Abstract
One of the greatest needs for persons leaving prison and returning to their communities is immediate employment. Although this has been researched and written about by many in the field of criminology and criminal justice, this study, based on interview data obtained from seventy men and women on parole in Colorado, expands on the recognized need for employment by identifying and analyzing the additional collateral financial obligations that are rarely addressed by researchers and correctional practitioners. In addition to describing barriers to obtaining employment, we explore financial obligations that may significantly prevent ex-offenders from gaining an economic foothold, even when employed, including mandatory parole expenses and other debts incurred prior to and after incarceration. Without the ability to meet these financial obligations, many returning former prisoners came to believe they will never achieve economic success. A lack of financial stability and little hope for a better future may significantly affect the ability of many persons leaving prison to successfully reenter society.
In the past three decades, the prison population in the United States has more than quadrupled, expanding from approximately 369,000 to more than 1.5 million inmates (U.S. Department of Justice, 1982, 2012a). The tremendous growth in the inmate population has resulted in a subsequent increase in offenders returning to their communities, with as many as 730,000 offenders being released from federal and state correctional facilities per year (U.S. Department of Justice, 2011). By 2011, 853,900 persons were being supervised in the community as parolees, while 80% of persons who left prison that year did so under some form of parole supervision (U.S. Department of Justice, 2012b, 2012c).
The parole population is in a state of constant flux. Within one year, the membership of the parolee population changes dramatically, with almost two thirds of the individuals on parole exiting parole through various ways, including completion of the terms of parole, return to incarceration, abscondence, deportation, and death (U.S. Department of Justice, 2012c). However, only about one third of persons who exited parole in 2011 did so through successful reentry to their communities (U.S. Department of Justice, 2012c). More than a decade ago, two thirds of released persons were rearrested within 3 years of release (U.S. Department of Justice, 2002). While there has been a great deal of variability in the return-to-prison rates in individual states over the last decade, the frequency of parole failure remains stubbornly high (Pew Center on the States, 2011).
It has been long recognized that there are several circumstances linked to successful reentry, including employment that pays wages that cover basic living expenses (Travis & Petersilia, 2001). However, the use of criminal justice fees associated with parole conditions, such as payments for drug testing, treatment, and monitoring, are increasingly being assessed and may reduce available funds to pay for basic expenses (Bannon, Nagrecha, & Diller, 2010). Restitution, child support, and additional mandated expenses may also be contributing to financial barriers to successful reentry that available employment cannot overcome.
Literature Review
Individuals returning to their communities do not experience equally the multiple dilemmas of reentry, but the vast majority encounter difficulties in various areas of adjustment. Employment opportunities, access to governmental benefits, stable housing, treatment programs, family support, access to health care, and a positive parole experience are needed for successful reentry (Naser & LaVigne, 2006, Travis & Petersilia, 2001). Becker (1968) recognized decades ago that loss of human capital creates additional challenges for reentering prisoners. The depreciation of human capital resulting from incarceration diminishes prospects for success in many areas, but it is especially problematic when ex-offenders are trying to find employment. If employment is found, it is commonly unskilled work that pays low wages (Becker, 1968; Kling, 2006). Western, Kling, and Weiman (2001) note that the experience of discrimination in employment and lowered chances for economic success for reentering prisoners has been well established.
Ex-inmates have lower earning capacities and rates of employment when measured against comparable groups (Freeman, 1992; Grogger, 1995; Lyons & Pettit, 2011; Western, Kling, & Weiman, 2001). Compared to 18% of the general population that does not have high school diplomas, 68% of inmates reported having not completed high school while approximately one quarter received their GED certificates, which serve as high school equivalency assessments, while serving time in an institution (U.S. Department of Justice, 2003). People who lack the education and training employers value have difficulty finding employment, but, as Pager (2003, p. 956) notes “criminal records close doors in employment situations.” Pager also found that employers stated they were twice as likely to hire nonoffenders as they were to give jobs to equally qualified offenders. According to Holzer, Raphael, and Stoll’s (2007) study involving employer surveys, two thirds of the respondents reported that they would not hire people with criminal backgrounds. Additionally, only 6% of those surveyed reported that they would be willing to employ people who not only have criminal backgrounds but who also have spent time in prison, leaving 94% of these surveyed employers as apparently viewing persons with prison stays ineligible for employment in their organizations.
Job applicants may try to hide their past criminal records by not informing prospective employers of their prior incarceration (Harding, 2003). In a study of formerly incarcerated persons’ perception of stigma, more than one third of the study participants reported they had avoided disclosure of their criminal histories on job applications in an attempt to avoid rejection based on their ex-inmate status (LeBel, 2012). This risky strategy is effective primarily in situations where the job is short term or where background checks are not required (Harding, 2003). More desirable jobs, especially those that have mandatory background checks, are likely out of their reach, since ex-inmates are unable to conceal their former inmate status.
