them to reunite with their families. In a small number of cases, emigration proved less positive, and the participants were not able to find the jobs they were hoping for (for more information about employment games, please read Durnescu, forthcoming).

Due to the lack of stable accommodation, some participants had to move from one location to another—to different friends or distant family members:

I feel like I am in transit. Now I move to my brother . . . (GA12 Interview 6)

The lack of a stable domicile leads to the impossibility of obtaining identity papers and thus the lack of medical insurance and legal employment. Quite a few of our sample experienced this “outcast” status for at least a few months after release. These observations are acknowledged in the literature. Thieme (2017) describes a new type of economy—the hustle economy—in which ex-offenders could integrate. This economy is located somewhere at the edge of legality and most often provides very low income while coming with a lot of risks. The same “precariat” characterized by little income, instability, lack of security, and so on was also described by Standing (2011).

The Pains of Fighting Bureaucracy or the Absurdity of State

Most of the participants stated that “the State does not care about people like them” and does not provide anything to support their reintegration. Therefore, for most of the participants, the State was absent and irrelevant. As in Irwin (1970), the definitions of the programs and services available for ex-prisoners are quite different than the ex-prisoner’s view. Ex-prisoners continue to act according to a set of categories and understandings that are foreign to the officials. In return, the State is ignorant of the prisoner’s needs and understandings and the institutional landscape remains irrelevant for the ex-prisoners. However, some of the participants had to renew their identity papers or had tried to obtain the social benefit. The procedures they had to face were described by some of them as “at least strange”:

Yes, I had to collect many papers. For example I had to obtain a certificate from the Private Companies Registry that I have no company. Afterwards, they send me to give a statement in front of a notary that I have no company. Very strange . . . if the certificate from the Registry stated that I have no company why do I need to produce another paper saying the same thing? very strange . . . (FW22 Interview 4)

The procedure for accessing the social benefit is even more cumbersome. First, it can start only after the release. Second, it requires at least 10 official documents that can be obtained from 10 different institutions. Based on our observations, it is almost impossible for the ex-prisoners to receive social benefits in less than 4 months from release. Above all, the amount is derisory—around 30 Euros/person/month (compared with the average brut income in Romania of 967 Euro/month in 2018⁴).

In conclusion, most of the interactions (if any) with the State were painful and useless. Furthermore, even when the State provides some social rights for disadvantaged citizens, the procedures to access those rights are often impossible to follow for the ex-prisoners. In the case of identity papers, for example, one of the requirements is to have a fixed domicile. As many ex-prisoners have no house or close relatives to accept them to have their fixed domicile in their houses, they cannot have identity papers. With no identity papers, they cannot have health insurance and no legal employment. With no legal means to make a living, some ex-prisoners may feel tempted to go back to crime. The question is why the State is placing such a restriction on the identity papers while also interested in promoting public safety and social inclusion?

Poor Health

About 15 participants from our sample complained of health issues. Some of them could be associated with prison food or prison regime (e.g., dental issues or breathing difficulties/tuberculosis due to poor ventilation or overcrowding⁵). Some others were only aggravated by the detention conditions (e.g., heart diseases, problems with blood pressure, and digestive issues).

Due to the fact that they were in detention, they were not able to contribute to the health security system, and therefore, they are not considered insured. If they did not have valid identity papers, access to medical services was very difficult. In both cases, ex-prisoners were eligible only for emergency medical services or those included in the national plan for public health (e.g., tuberculosis) but not for chronic diseases. As a consequence, many ill ex-prisoners have to wait until they find work and can pay the medical insurance contribution. Only after they are covered by insurance could they receive more complex medical care. However, in some cases, they were in a vicious circle: they could not work because of the medical condition and they could not receive medical care because they could not work to pay for the insurance.

