“It’s Their World,so You’ve Just Got to Get Through”

Abstract

This article brings together research on parole governance with women’s experiences of reentry. In particular, drawing on longitudinal qualitative interviews with a group of women leaving prison and returning to their communities, the present study highlights the way parole structures women’s reintegration efforts post-incarceration. The women’s experiences highlight how parole governance intersects, conflicts with, and complicates their efforts to return to their communities and transition out of the gaze of the penal state.

Keywords

community corrections reentry parole gender

Introduction

Extensive research documents that leaving prison and returning to one’s community is a challenging transition for most. Indeed, important scholarship identifies a variety of barriers that former prisoners face as they experience the reentry process and work to desist from crime including the challenges of finding housing and employment, reconnecting with family, and accessing health care and other social services (Mallik-Kane & Visher, 2008; Pager, 2003; Petersilia, 2003; Richie, 2001). Notably, individuals navigate these difficulties within a broader social context. For example, the stigma of a criminal record has tremendous impacts on the formerly incarcerated as do various policies and laws that institutionalize a variety of legal and cultural consequences of holding this discredited social identity (Travis, 2005). Feminist scholars have made central contributions to research on reentry and point out the way other identities such as gender and race converge to create additional or unique experiences post-incarceration. For example, women are more likely to experience a lack of familial resources, parental statuses, and trauma backgrounds that shape the resources they draw on as well as the obstacles they face post-incarceration (Huebner, DeJong, & Cobbina, 2010; La Vigne, Brooks, & Shollenberger, 2009; Morash, 2010; O’Brien, 2001).

More recently, researchers also examine how parole intersects the reentry process. Some of this work focuses on understanding the factors that increase one’s likelihood of returning to prison while under the supervision of parole (Lin et al., 2010; Steen & Opsal, 2007; Steiner, Travis, & Makarios, 2011) or how the state can respond in gender-responsive ways (Morash, 2010). More recently, a handful of scholars explored how the institution of parole extends the gaze of the penal state and regulates and governs a group of marginalized people returning to their communities (Pollack, 2007; Turnbull & Hannah-Moffat, 2009; Werth, 2012).

Research that focuses on reentry or parole paints a rich picture of the social conditions that the formerly incarcerated negotiate; however, it remains less clear how women on parole experience, respond, and negotiate the governance of parole and its associated conditions that regulate their lives post-incarceration. The data in this article illuminate this gap. Drawing on longitudinal qualitative data with a group of women newly released from prison, this project illustrates the impact of parole conditions that focus on governing and regulating “risky subjects.” I begin by briefly reviewing the literature that illuminates women’s unique experiences with corrections and, more specifically, reentry. Then, I situate the experience of individuals on parole and explain how this institution intersects the reentry process. Taken together, these bodies of research contextualize the findings I present later, which highlight how parole supervision intersects and complicates women’s reintegrative efforts in ways that makes it more difficult for them to achieve the very goals that parole wants them to attain. In this, it becomes clear how the institutionalized idea of the parolee as one in need of risk management functions to systematically disadvantage them.

Considering Women’s Experiences With Reentry

Social scientists have increasingly pushed the experience of women to the forefront of criminological and sociological inquiries; thus, notable research on their experiences with corrections and reentry exists. This focus is particularly important given that U.S. “get tough on crime” policies—particularly those connected to the War on Drugs—have had significant impacts on women, the extent to which they experience incarceration and, thus, reentry (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004); indeed, since 1980, the number of women held in state and federal facilities increased by well over 600% (Mauer, 2013). Broadly, this body of research tells an important story about the way the correctional system is gendered. Because gender structures the social world—and thus the criminal processing system—women often have different experiences than men before, during, and after incarceration.

Ample research, for example, indicates that women’s experiences of victimization, substance abuse, and mental health issues—created and then perpetuated by tremendous structural inequities—are often central pathways into the criminal processing system (Daly, 1994; Richie, 1996). Prisons, however, seldom effectively address the needs of women they house; even rehabilitative or “gender-responsive programming” thought to be designed to meet women’s unique needs and empower them on their own terms may end up doing the opposite (McCorkel, 2013). As a result, incarceration often ends up increasing women’s experience of marginalization and social inequity, which affects their release and return to the community. Indeed, individuals must navigate intersecting and complex demands and circumstances post-incarceration (Richie, 2001).

For example, motherhood is a central aspect of many women’s challenges as they navigate the correctional system, and as a result, significant research focuses on understanding this aspect of their prison and reentry experiences (Brown & Bloom, 2009; Michalsen, Flavin, & Krupat, 2010). Indeed, many women involved in the criminal processing system are mothers and are more likely to be primary caregivers before and after incarceration than men (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008). Despite evidence that indicates maintaining bonds between children and parents during incarceration can be beneficial for both parent and child, prison rules and policies do not usually facilitate the maintenance of these relationships (Glaze & Maruschak, 2008; Pollock, 2002). Women are often incarcerated in areas that are far from their home (Mumola, 2000); moreover, relationships with their children’s caregivers can be complex and uncertain (Enos, 2001). Thus, physically seeing their children is an even rarer event than other forms of communication such as phone calls and letters (Michalsen et al., 2010). Taken together, these circumstances can amplify mother/child reunification concerns and problems as they leave prison, return to their communities, and try to reestablish relationships with their children (Brown & Bloom, 2009; Ferraro & Moe, 2003; Opsal, 2011).