Having a family support system also has been shown to be important for successful reentry (Kushel, Hahn, Evans, Bangsberg, & Moss, 2005; La Vigne, Visher, & Castro, 2004). Providing a home when a person leaves prison greatly relieves many financial pressures, but family members also can improve job opportunities for returning ex-prisoners through their network of friends, employers, and religious institutions (Visher, Debus-Sherrill, & Yahner, 2008). Parolees who find employment shortly after release often do so by making use of connections through friends and family members with whom they maintained contact during their incarceration (Cobbina, 2009; Mallik-Kane & Visher, 2008; Nelson, Dees, & Allen, 1999; Visher & Kachnowski, 2007). Without the help of family and friends, returning ex-inmates are likely to face much longer periods of time before finding employment, if they find it at all (Nelson et al., 1999).
Parolees who were employed prior to incarceration may be able to reestablish contact with former employers prior to release, which improves their chances of quickly finding employment (Visher et al., 2008). However, since many former inmates do not have decent legitimate employment records, few likely can take advantage of such former relationships. Although one of the best ways for ex-prisoners to find work is through family, community, and former employment contacts, many persons leaving prison lack connections that can lead to employment since many of their contacts in the community may be criminally active and are not in the position to offer leads for legitimate employment (Hagan, 1993). Their stigmatized backgrounds, their deficiencies in education and appropriate skills, and their lack of prosocial contacts can affect many ex-inmates’ ability to find work, which can inhibit both their current and future economic status (Pager, 2003; Western, 2006; Western et al., 2001).
The stakes for quickly finding employment are high for persons returning from prison. Parolees generally must have jobs to meet their parole conditions and the inability to find and keep work can result not only in a marginalized existence, it may result in a return to prison for violation of parole requirements. However, employment alone may not be sufficient for many persons leaving prison, since employment that may barely cover basic living expenses likely will not pay enough to meet the additional financial obligations that many parolees confront as they leave prison. Debts incurred prior to incarceration may continue to mount while a person is in prison. Griswold and Pearson (2005), in a study of child support obligations of incarcerated parents, found that parents often enter prison with thousands of dollars in unpaid child support and by the time they leave prison, the arrears they owe include not only the original debt but interest and child support accumulated while in prison. In addition to child support obligations, ex-inmates are often released from prison with significant financial liabilities, such as court costs and fees, tax deficiencies, and other domestic bills (Richards & Jones, 2004).
In the 15 states with the largest prison populations, expenses frequently assessed through the criminal justice system include restitution and fees associated with parole supervision, alcohol and drug testing, and mandatory treatment (Bannon et al., 2010). Additional noncriminal justice obligations such as child support and “poverty penalties,” including late fees, interest fees, payment plan fees, and collection fees associated with the inability to pay debts, may further reduce funds available to cover basic living expenses and may contribute to a return to prison (Bannon et al., 2010, p. 19). Such fees may discourage ex-inmates from seeking legitimate employment if wages are garnished and income tax refunds are intercepted to pay debts incurred through criminal justice and other legal obligations.
Finding and maintaining employment, having a residence at which a parolee can be contacted, submitting to and paying for medical and drug testing, and paying fees and restitution are now common standard conditions of parole (Travis & Stacey, 2010). An increasing dependence on surveillance and ongoing treatment and testing in the community has shifted the costs from the supervising authorities to persons leaving prison. In the past, employment that ex-inmates may have had access to and that may have provided wages sufficient to pay for minimal living expenses might not be sufficient to cover the now-mandated additional expenses associated with parole.
While some states allow prisoners to voluntarily “max out” their sentences, thereby forgoing parole supervision (Ostermann, 2011, p. 596), Colorado is not one of these states. In 1993, the Colorado Legislature passed H.B. 93-1302, which requires felony offenders to serve mandatory parole periods of 1 to 5 years after their first release from prison. From 1995 to 2011, the average daily parole population in Colorado increased from 1,185 to 8,422 (Colorado Department of Corrections, 1999, 2013), a much larger increase than would be expected, based only on the increase in the prison population. With the dramatic increase in the parole population, the number of individuals returned to prison for parole violations also increased. From 1997 to 2013, the percentage of Colorado parolees who exited parole by returning to prison for technical violations of parole rose from 16.5% to 40% (Colorado Department of Corrections, 1999, 2013), despite many intermediate sanctions steps taken by Colorado to minimize the number of parole violators returned to prison. In stark contrast, the national percentage of exits from state parole by return to prison for technical violations dropped from 25% to 21% between 2008 and 2011, and in 2012, this number dramatically decreased to 14%, largely driven by California’s efforts to curtail the use of prison as a response to technical parole violations (U.S. Department of Justice, 2013). Nonetheless, Colorado’s percentage of parolees who exit parole by returning to prison for technical violations is significantly higher than the national average.