Poverty

Social isolation, instability, stigma, poor health, and the absence of State lead in many cases to extreme poverty:

I don’t know if I told you. My wife is working as a cleaner and receives 200 Euro [1.000 lei] per month. It is a lot of bitterness . . . (IM1 Interview 4)

It is hard in my situation . . . money is not enough, nobody employs you, or if they employ you they do not pay you as they should. . . Sometimes you lose your mind and start think of other stupid things . . . (RB48 Interview 5)

Poverty was a common ground both for those working and those not working. Due to the concrete contexts described above, in-work poverty was often found in the narratives provided by our participants.

The level of poverty was sometimes beyond imagination in the 21st century. We interviewed one participant who stated he had not eaten for 3 days (ZG21).

Another sign of severe poverty was provided by the living conditions. Most of our participants live in marginal, degraded, and low-income communities. Figure 1 illustrates the poor housing and degraded neighborhoods some of our participants live their lives.

Figure 1.

View from Ferentari/Aleea Livezilor.

The same observation is found also in the observation diary of the research team:

When we arrived at his house I was shocked to see how run down and derelict his entire neighbourhood looks like: small and narrow streets, mud all over, improvised fences etc. His house is about to fall down. Some electric wires seem to come to his house but it was all in dark. I doubt there was any electricity in his house . . .

On the contrary, almost no participant complained about these poor living conditions. They seemed rather taken for granted, something you cannot really change. Only three participants mentioned the desire to move out from these areas although they were still living there at the end of the project.

This uncritical acceptance of the living conditions could be also explained by the learnt helplessness. If one cannot change anything, why complain about it?

Justice and Temptations

In a few cases (3), offenses from the past have reached to the court level and ex-prisoners had to face new sentences for deeds committed before their term of imprisonment. These events have suspended any serious attempts to reintegrate into society or start a new life. All the plans had to be put on hold until the justice decisions were known.

Linked to justice, some participants described in their narrative serious internal fights to avoid new convictions:

They proposed me to do things but I have refused. I met some of my old friends and they suggested some dubious actions but I have refused. . . I told them goodbye and I haven’t seen them since. (MH23 Interview 5)

I see people getting by. I see how they can carry on with their lives and their families. And I see I have nothing. And then I start thinking of a lot of stupid things. I think like that for a while and then I ignore these thoughts . . . (MH23 Interview 4)

Temptations come often as a result of comparison with others of the same age or the same social condition. Temptation comes also after meeting old and anti-social friends. In some cases, the participants found their own strategies “to avoid trouble,” but for some of them, temptation led to resuming the criminal career.

As described above, these pains of release were interrelated: one pain leads to another. For instance, not having identity papers leads to no employment, no proper health care, and so on. Moreover, these pains seem to create real exclusion traps or vicious circles: not having good health, one cannot obtain employment. Not having employment, one cannot access proper medical services. Not having a fixed address, one cannot obtain employment. Not having employment, one cannot rent accommodation.

Depending on how the post-release is configured, these pains could be augmented by helpful or unhelpful parole supervision. In a recent collection edited by Armstrong and Durnescu (2016), the “pains of parole” were explained as they are “lived” in United States, Chile, Sierra Leone, Denmark, Scotland, and Romania. It seems that release comes together with loneliness, fragility, and insecurity. If life after prison is also accompanied by supervision, these feelings are often compounded by fear, anxieties, frustrations, feelings of being misrecognized, and “silenced in the face of senseless restrictions” (p. 309).

In this study, we have also encountered some positive experiences or “gains” and “joys” in Hayes’s (2018) terms. Although they are part of the complexity of the lived experience, in this article, we focused more on the pains of reentry, as they were by far most prevalent in the ex-prisoner’s narrative.