Negotiating other familial relationships can also be complex for women during reentry. While economic and emotional support from families can be an important aspect of a successful return home (Cobbina, 2010; O’Brien, 2001), families of origins and (ex)partners are often sources of emotional, physical, or sexual abuse prior to incarceration for women. Thus, because avoiding or shedding these relationships might be necessary for women to successfully reintegrate into their communities (Leverentz, 2006), they may also be more vulnerable to social isolation or inadequate support structures.

Finally, women’s involvement in the criminal processing system directly shapes their reentry experience because the “mark of a criminal record” is stigmatizing. Indeed, cultural ideas about individuals with a felony record as well as formal policies that restrict the rights and privileges of individuals with a record create immense reentry obstacles. For example, being encumbered by a felony record makes finding work (Mallik-Kane & Visher, 2008; Pager, 2003) and housing (Bergseth, Jens, Bergeron-Vigesaa, & McDonald, 2011; Travis, 2005) difficult; notably, the very things that having a criminal record limits access to are very often critical aspects of a successful reintegration.

Clearly, then, individuals face a variety of obstacles post-incarceration that can make a return to the community an onerous process. Moreover, feminist criminological scholarship, in particular, highlights the unique ways that gender and the correctional system can shape women’s experiences. I continue to review this important body of research later in this article to contextualize the findings I present. Next, however, I consider the changing role of parole in corrections and the ways this institution intersects the reentry process.

Situating the Experience of the Risky Parolee

The institution of parole, as a form of post-release supervision, is charged with supervising individuals newly released from prison as they return to their communities. The state requires that individuals on parole abide by a set of conditions that regulate their behavior; while the central rule requires a crime-free reintegration into the community, all individuals on parole must also follow a host of technical conditions. In the present study, mandatory conditions of supervision for the women newly released into parole included weekly meetings with their assigned parole officer (PO), mobility restrictions (such as being unable to drive, change residences, and enter into particular establishments such as liquor stores), working or actively seeking employment, not associating with individuals with a record, and attending various forms of treatment. In addition, parole boards and officers assigned supplementary conditions or “targeted” forms of governance (Turnbull & Hannah-Moffat, 2009) to each woman depending on their conceptualization of her risk.

Critically interrogating the way that the institution of parole utilizes technical conditions, as well as understanding how individuals on parole experience them, as this research does, is important for a variety of reasons. For example, the conditions clearly proceed from, and therefore reproduce, hegemonic cultural ideas about good citizenship (Bosworth, 2007). These constructions are gendered and create consequences for women under the gaze of the penal state, especially if their gender performances do not align with correctional discourse (Pollack, 2007). Relatedly, technical conditions often fail to acknowledge or align in many ways with the material conditions of women’s lives. For example, given the disproportionate impact of mass incarceration policies and the reality of concentrated incarceration, the condition prohibiting association between individuals with records is not only impractical but also structurally problematic. In addition, conditions regulate behaviors that under normal circumstances (when a person is not under supervision) or when completed by the right person (not criminal, felon, parolee) are not understood as criminal. However, while serving time on parole, officers can use violations of these conditions as fodder to increase surveillance or reincarcerate. Notably, for many under the supervision of parole, technical violations have become a central route back to jail or prison as revocations make up just over 20% of all prison admissions (Lin, 2010).

These trends are related, in part, to a shifting philosophical orientation of parole. Historically, the foundational goals of parole were centered more heavily on treatment, rehabilitation, and reintegration (Simon, 1993). The orientation of today’s state parole systems are divergent, complex, and often profess that they meet multiple (competing) goals including reintegration, supervision, and public safety. Moreover, parole officer’s on-the-ground actions do not always reflect the discursive mission the state parole system sets forth (Lynch, 1998). Despite this, many of today’s state parole systems provide reintegrative resources but are more focused on surveillance, control-oriented practices, and risk management strategies (Seiter & Kadela, 2003; Simon, 1993; Travis & Stacey, 2010). In the present study, whether it was the intention of the state or parole officers, the women overwhelmingly reported experiencing parole as a form of surveillance rather than as a reintegrative process; they explained that its purpose was to “catch people” or “keep an eye on them” and that it allowed the state to say to the community “this person is being monitored.”¹

Cultural technological advancements in addition to a neoliberal climate emphasizing individual responsibility have provided the fodder for parole to advance in this way. In practice, parole officers rely heavily on surveillance technologies such as electronic monitoring, Global Positioning System (GPS), and (especially) drug testing to monitor their caseloads (Petersilia, 2003). Notably, the growing use of this latter strategy has distinct impacts on women and women of color, in particular, because their drug use over the past three decades has been increasingly criminalized and brought under the prevue of the state (Chesney-Lind & Pasko, 2004). Regardless of the focus of the condition, scholars have criticized them as being unrealistic, redundant, and impractical, thus, impeding a successful return home (Jacobson, 2005; Travis & Stacey, 2010).