Maintaining employment, if one is not physically or mentally disabled, is a typical parole condition requirement. Without the ability to find and maintain employment, parolees may have little chance of avoiding reincarceration. However, merely finding employment may not be sufficient to overcome other financial barriers that may prevent parolees from gaining any type of financial stability and, thus, a foothold in conventional society.
The purposes of the current study are multiple. First, we explore the employment and financial challenges that parolees confront as they leave prison in Colorado. Second, we seek to improve our understanding of how additional financial burdens may prevent parolees from achieving financial security. Finally, we focus on how such burdens and financial insecurity may create conditions where parolees believe they cannot successfully reenter society.
Method
The current study was approved by both the Colorado State University Institutional Review Board and the Colorado Department of Corrections, the parent agency of the Division of Adult Parole. Data were collected from 70 parolees, 48 males and 22 females. The ethnic/racial composition of our study population was 45.6% Anglo, 31.5% Hispanic, and 18.4% African American, which closely mirrors the ethnic and racial composition of the inmate population in Colorado. We recruited study participants from four district parole offices, two in urban locations and two in suburban areas, all within the greater Denver metropolitan area. The age range of respondents was from 23 to 57 (median = 29 years old) and the incarceration lengths ranged from 1 to 20 years (median = 5.8 years). Median time on parole at the time of the interview was 18 months.
We used a purposive sampling technique to contact potential research participants. We had approval to contact parolees at the time they had appointments to see their parole officers, to describe our research, and to ask if they were interested in participating in the research. Each person was told the purpose of the study and if they agreed to participate, they signed a consent form approved by the Colorado State University Institutional Review Board (IRB). With the exception of one male parolee who declined to participate, all of the parolees we contacted agreed to be study participants. Study participants were told that their responses would be confidential and that they could choose not to tape the interview or stop the interview at any time. All of our 70 paroled ex-prisoners were cooperative, agreed to be recorded, and seemed willing to discuss the problems they were facing on parole. The men and women who were interviewed appeared to be open and frank in relating their personal experiences, although at times relating difficult experiences was an emotionally painful process. While there is always concern regarding potential harm to research participants, as Linn (1997) noted, relating their stories may allow respondents to better comprehend their feelings about what they have experienced.
Interviews took place over an 18-month period and were conducted in private rooms at the four parole offices. Each interview lasted approximately 60 minutes and was digitally recorded with the participant’s consent. A semistructured interview format was used, which relied on sequential probes to pursue leads provided by participants. This approach allowed the parolees to identify and elaborate on domains that characterized their parole experiences that they perceived as important rather than relying on the researchers to elicit responses to structured questions.
The interviews were transcribed for qualitative data analysis, which involved a search for general relationships among categories of observations, grounded theory techniques similar to those suggested by Glaser and Strauss (1967). The data were categorized into conceptual domains of parolees’ experiences on parole as identified by the participants. These parole experiences may not be reflective of all reentered ex-prisoners who are on parole, but their narratives raised similar concerns and added voice and depth to the issues that parolees face when leaving prison and returning to the community (Ragin, 1994; Seidman, 1998).
While not part of formal data collection, between interviews we often had informal conversations with parole officers who were interested in discussing their perceptions of parolees’ difficulties in finding employment and meeting their financial obligations. Their insights helped to better inform us about challenges specific to parolees in Colorado. In addition, information provided by parole officers did not conflict with parolees’ accounts and gave us an increased confidence in the validity of our interview data.
Findings
Reentering offenders are in desperate need of employment to financially survive and to successfully complete the mandates of parole, but they may be in the position of facing a vast majority of employers unwilling to consider hiring them. This leaves very few employers and jobs available for the hundreds of parolees leaving Colorado prisons each month, most of whom appear to be competing with each other for the same low-wage positions. The accounts of our study participants revealed the difficulty and frustrations involved in trying to find work, which rarely resulted in employment shortly after leaving prison.
Seeking Employment
Felony convictions and incarceration hampering a search for employment were common themes among our research participants, as related by one male parolee. I request an application, I’ll go in there and fill it out and I’ll return it, give it back to them. About a week or two later I’ll give them a call back just to check on the status of my application, and they just say “They don’t hire felons.” That’s the way it is. Or they tell me, “We will call you back,” or something like that. But I never hear back.
This particular parolee’s rejection in his job search was typical of the vast majority of our study participants.