Discussion

Many of the pains of reentry identified in the previous literature were identified also in the Romanian context. While acknowledging the universality of these pains, we could not oversee the uniqueness of the Romanian socio-cultural context—especially when it comes to the Kafkaesque nature of the Romanian State. This observation suggests that we should look into the reentry process in the context of intersectionality. The concept of intersectionality was first introduced to criminology by feminist and critical scholars who argued that crime and crime control should be located within their determining contexts (Chadwick & Scraton, 2006). In other words, individual experiences of crime and criminal justice should be viewed through the lenses of particular social identities, such as gender, ethnicity, and social class. Adding to these, this study emphasizes the socio-cultural and economic context as important determinants of the reentry process. Many of the previous studies on reentry were conducted in United States or other Western European countries, and therefore, they tented to capture the pains of release that are universal or specific to their context. As this study took place in Romania (an Eastern European country), other pains were also displayed such as fighting bureaucracy or the absurdity of the State or the poor health system. Most probably, these pains are to a certain extent specific to Romania and maybe to other transition countries.

Ethnicity seems to play an important role in the reentry process as the Roma participants experienced reentry in a different way than Romanians. While Romanian families tended to reject the family members with a history of imprisonment, the Roma families proved to be more inclusive and supporting, providing practical help, moral support, and emotional support. These differences were analyzed under the pains of adaptation, but there were also other differences between these two groups that impact on the reentry process. For instance, Roma participants tended to be more entrepreneurial than Romanians when searching for a job. In many cases, they were more interested in creating a job rather than finding one. Most often, those jobs were in the informal economy (e.g., buying and selling flowers, building up houses, singing at parties, etc.) and provided little means for living. Romanians, on the contrary, were more interested in finding a job in the traditional economy. The differences between these two groups could be further explored and valued at the practice level. For instance, prison administrators could provide entrepreneurial courses to those with Roma background to consolidate their intentions to create new jobs. They can be further trained in creating budgets, interacting with the fiscal authorities, using the opportunities of the new economy, and so on. By doing so, the prisoners with Roma background will be more prepared to bring their initiatives into the formal economy.

Another important social identity structure that intersects with reentry was age. Being over 50 years of age seemed to associate more often with social isolation and major difficulties in gaining employment. These difficulties appeared more prevalent among those who served long sentences.

The economy and its characteristics in Romania at this particular historical moment make it more and more difficult for low skilled candidates to find employment. Industries such as constructions, mining, printing, and so on where ex-prisoners tend to find work are shrinking making room for IT and other white-collar jobs. To give just one example, the number of jobs in constructions fell from 460,166 in 2008 to 368,416 jobs in 2013. In the same time, the number of jobs in administration and other support services increased from 211,070 in 2008 to 268,195 in 2013 (INS, 2015).

As these transformations are not enough to make difficult the access of ex-prisoners to the labor market, the number of criminal record checks increased dramatically, as shown above, from 163,616 requests in 2013 to 779,677 requests in 2016.⁶ All these obstacles made ex-prisoners accept low-paid jobs in the informal economy, and this further placed them in extremely vulnerable positions.

While it is difficult to say which pain is deeper or weight more than the others, one can observe that some pains tend to be more active at different times than others (see Figure 2). For instance, the pains of adaptation or poor health are more prevalent in the narratives of the participants in the first month of release. As they initiate actions to find or create jobs, the others pains tend to become more present (the pain of stigma, pain of instability/walking on thin ice, etc.).

Figure 2.

Pains of release on the timeline.

These pains depend to a large extent on the priorities or the concerns of the participants at a given time. To give just an example, stigma and instability are experienced by the participants once they start looking for employment. This is the context when stigma is most often mentioned as a deep pain.

If all these personal, social, cultural, and economical contexts act on the same level, we can consider that as the horizontal dimension of reentry. In the same time, reentry has also a vertical dimension. Indeed, most desistance research suggests that reentry is a multi-level process involving personal-level factors (e.g., psychological factors), social-level factors (e.g., family), and structural-level factors (e.g., labor market). Our study suggests that the pains of release follow the same logic with some pains belonging to the personal level (e.g., pain of health problems), social level (e.g., pain of social isolation), or structural level (e.g., pains of stigma, poverty, and justice). As a contribution to the existent literature, this study illustrates how the structural conditions can shape individual pathways to reintegration. More research should be conducted to better understand the complex and inter-active nature or reentry. Moreover, more insights are needed on the gender dimension of this process in a given socio-cultural context.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

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