While researchers surmise that parole complicates an already difficult reentry process, fewer projects illuminate precisely how these challenges directly manifest in the lives of people on parole (for notable exceptions, see Opsal, 2009; Pollack, 2007; Werth, 2012). This article highlights this process and illustrates how the institution shapes the reentry process because it conceptualizes the parolee as a risky subject who must be governed in risk-appropriate ways via technical conditions (Turnbull & Hannah-Moffat, 2009). In particular, I consider how the gaze of the state and the resultant conditions that regulate individual-level risks and choices parole deems as problematic interrupts the women’s efforts to connect with roles, relationships, and institutions that could ease their return to the community.

Method

The findings presented in this article are based on a series of open-ended, semi-structured, qualitative interviews conducted with 43 women under the supervision of parole. I conducted first-round interviews with women as soon as possible after their release from prison; second-round interviews (n = 30) occurred approximately 3 months after the first. Consistent with grounded theory (Charmaz, 2009), I interviewed nine women a third time after they had been out of prison for at least 1 year to fine tune themes that emerged as central during data analysis.

To recruit for the study, I initially partnered with a women’s prison from which nearly all women in Colorado release. They allowed me to enter the facility weekly and talk with women about to be released to the community. As the study progressed, I relied on other recruitment methods including local community organizations that provide resources to newly released individuals, as well as snowball sampling. Women were often exposed to a variety of recruitment materials before they contacted me.

These recruitment and sampling strategies produced a diverse sample in age, race, and ethnicity. Specifically, the age of participants ranged from 23 to 54 years (M and median = 37). Forty-four percent of the sample were White, 35% Black, and 16% Native American; in comparison with all women released to parole in the state during sample recruitment, Black women are overrepresented. All women in this sample were released to an urban center and were under the supervision of parole officers in four different offices distributed throughout the city.

The majority of women released into precarious economic circumstances. To meet their initial financial needs, most women relied on a combination of support from family, as well as government resources. The majority of women (77%), however, acknowledged that these sources were inadequate to meet their needs and set out to search for work on release. Two thirds of the women initially lived with family or in a privately run reentry residential facility while a full one quarter released homeless. Thirty-one (72%) women reported they were mothers. While some reported their children were placed with the state’s foster care system when they were incarcerated, other women called on extended family to provide temporary care for their children. However, on release from prison, no women had immediate custody.

Finally, I systematically coded and analyzed data in several stages using NVIVO software. Drawing on a grounded theory approach (Charmaz, 2009), I coded each interview using a line-by-line approach, looked for common patterns among the narratives, and developed broad analytic themes that characterized the data that I present in this article. The findings presented here draw on developing research on women, reentry, and parole as a form of governance. In particular, the findings I present next show various ways parole—as a form of governance—intersects and complicates women’s reentry, desistance, and reintegration efforts.

Conflicting Demands, Disrupted Reentry

As new releases, all the women in this study expressed a strong desire not only to complete parole successfully but also to be different kinds of people “on the outs.” About this, Deidra explained,

I just don’t want it any more. It’s different than before. Before I wanted it. I was doin’ it [not using] just ’cause of the courts, just ’cause of the system, whatever. But this time I’m doin’ it [not using] because I want to do it . . . I want to make it this time. I want to find out what life’s really all about, ’cause I don’t know.

These types of narrative projects assist people in creating new (pro-social) self-concepts, and although these narratives may be fractured (Werth, 2012) or disrupted (Opsal, 2011), they can be central to going straight (Maruna, 2001). Parole helps craft the bounds of these narratives because the institution provides explicit direction around what is respectable behavior; it also functions as the proving grounds for these emerging self-concepts given the costs associated with being understood by parole as non-compliant. In addition, however, the following data I present illustrate how the women experienced parole as a central obstacle to engaging in and manifesting the roles that are crucial to these narrative projects.

Becoming an Employee

Throughout the 20th century, employment has played a significant role for the institution of parole (Simon, 1993). Parole officers have consistently relied on labor as a normalizing institution, a source of social control, and as a sign of competent reintegration. As stated earlier, in the state wherein these women were under supervision, not seeking work is considered a violation of one’s parole agreement. Thus, it is not surprising that the majority of participants in the present study reported understanding that being a successful parolee meant being an employee. Despite this, however, parole directly impeded the women’s ability to work. About this, Alice explained,

I don’t want to lose what I’ve worked so hard gaining just because I have a—sometimes it’s a balancing act and it scares me a little bit. I may wake up and [my boss] may try calling me into work and I’ll call the color line and they’ll tell me I have a UA and there’s no one in here [at work] to cover and then I’ll look like I’m the irresponsible one. But who I am responsible to? I have two people that I am accountable to . . . so it kind of scares me.