At times, temporal circumstances prevented some of our study participants from obtaining employment; they claimed that they were not yet out of prison when a job they could have had opened up. One married 37 year-old male parolee expressed his frustration in trying to get a public transportation position. They were like “Sorry, we could have hired you back then” [when I was still in prison]. I could have had a job with RTD (Regional Transportation District) Access. Those small buses where they pick up elderly and mentally challenged people. I now have to wait four and a half months. I applied seven or eight months ago, me and my wife…she went ahead and filled out the application with me for the hell of it and she ended up getting a job.
In this parolee’s account, his wife was laid off from a credit union where she had worked for 9 years. She had no criminal history and had excellent job references and was selected to be a Regional Transportation District (RTD) driver, the job her husband was seeking. The paroled applicant continued to try to get a job with RTD and was quite persistent in his attempts to gain employment with the public bus line. I’ve been keeping contact with the district manager there. He knew me after I got my ankle bracelet off. I called him and he says, “There’s another issue. They (RTD) want to make sure that you have been driving for a year. If you’re still unemployed after a year, I’ll hire you.”
Returning ex-offenders often find themselves in “Catch-22” positions due to restrictions and requirements of parole that can inhibit a successful job search. Many people on parole are prevented from attaining certain types of employment due to state laws or parole rules. For example, they often cannot have a driver’s license until a certain period of time has elapsed without a violation of parole. Such restrictions place many positions that pay decent wages out of reach. While this study participant had been led to believe that he could have had the job if only he had been out of prison, the requirement that he have held a valid license for 1 year prior to being hired would have prevented him from obtaining this desirable job shortly after leaving prison.
Job applicants may try to hide past criminal records from prospective employers, a risky strategy since not reporting one’s past criminal history may be considered a technical violation of the conditions of parole and can result in a return to prison. However, parole officers may use their discretion to overlook this type of violation if the parolee is employed and complying with the other conditions of parole. For most jobs, employers conduct criminal background checks, but these checks are often not completed before the applicant is hired. Lying about a criminal history that is later discovered through a background check is grounds for termination. One participant described how he was willing to take this risk and was able to obtain and keep a job, despite failing to disclose his criminal history. I kind of told a white lie at my interview. It was the only way I could get my foot in the door. They (Subway) were interviewing hundreds of people. The lady that I was interviewing with, I told her that I was married and that my wife got in a car accident and passed away that’s what I told her, to get in the door…I’m 49 years old and I’ve been welding for some years. So, working in a sandwich shop, well, I had to do something to start paying the rent at the halfway house. I needed money coming in. I had to have a job to keep on parole, so I kind of told a white lie to get that job. Once I got in the door and showed them how hard I could work and everything, I ’fessed up and told them the truth.
This parolee, the only person out of all who were interviewed for this study who admitted to being deceitful on his job application, was very fortunate to not be fired when his criminal history came to light. His employer did not terminate him and he had been working for 7 months at the time he was interviewed for this study. Many employers are likely to not be so willing to retain an employee who not only lied on a job application but who also had a criminal record that included time spent in prison.
Family Networks and Employment
About 40% of our study participants resided with their families upon release from prison. These respondents found employment more readily than those who did not parole to their families’ homes. Numerous examples clearly demonstrated the role that family support and family members’ knowledge of available jobs or contacts played in helping parolees find work. In the following examples, employers knew the respondents had been in prison and these parolees were able to find work without having to conceal their former inmate status or to face background checks. One male parolee described finding work through his mother’s contacts. Luckily, my Mom knows the owner and is good friends with her. They go to the same church. She talked to her before I came home. So that’s how I got the job. But, I put in many, many applications, several a day for weeks, and to this day, since I got out (8 months ago), I haven’t got a call back once.
Another parolee offered an explanation of how he found work through friends of his father. My dad’s got a lot of friends that have small farms, so I’ve been helping them all summer, tossing hay bales and doing all kinds of different stuff. My dad and uncle always do side work, like we built a cow shed. Stuff like that’s been basically keeping me afloat. For a couple of months I had a job. That was nice.
While one study participant described that he was fortunate his mother owned a construction company that hired him immediately upon release, ex-inmates typically come from families with low-socioeconomic backgrounds and do not have family members who own profitable and legitimate businesses that can provide the type of employment required to meet parole conditions. Some of our study participants had family members and relatives who played major roles in utilizing community networks to help them find employment, but many returning parolees do not have family members who are willing or able to help them with their job searches. These parolees often depend on friends or acquaintances they knew prior to their imprisonment to help them find work.