As Alice describes, parole challenged her ability to fully commit to work and subsume an employee identity in instrumental ways. Other women, like Alice, explained how the conditions of parole got in the way of work. For example, on any given day that they were working, participants may also be expected to submit to a urinary analysis (UA), report to their parole officer for a check-in, report to their case manager, attend a counseling session, or participate in other group or individual programming. Moreover, parole stipulated that no new release could drive; thus, women had to negotiate these competing demands by walking, navigating public transportation, or relying on social networks.

As new releases, parole governance was particularly high and, thus, often particularly disruptive to work. However, women reported that some POs were willing to be flexible to mitigate the amount of conflict parole obligations had on their working commitments. Participants explained that some POs changed curfew hours, found alternate classes that fit with their schedules, and—after “proving” themselves—even cut back on the number of times a month they needed to drop UAs. Some POs, though, were not accommodating or open to these changes; furthermore, some women did not want to approach their POs with any kind of request because they preferred to “fly under the officer’s radar” believing that any extra attention they called on themselves was bad attention.

Notably, then, rather than mitigating these competing demands through parole, women more commonly reported looking for work that fit around their parole schedule. Ashley found telemarketing work early in her job search and explained with enthusiasm,

They’re offender-friendly! They allow me time to go drop UAs if I need to. They allow me time to go see my parole officer. I don’t know if he’s the owner or the manager, he’s an ex-offender. So he totally understands what we’re coming from and where we’re coming from . . . and so it’s cool because it allows me time to go see [my parole officer] when I need to, it allows me time to go do my UAs when I need to. I’m off in time to go to group on Monday night.

While “felon friendly” is typically conceptualized in public policy conversations as jobs open to individuals with a record, for these women, the phrase took on a different meaning and referred to flexible jobs willing to take on employees negotiating competing demands from the criminal processing system. Likewise, “felon-friendly,” in the present study, nearly always meant jobs characterized by low wages, sporadic hours, little or no upward mobility, and no benefits. As women attempted to mitigate the conflicting demands set forth in their parole conditions with their attempts to become workers, they simultaneously funneled themselves into low-wage labor. Clearly, individuals with records enter into low-wage labor for a multitude of reasons (Flowers, 2010). However, the women in this study “chose” this type of work because they viewed it as a way to meet parole expectations without conflict. Clearly, though, this strategy that enabled them to negotiate parole governance produced different problems for the women in this study because it contributed to their economic marginalization.

Occasionally, parole intersected women’s working pursuits in other more directly harmful ways. For example, Linda found a job working the front desk of a motel near her home. She explained that she worked the graveyard shift, in a marginalized neighborhood that, for her, often meant navigating requests for rooms from people who could not pay. On rare occasion, these interactions would result in her contacting the police for assistance. Repeated police contact and interacting with “high-risk” individuals were red flags for her PO, and he asked her to try and find other work. When she did not, he increased his own surveillance of her by often stopping into her workplace. About this, she explained,

So he came in [to work] on the night of the 12th and I just happened not to be working. My boss was working that night. And he started reaming my boss about, “She’s having too much police contact. I don’t like the hours she’s working.” So I walked into work on Sunday and he’s [my boss] like, “I need you to come into my office,” so I went into his office, and he was like, “I can’t deal with that. I can’t deal with your parole officer coming in here. I’m gonna have to let you go.”

These experiences illustrate a number of important issues regarding parole governance, the way it complicates reentry, and its consequences for the women in this study. Clearly, parole governed the women’s relationships to employment in ways that often did not facilitate their reentry into the public sphere; this is particularly problematic given that these women are already navigating a labor market from a disadvantaged position. Indeed, women enter a gendered labor market that shapes the opportunities and wages available to women and, especially, women of color. Furthermore, the stigma of a criminal record limits their job opportunities (Pager, 2003) as do legal restrictions. Indeed, participants looking for entry-level positions in pink-collar ghetto work such as child care, health care, and office work found that they were not eligible because of their record.

Furthermore, it is particularly problematic that parole adds extra layers of complexity to women’s attempts to integrate into the labor market post-incarceration given that it is an established turning point for individuals returning to their communities. Because work is a pro-social institution (Sampson & Laub, 1993) that decreases economic marginalization (Holtfreter, Reisig, & Morash, 2004) and is a hook for change that shifts one’s self-concept (Giordano, Cernkovich, & Rudolph, 2002; Maruna, 2001), even those who gain marginal employment opportunities are more likely to succeed post-incarceration than those with none (Uggen, 2000). Although historically a more robust finding for men, research also provides notable evidence that working is a central aspect of women’s successful reintegration (Farrington, 2007; Flowers, 2010; Opsal, 2012; Uggen & Kruttschnitt, 1998).

Here, then, as Turnbull and Hannah-Moffat (2009) posit, “parole conditions are a technique of discipline and self-governance . . . that is simultaneously responsibilizing and de-responsibilizing” (p. 537); indeed, the paroled subject is understood as both an agent who must take responsibility for his or her own (pro-social) change and as culpable, risky, and in need of monitoring and direction. The consequence of this conceptualization for the women in this study was that the institution was simultaneously committed to their failure and success as employees.Although parole was committed to developing law-abiding citizens who work, this goal could not come at the sacrifice of the women’s own governability.

On Mothering: Resuming the Role as a Risky Proposition

The vast majority—nearly three quarters—of the women in the present study were mothers and narrated a strong connection to this identity often pointing to their mother selves as a primary reason to go straight. Like employment, research indicates that parenting can be an important “hook for change” in the desistance and reentry process. In the case of women, while mothering from economic margins can certainly be an entry point into crime, an emerging body of literature indicates that being a mother can also serve as a source of motivation to stay away from drugs and crime and, under particular conditions, enhances the likelihood of desistance (Edin & Kefalas, 2011; Kreager, Matsueda, & Erosheva, 2010). Given this empirical reality alongside participant’s strong identification as mothers, it is notable that very few women in the present study pursued full custody of their children on release; parole often shaped and constrained women’s capacity to do so.

When the state sentenced Elana to prison, it also court-ordered her 11-year-old son to reside with her father; thus, on release, she was able to see him regularly but explained,

Elena:

It’s just like, I want to be a loving, attentive [parent] like when he was a baby . . . it’s just really hard to get back into that because I’m afraid that somethin’s gonna go wrong . . . maybe I’ll be locked back up again . . .

Interviewer:

Do you have that concern with parole?

Elana:

Yeah, I’ve always got—even though I know I’m doing the right thing, but it’s always your word against theirs. If they say you’re doing something, if something even remotely happens and they think you’re guilty, what they do is, they lock you up [in jail] until you go back before parole . . . I mean I know that I’m doing good, but I don’t know if anything’s gonna happen. It’s always in the back of your mind that something could happen at any time.

Interviewer:

Do you think that affects your relationship with your son?

Elana:

I think it does. I know he’s worried, too, that I might go and I’m worried that I might leave him and disappoint him again. It’s hard.

Women who knew their caregivers and had some form of contact with their children on release often spoke of maintaining physical or emotional distance from their children for some time. Many, like Elana, were motivated to do this out of fear they would desert and disappoint their children again. Such concerns, however, were less about their own individual-level culpability and more about the unpredictability of parole supervision and PO decision making. In other words, being understood as a compliant parolee by one’s PO (and thus maintaining freedom on the outside) was not an objective reflection of one’s behavior. As a result, being subject to continued state supervision made fully reconnecting with children a risky proposition for these mothers.

For other participants, parole supervision more directly shaped their capacity to reconnect with children and resume mothering responsibilities. Some women were unable to have contact with their children once they released to the outside because parole explicitly prohibited it or because a technical condition of their parole agreement somehow made contact with their kids illegal. Ronda’s children, for example, moved to California to reside with Ronda’s parents when she and her ex-husband were arrested and imprisoned for fraud. On release from prison, Ronda immediately requested a parole transfer to that state so she could both serve out her parole sentence and be reunited with her children. She explained that her PO told her, “No, you have to get established here, you’re not going back to California.” Ronda feared she would not have the economic resources or support system to relocate her kids from California. Although she planned on reuniting with them as soon as possible, in the short-term, parole prevented her from fully taking on the mother role. Daisy was also prohibited from having contact with her child when she released from prison because Daisy’s son was with her ex-partner who had a felony record. Parole forbade her from having contact with either. About this, Daisy explained matter-of-factly, “I talk[ed] to him to see my son. I wasn’t supposed to, but I did. That’s my son. I haven’t seen my son in two years, and I’m gonna see my son.”

Like Daisy, a few other women explained they too violated technical conditions of their parole agreement to see their children. In his work on how individuals on parole “restructure rules,” Werth (2012) explains that participants complied with “important rules” such as drug testing because they “were easily visible to parole agents, while the superfluous rules tended to be ones whose violations was less likely to be detected” (p. 340). In addition, though, the findings presented here indicate that for many women, being a mother was central to their self-concept. Thus, to enact that identity to some degree, they were willing to violate these less visible rules and prioritize being a mother. These kinds of choices also illustrate how technical conditions—and by extension, the gaze of the state—is gendered. Indeed, incarcerated women are more likely to have relationships with their children before and after serving time in prison than men (Mumola, 2000); in addition, men’s prescribed gender role does not include intimate connection or caretaking of their children, whereas women’s attempt to connect with their kids after being in prison can be viewed as an extension of their culturally expected gender roles. Thus, by forbidding and regulating their contact with children, parole puts these mothers in a lose–lose situation where, ultimately, they become more at risk of failing as both mothers and parolees.