Friend Networks and Employment
One female study participant described being fortunate to be rehired as a waitress where she had worked prior to incarceration. At the time of the interview, she had been promoted to night manager. However, her experience was uncommon among our research participants. Many men and women in our study had poor employment histories prior to incarceration and could not contact former employers and realistically hope to be rehired as they left prison.
A more common theme was that of using connections parolees had in their communities prior to their imprisonment, as described by one male participant. I have a friend that has got his own remodeling business. I have known him for 10 years, from the streets. He used to be my neighbor. I told him “Hey, I’m back out. I need work.” [He said] “Okay, come on over.” I remodel houses, drywall, and install floors.
Another ex-offender described making use of friendship connections. The best way to find jobs is through a friend or somebody you know. You ask around. You go there first. ‘Cause that’s how 90% of people get jobs, through somebody they know. Then, from there, you crack down on other jobs, try to make them better. If it’s crappy, you deal with it and then try to make it better. You try to get a better job.
At the time of the interview, this respondent held two jobs, both found by using his network of friends and acquaintances.
One important condition of parole is to not have contact with persons who have criminal records or those who are involved in criminal behavior. These restrictions are designed to prevent parolees from reconnecting with criminally oriented friends and falling back into criminal lifestyles. While they may reduce the chances of connecting with former criminal associates, they also can significantly narrow many offenders’ networks of friends and acquaintances who could potentially offer job information tips.
Finding employment in recent years has been made even more difficult for persons leaving prison. Employment for citizens who have no criminal history has been difficult in our nation’s depressed labor market and many unemployed law-abiding persons compete for similar low-wage positions that, in the past, ex-offenders often were able to obtain. Thus, the burden of finding any employment for those with a criminal record has been made even more challenging.
Employment Isn’t Enough: Additional Financial Obligations
Parolees are expected to find work that pays wages adequate for self-sufficiency. Paying for room and board, if one is not living with family members, is just the beginning of many parolees’ financial obligations. Some obligations are internal to parole, such as payment for drug testing, mandatory treatment, court costs and fines, and restitution. Other legal obligations outside of the conditions imposed by parole may include child support, tax liabilities, and family debt incurred prior to or during incarceration.
Financial obligations related to parole
Ex-prisoners who are not able to live with family members after release and who reside in halfway houses as per their parole plans face additional pressures to find work. Halfway houses in Colorado are operated by private for-profit or nonprofit vendors and have rules regarding rent payment. One halfway house resident spoke of the challenges he encountered in finding work. We went out Monday through Friday about 7:30 AM in the morning until 4 PM in the afternoon looking for jobs. There were quite a few guys there in the halfway house, and I think about 60 to 80 of us were looking for work every day. There were some guys that had been there for months and hadn’t found work.
Halfway house rents average approximately US$400 per month, which parolees are obligated to pay (Colorado Department of Corrections Parole Officer, personal communication, February 20, 2014). Many of our study participants who resided in halfway houses did not find employment for months, which meant that when they did find jobs, they owed several months back rent. The majority of jobs parolees secure pay minimum or close to minimum wage and often are not full time. If they do finally find work, much of their income goes to the halfway house to pay the back rent and they may find themselves no better off than they were when unemployed. As one parolee related, his stay in the halfway house did not ease his return to the community. I think I was there (the halfway house) about a month and a half before I found work. My checks were going straight to the halfway house. I didn’t even get money for the bus or any funds for anything from my payments. The halfway house took my whole check and didn’t give me any of it. I’m still paying them off, actually.
Offenders are often paroled to a halfway house as part of their initial parole plan developed prior to their release from prison. Approximately 25% of our sample were parolees who were required to live in halfway houses upon release. These individuals may suffer the greatest financial burden when compared to other ex-prisoners who reside with their families or those who end up staying in homeless shelters. An important point to note is that if halfway house residents do not pay all of the rent monies owed, they have violated the conditions of their parole and can be returned to prison on a technical violation for nonpayment. Many of our study participants who had paroled to halfway houses spoke of a fear of returning to prison because they had accumulated large debts which they were having difficulty paying.
In many instances, the courts include restitution payments as part of the felony sentence. Restitution technically is not “punishment,” but, rather, a requirement that offenders reimburse their victims for the victims’ financial losses. The restitution obligation follows individuals during their time in prison and payment of restitution is attached as a condition for parole. The determination of the monthly amount of money paid to the victim by the offender is usually set by the parole officer. Payments can vary depending on the parolee’s employment status and amount of income earned and may increase over time if the ex-offender earns a higher salary in the future.