Notably, Black mothers were significantly less likely to report experiencing problems balancing motherhood and parole than either White or Hispanic women. This can be explained, in part, because Black women in this study were more likely to be mothers to adult children and more likely to have experienced formal custodial revocation by the state prior to their incarceration. However, Hispanic and White women were much more likely to retain formal custody of their children while they were incarcerated; White mothers, in particular, were significantly more likely to report that their children remained in the care of kin networks. While informal kin networks of support are typically understood as stronger among families of Blacks and ethnic minorities (Hogan, Hao, & Parish, 1990), the state has simultaneously scrutinized poor, Black, women’s child-rearing practices to a higher degree (Mink, 2001; Roberts, 1999). Indeed, in the case of the present research, it appears that White and Hispanic women had to spend more time negotiating being parolees and mothers because their parental rights were more likely to be intact and unsevered by the state.

Robert Werth (2012) explains that parole represents a liminal position—somewhere in between incarcerated and free, and that individuals on parole must learn how to navigate and respond to this fractured position. The data here, in particular, illustrate how liminality functions in the lives of women post-incarceration as they negotiated parole governance alongside parenthood. The state, rather than viewing motherhood as an opportunity to motivate and facilitate reentry, viewed it—at best—as irrelevant or—at worst—as a risky site in need of regulation. As a result, participants were compelled to maintain physical or emotional distance from their children or violate the conditions of their parole agreement to enact the identity to some degree.

The Consequences of Regulating Women’s Relationships

As presented so far, a central facet of parole governance is regulating the behavior of its clients. A central organizational effort to realize this goal entails the condition prohibiting association with persons the state deems as anti-social or contributing to the risky subject’s criminality. In the case of the present study, this translated into anybody who had a criminal record. The parole agreements read:

You shall not associate with anyone with a criminal history (including felonies, misdemeanors, municipal codes, or offenders in facilities or halfway houses), without prior permission from your Community Parole Officer (this also includes correspondence by phone, mail, or electronic messaging). You must submit the names and dates of birth of any person you would like to associate with to your Community Parole Officer. Not knowing that they have a criminal history is not an excuse. It is your responsibility to ask them, and to ask your Community Parole Officer for permission.

Based on assumptions of social bond theory, this type of targeted governance exists to discourage the development of relationships and circumstances that might inhibit ties to conventional relationships and institutions. However, as I illustrate throughout this section, this—and other conditions that restrict mobility—governs in a vacuum because it does not acknowledge the structural or material conditions that exist in the lives of many formerly incarcerated women.

Creating a System of Support

Relationships are often at the center of sociological research on crime, delinquency, desistance, and reentry. Most existing research on the role of support systems in the lives of the previously incarcerated focuses on the importance of family in providing material and economic resources to individuals on release from prison (La Vigne & Kachnowski, 2005; Visher & Travis, 2003). There is evidence, though, that women are more likely to navigate obstacles in garnering a network of support. For example, women have a more difficult time reconnecting with family post-incarceration (La Vigne et al., 2009; Leverentz, 2011; O’Brien, 2001), and opposite-sex romantic partnerships are less likely to create opportunities for desistance (Leverentz, 2006). In addition, Pollack (2007) posits that correctional risk discourses can be a site of control regulating women’s relationships on the outside.

The women in the present study explained that familial and peer relationships played significant roles in their lives as they returned to their communities. Participants stated these kinds of relationships provided them with a sense of belonging, emotional support, and motivation to stay out of prison. Many, however, were frustrated that parole prohibited contact with individuals who were previously or currently under the supervision of the state. Alice explained,

I know people that used to have the [criminal] life and now they’re not in that life. And I would love to be able to talk to them and gain some insight . . . I have more in common with them than the average person and when I see myself going through troubles that are related to feeling like crap when I come back from going on an apartment search and having them tell me, “get the hell out of here” [because I am a felon and they won’t rent to me]—no one really relates. They’re like, “oh that’s bad.” But they’re not like, “dude, I know that sucks. Don’t worry about it, there’s this little place [that rents to felons]”—they know about these things because they’re felons.

Relatedly, women who lived in transitional housing that were strictly composed of individuals currently under the supervision of the state found dealing with association conditions particularly uncertain and frustrating. POs instructed these women that it was permissible to socialize at the house but that they could not “run around” with one another outside of the supervision of the transitional home.

Given the way the stigma of a criminal record shapes and constrains women’s housing and employment opportunities (as well as their ability to form new or different social networks) alongside law and policy that endorse numerous invisible punishments, the women in the present study were often compelled to ignore this condition for the sake of their own survival on the outside. Indeed, many, like Alice expressed above, valued the perspective of individuals who were currently or had already navigated the reentry process because they were relatable, supportive, and sources of valuable logistical information. Thus, most participants explained their networks of support were made up mostly or entirely of people with a history of involvement in the criminal processing system.