Payments for restitution, charges for mandatory drug and alcohol testing, supervision fees, and mandatory treatment expenses may all be conditions of parole. The total number of required payments was succinctly summed up by one participant. It’s not that I don’t like my job. It’s an alright job. I mean, it’s not something I want to spend the rest of my life at, that’s for sure. Nobody wants to work at Wendy’s forever. I get, like 18–25 hours a week. I have bills to pay. I’ve got restitution payments, supervision fees, child support, [and] I’ve got to live. I’ve got UA’s (urine tests for drug use), BA’s. I get like $300 a paycheck, and that’s for two weeks. A person can’t live off that.
Another study participant described the difficulty of meeting the financial obligations for parole. I have restitution, which is $152 every month. And then I have three UA’s a month, so that’s $45 a month and a $10 parole supervision fee, so that’s about $207 a month.
This parolee was fortunate to not have to make payments to a halfway house since, unlike the majority of our respondents, he lived with his parents and did not have to pay rent. Despite this advantage, he was struggling to meet his financial obligations in order to remain compliant with his parole conditions since the only work he could find was part-time minimum-wage work. In addition, like many in our study, he was not eligible to receive benefits, such as health insurance, sick pay, or retirement, due to his part-time employee status.
Many of our research participants were unclear about the restitution they were required to pay. Unlike other states that do not rely as heavily on restitution, Colorado makes extensive use of restitution and many persons leaving prison do so with significant debts owed to their victims. The majority of offenders do not have the assets to repay their victims prior to leaving prison and few of them obtain employment that provides sufficient income to repay their victims in a timely manner. None of the interviewed parolees knew if they were obligated to pay the entire amount of their restitution. However, they had been told that being discharged from parole was not contingent on a full repayment of their restitution. Even parole agents we spoke with informally were unclear as to what happens to restitution requirements once the other conditions of parole had been fulfilled. When a parolee is discharged from parole, there is no mechanism for ensuring that restitution payments continue. The remaining restitution balance may be sent to collection, which further damages the credit of an individual attempting to make a clean start.
Financial obligations external to parole
Besides parole-required payments, additional financial obligations such as child support and other prior debt may create problems for persons leaving prison. In some cases, prior liabilities may affect family members on the outside. One participant described how his child support debt affected his wife after he went to prison. Schooling is very important to me, but right now I need money. We are homeowners and we have bills. I had an issue; they took my wife’s income because of my past obligations when I was in prison. I owed back child support; they took all of her income tax refund, $6,800, to pay for it.
He and his wife were not able to start over debt-free, which, according to this respondent, would have allowed him to change his life by pursuing an education when he left prison.
Parole Success
A few participants related more positive economic situations. One woman planned for her release from prison by not using the savings she had prior to being sentenced. Another female respondent described her careful use of money while in prison. I had just saved it. I basically used it very minimally. I only used what I needed. I wasn’t greedy. When I got out I had enough money to get my own place. It’s not the best. It’s a little two bedroom.
She also was employed and, unlike many of the research participants, she stated that between her job and her prior savings, she had no trouble paying for her parole-mandated programs.
One respondent described how an unexpected income tax return helped him become less reliant on his parents. I was living with my parents and I would borrow money from them. On my birthday I got an income tax return for the last year I was out, and that helped a lot. That really kind of covered my expenses that I had to pay for, UA’s and everything. Really, I was just lucky.
Inmates who were able to plan for their release and who had the ability to leave prison with some financial resources identified themselves as lucky to be able to meet the mandated expenses required of parole. These individuals appeared to be much less likely to run into problems with technical violations of parole related to nonpayment of mandated parole expenses than their “unlucky” counterparts who left prison with little money, who paroled to halfway houses, who had extreme difficulty in finding employment, and who had multiple financial obligations they had little hope of being able to pay.
Parole Failure
Between interviews with parolees, we casually spoke with parole officers and supervisors about the financial mandates for parole. From these conversations, we learned that it was not uncommon for parolees to abscond or return to criminal activity because they felt overwhelmed by the payments they were unable to make. This was especially true for halfway house residents who were in debt for large sums of money and had no legitimate way to make payments. Study participants who paroled to halfway houses spoke of the dilemma they faced: fearing a return to prison for failing to pay a debt they felt was impossible to overcome or making a decision to abscond because they felt that a return to prison was inevitable.
In addition to the difficulty in paying off halfway house debt, the inability to pay for mandated parole programs, such as required treatment and urine analysis (UA), can result in a technical violation and a potential return to prison. Respondents explained that if one shows up for a UA and is unable to pay, the company giving the test for drug use counts the parolee as a no-show. Two or more missed UA’s are grounds for a technical parole violation. One unemployed parolee described his decision to abscond because he was not able to pay for his required UA’s and group counseling sessions and was in danger of being returned to prison for a technical violation. The first time I absconded for nine months so they caught me. The second time I missed four UA’s and four group sessions because I didn’t have a job. The place that I took the UA’s at told me I couldn’t take them anymore.