A few women (n = 6), however, responded differently to this situation. Dina explained,

Right now, I don’t really talk to anybody because I don’t want to get back involved with the wrong crowd, with the wrong kind of friends. So I don’t know. I feel—that’s why I feel lonely and unsupported I guess.

For this group of women, then, parole conditions stipulating what appropriate relationships looked like meant that they established no bonds at all, thus isolating themselves from people, relationships, and sources of emotional support. The effect of this self-isolating behavior is particularly problematic in the case of women, given that research notes gender differences with regard to support networks and friendship. In particular, intimate, healthy, friendships are important sources of social and psychological well-being for women (Comas-Diaz & Weiner, 2013; Miller & Stiver, 1997). Relatedly, O’Brien (2001) explains that for the women in her study, emotionally supportive relationships were a “crucial ingredient” (p. 115) for them as they reconstructed their lives after prison. Considering these dynamics alongside research that indicates women draw on less familial support on release than men raises a number of concerns about social support inadequacy, the impact this has on women post-incarceration, and the way parole systematically exacerbates this concern as it focuses on mitigating women’s risk factors by regulating their relationships.

Finding a Place to Call Home

Finally, finding safe and secure housing is central to a successful reentry; housing provides individuals with shelter as well as a secure foundation on which to build (O’Brien, 2001). In addition, residing in a stable home is often a requirement for women seeking to reunite with children post-incarceration. Unfortunately, finding housing can be difficult for individuals newly released from prison. Research indicates that although some who leave prison are uncertain what they will be able to call home, most individuals initially depend on their families to provide them a place to lay their heads but wind up shuttling between “family, friends, shelters, and the streets” (Travis, 2005, p. 219). Parole officials report that finding housing for parolees is “by far their biggest challenge”—even more difficult than finding a job (Petersilia, 2003, p. 120); economic marginalization, stigma, and public housing exclusions for individuals with felony records are all tremendous obstacles (Bergseth et al., 2011). The women in the present study experienced many of these same difficulties in their search for housing. However, parole rules that governed their relationships and movement created additional obstacles and structured their housing choices.

All the women in this study explained that residential planning began prior to their release. Case managers assisted them in creating “parole plans” that served as concrete planning tools where participants confirmed where they hoped to live, potential jobs, and resources they would utilize to facilitate their transition. Before release, POs typically visited proposed homes and approved or denied requests. The women in this study had very few promising housing options at this stage. Participants who had no other options often requested to release to privately run transitional housing facilities; many, however, initially asked to live with family or friends. Parole officers denied the requests of one third (n = 7) of those women who requested to live with relatives or peers.

Daisy explained she was not allowed to live with her grandmother—one of her only surviving relative in the state—because her uncle, who was serving time on parole, resided there. In addition to denying residential requests because somebody in the residence had previously had some form of contact with the criminal processing system, parole officers deemed residences unsuitable for other reasons. Lou Lou, for example, could not live with her niece because her husband was drunk when the parole officer visited the home, while Rae’s parole officer denied her request to live with an 81-year-old friend who kept a gun in the home. While two of these women found other relatives to live with that parole found suitable, the remaining five women released directly from prison to the cities’ central homeless shelter that contracted beds with the Department of Corrections.² Linda explained what she viewed as the irony of being displaced from a friend’s or relative’s house to this homeless shelter:

You’re getting out on parole and they’re going to stick you in the middle of they call it, “crackville or methville” because you can walk out the door and there’s people shooting heroin on the corner. That’s not what you’re going to need because most women are drug addicts that go to prison. They drop you off there and you walk out the door and that’s the first thing you see.

Thus, POs understood space as problematic because of its potential to mobilize anti-social actions via relationships. More precisely, however, POs problematized these spaces because they were outside of the state’s scrutiny. Indeed, after disallowing women to reside with “problematic” relatives or friends, POs typically helped women find a bed in a shelter in a space surrounded by public, criminal behavior but where the rules of the shelter and the supervision of the staff extended the structure and surveillance of the parole system. The same logic applied to women whose POs encouraged them to reside in transitional facilities. All these facilities were located in economically marginalized neighborhoods where, as I conducted field research, I often observed public buying and selling of drugs, prostitution, and gun fire. Yet, these spaces were constructed as suitable—whether or not the women themselves found them so—because the facilities provided state-approved structure, programming, and surveillance.

Conclusion

Over the past decade, researchers have increasingly turned their attention toward documenting and understanding post-incarceration reentry. Feminist scholars have made a central contribution to this body of work by exploring and bringing attention to the post-incarceration experiences of women (Morash, 2010; O’Brien, 2001; Richie, 2001). Researchers, however, have been less likely to examine how women experience parole supervision and its forms of targeted governance while on parole; this is the central goal of the present article. In particular, I shed light on the way parole governance intersects, conflicts with, and complicates the desistance, reentry, and reintegration efforts of women transitioning out of the gaze of the penal state.