This offender’s explanation for absconding was not unique. In short, parolees’ inability to pay for parole mandates that require access to money they do not have may push them to abscond and into parole failure.
Ex-offenders on parole who have difficulty in finding employment also suffer frustrations from their inability to find work and, as the following account demonstrates, these frustrations can lead to negative consequences.
It’s most stressful. Either you go out and get a job right away, or you’re looking and looking. And because you have so much time on your hands, you go back to your old life, relapse, or go back and hang out with the homies.
Not only can unemployment and associating with felons be violations of parole, reconnecting with criminal associates and living the “old life” can result in a return to prison for committing new crimes.
Discussion
Our focus for this study was on financial problems encountered by people leaving prison. As such, this article does not address additional collateral problems, such as mental illness, poor health, drug use, lack of housing and transportation, and other reentry challenges, that many offenders face upon their release from prison and return to their communities (Petersilia, 2003; Pogrebin, Dodge, & Katsampes, 2001). We also did not address racial/ethnic, gender, or age differences because we did not find significant differences between these groups in our sample. However, the median length of time on parole in our sample was 18 months and we likely did not have a good representation of individuals who failed quickly on parole, where racial/ethnic, gender, and age differences may be more apparent. Rather, the stark contrast in our sample appeared to be between those who had access to housing and/or employment help as they left prison and those who were trying to “make it” on their own. Despite the length of time many of our research participants had been out of prison and on parole, the problems they emphasized more than any others related to the financial challenges awaiting them upon release and that subsequently continued and often increased throughout their time on parole.
Parolees often must turn to family members for help, which can be humiliating. One participant described his primary focus as “Getting a job…paying for my parole, my UA’s, and all that stuff. [So] I won’t have to ask people to help me with money.” It must be understood that our study consisted of adults and not juveniles. Not having enough money to pay the mandated parole requirements and having to depend on others can place adult ex-inmates in childlike and dependent situations where they may be perceived by others as the same irresponsible individuals they were before they were convicted and imprisoned.
Those who are not able to achieve long-term and legitimate successes are often viewed by the wider society as possessing individual deficits that result in their economic failure. Without the necessary social capital via economic capital that is so highly regarded in American society, ex-prisoners confront nearly insurmountable odds against becoming productive and accepted citizens in this nation, even if they have a desire to do so. This is a greater challenge for offenders of color, who represent a disproportionate number of imprisoned persons. Not only do they suffer from the pains of societal and institutional discrimination (Western, 2006), they also are competing with many other ex-offenders who are very much like them: individuals who are poorly educated, have minimal legitimate employment histories, and are returning to impoverished communities that offer few chances for legal employment that pay wages sufficient for the basic necessities of life, let alone the additional payments required for successful parole completion.
As researchers in the area of corrections, we are knowledgeable of the literature on reentry problems as ex-offenders return to their communities. We were expecting to find our participants referencing difficulty in finding employment upon release. However, we were not expecting to hear the consistent claim that the most persistent overall problem was other financial obligations that contributed to their financial instability over a lengthy parole period. Without employment, they were doomed to fail. But employment alone was not enough to ensure financial success, since even permanent employment did not appear to resolve the ongoing and often mounting debt associated with parole mandates.
A large percentage of formerly incarcerated men and women may be free from their inmate status but may later find themselves trapped by insurmountable challenges of a different nature: the longevity of stigma and discrimination in a capitalist social structure which places great emphasis on economic success. It is little wonder that reentry so often fails, since for the vast majority of returning felons the odds of attaining legitimate economic stability is almost nil, given the extremely limited financial opportunities available to them. Failure is a realistic consequence of the inability to progress economically in the short term. However, equally concerning is the foreshadowing of a future characterized by persistent failure to succeed. When one cannot succeed economically immediately upon release from prison, when debts incurred related to incarceration and to mandated parole expenses cannot be paid off, and when the future appears bleak for being able to economically succeed, it is understandable why a large percentage of parolees re-offend, abscond, or violate parole rules and return to prison.
In a 5-year follow-up study of inmates released in 30 states in 2005, the Bureau of Justice Statistics reported that 67.8% of ex-prisoners were rearrested within three years of their release and 76.6% were rearrested within 5 years (U.S. Department of Justice, 2014). While many look at these discouraging numbers and attribute reentry failure to personal failings for individuals leaving prison, it may be appropriate to explore whether the low rate of parole success may partially be attributable to various financial challenges placed upon reentering offenders as they return to their communities. The parole system, originally designed to not only provide supervision of individuals leaving prison but to also provide support during the difficult transition from prison to life on the outside, may be playing a significant role in parole failure through the often unrealistic financial expectations that persons recently released from prison have little hope of meeting.
Our study participants’ accounts were filled with frustration and hopelessness. As Wanberg, Glomb, Song, and Sorenson (2005) noted, the inability to achieve even a small piece of the American dream has detrimental effects that can lead to poor self-concepts and bleak futures. The heavy toll of repeated rejection can create a stigma that results in discrimination (Branscombe, Schmitt, & Harvey, 1999) and a negative self-concept (Goffman, 1963), added burdens on ex-offenders as they attempt to return to society. If, as LeBel, Burnett, Maruna, and Bushway (2008) argue, feeling stigmatized is a predictor for reimprisonment, and if hope and self-efficacy are necessary but not sufficient to desist from crime, current parole practices do little to reduce the well-known barriers to successful reentry and may create nearly impossible financial burdens, which give Colorado parolees little reason to hope that they will succeed.
Conclusion
The tremendous increase in the prison population since the 1980s required that the majority of state correctional budgets be spent on the construction of new prisons to house the growing number of inmates. This building boom, combined with the downturn of the economy, has left few financial resources for states to spend on reentry and other correctional programs designed to assist offenders in making successful transitions from prison to the community. High reentry failure rates and a continued lack of resources to adequately address prisoner reentry problems suggest that many parolees will be unable to overcome imposing reentry barriers and will continue to present society with numerous economic and social challenges.
Too many ex-prisoners on parole, as we have attempted to illustrate, are unable to acquire any type of sustainable employment and seem to be on their own as their debts mount. The system itself appears to bear some responsibility for the large amount of debt many parolees incur within a few months after they are released. If parolees encounter nearly insurmountable barriers to obtaining employment that pays enough to meet their financial obligations, if inmates are unable to accumulate “nest eggs” during the imprisonment that could help to offset some of the initial required parole expenses, and if they view parole failure and returning to prison as the likely result of parole, we should not be surprised that so many parolees are unable to successfully reenter society. The privatization of halfway houses and the use of vendors who provide fee-based UA testing, anger management groups, sex offender therapy, and other mandated fee-for-service programs appear to have added to the punitive nature of the parole system while creating barriers that many offenders simply cannot overcome. All play an important role in the “pay or fail” parole-mandated programs, where obligations related to parole place the unemployed, underemployed, and those who suffer from overwhelming financial burdens at a distinct disadvantage. Their path back to a society that cares little and understands less about the challenges these individuals face is not easy. What others see as an uphill climb may be, for many, an insurmountable mountain.
Of course, the results of our study cannot be generalized to other persons leaving prison. Unlike many states, the vast majority of individuals convicted of violent and property crimes in Colorado have restitution orders to repay their victims, an understandable debt that follows individuals as they leave prison. State requirements regarding parole vary significantly and not all inmates reentering society do so under mandatory parole conditions, as do almost all persons who leave prison in Colorado. Colorado is also highly dependent upon private vendors to provide halfway house or other transitional housing, counseling and substance abuse treatment, and other mandated parole requirements. Many of these services are provided by for-profit or nonprofit organizations, but the expenses associated with these parole mandates are paid for by parolees. Colorado also does not pay inmate workers enough for them to set aside any savings to prepare for release and, unless inmates had savings prior to their incarceration or they have family members who can help them financially, they leave prison with little besides prison-issued street clothes and a small “gate check.”
It is little wonder that our research participants all spoke of the financial challenges they were facing and most described feelings of frustration and desperation that they would not be able to “make it” on the outside. Although future research is certainly needed not only in Colorado but in other states to try to understand the full effect of financial limitations on parole success, there is little doubt that returning ex-offenders confront tremendous challenges in finding legitimate employment that allows for self-sufficiency. However, if there are additional structural barriers, such as those in Colorado, that create even more financial difficulties for individuals leaving prison, future research to examine alternative approaches for parole mandates could help to identify whether or not parole outcomes may be related to the economic requirements placed upon persons leaving prison.
Improving reentry outcomes over the last decade has been a major focus for both correctional researchers and practitioners. Practices such as the use of transitional housing and ongoing treatment to help with the change from prison existence to life in a community have been encouraged. However, if the costs of such practices are assigned to individuals who have little ability to pay for these requirements and if a threat of a return to prison for nonpayment of these debts hangs over parolees’ heads, attempts to improve reentry outcomes may be making reentry for many persons leaving prison even more difficult. Finding ways to ease the mandated obligations related to parole may help many persons leaving prison overcome some of the economic challenges they face, which, in turn, may also allow them to believe that a path to economic stability through the legitimate workforce may be more than an impossible dream.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.