The women’s narratives provide considerable and poignant evidence that parole supervision did not—in important ways—facilitate women’s reentry into roles that could have aided their reintegration into their communities. Specifically, while parole required that the women in this study work, or at least actively seek employment, parole conditions as well as PO enforcement of those conditions shaped the kind of work women looked for while colliding in more direct ways that occasionally cost women their jobs. The vast majority of the participants in this study were in economically perilous positions, and the extra burdens created by parole exacerbated their situations.

Similarly, parole governance limited the extent to which women reconnected with their children once they released from prison. For some, this meant limiting contact or maintaining emotional distance out of fear that being a parolee represented a liminal space that threatened their ability to be a mother; for other women, however, parole directly impeded their capacity as a parent making contact with their children somehow a violation of their parole agreement. Morash (2010) posits that parole agencies occasionally exerted control over women in her study by punishing them when they suspected child endangerment. The present study builds on this idea and illustrates that parole used motherhood as a site of social control over some women. This parole-created conflict, in particular, was a significant source of stress for the women I interviewed.

Another theme the women in this study depicted centered on the problematic ways parole intersected their lives, particularly how the institution governed relationships. Because parole regulates in ways that assumes parolees are not yet prepared for conventional self-governance (Turnbull & Hannah-Moffat, 2009), the institution prioritized limiting women’s contact with associates understood as potentially criminogenic (and thus potential sources of risk for their clients). Limiting association is particularly complex for individuals releasing from prison because it ignores the structural reality of concentrated incarceration (Clear, 2009). Indeed, differential enforcement of drug and other “get tough” laws and policies helped create the socially, economically, and politically marginalized communities to which most of the women in this study released. Thus, the women explained that it was particularly difficult adhering to this form of governance given that the women’s communities, social networks, families, and places of employment almost always contained individuals with who they were not supposed to be associating. The women, however, also explained how this condition affected their ability to draw on their limited social capital, find housing, and form emotionally supportive bonds, all of which research indicates are central to a successful reentry process and, in addition, would have eased their efforts to return to their communities.

Pollack (2007) as well as Turnbull and Hannah-Moffat (2009) explain that the governing of relationships by parole is a gendered project because official explanations of women’s offending have become wrapped up in relationships. In other words, criminal justice rhetoric and, in some cases, programming, has come to conceptualize women’s risk factors as stemming from their choices to become involved with the wrong kinds of friends and intimate partners. As a result, parole (and other criminal justice programming) increasingly regulates women’s relationships. The present project illustrates how women on parole experience the consequences of these policies and how they are gendered.

Ultimately, this analysis of parole governance—in the context of women’s lives—demonstrates that women experience parole as layers of supervision that have a cumulative negative effect on their reentry. Although many, like those on parole in Werth’s (2012) study, resisted total compliance and navigated governance in different ways, (re)incarceration always loomed as a possibility. Parole, then, not only “contradicts with the demands of everyday life” (Turnbull & Hannah-Moffat, 2009, p. 548) but can also systematically work against parole’s goal of reintegration. In fact, although the institution desires to simultaneously manage public safety and reintegration, these women’s experiences with parole indicates that it ultimately functions to create governable subjects.

What, then, would a more effective system of parole look like? Based on the findings discussed here, not only should parole encourage individuals to work or connect their clients to employment resources but POs should also make serious efforts to make sure that fulfilling parole and work obligations do not conflict with one another. Parole can achieve this, in part, by offering flexible ways to meet parole conditions or extending the hours parole offices are open. Moreover, while PO “field visits” to employment sites can be a useful way for them to understand how their clients are doing, POs must simultaneously recognize that their visits are disruptive to the workplace and often experienced as embarrassing or stigmatizing.

In addition, POs must see that women on parole are often mothers, and as a result, parenthood is an area of stress, concern, and focus during their reentry process. Parole officials would be wise to view motherhood as an opportunity rather than as a site of risk and control. As addressed earlier, some women use their mother identity as avenues to desist from crime. Thus, parole should facilitate women’s reintegration into this role—when appropriate for child and mother—by, for example, connecting women to relevant social service or legal agencies or not forbidding contact. By not making changes in this sphere, parole will continue to create stress in mothers’ lives as they navigate uncertain custodial relationships. This issue best highlights the way that parole—at least in the present study—fails to incorporate effective gender-responsive programming and pursues “reintegration” in an androcentric way. While gender-responsive programming may (re)regulate women under the supervision of parole in different but equally problematic ways (Pollack, 2007), women on parole also point out that this type of programming is positive and impactful (Morash, 2010). Thus, this article highlights the need for exploration of gender-responsive reentry and parole programming, the way women experience it, and how this type of state supervision affects and shapes their return to their communities.

Finally, parole authorities should reconsider the utility of the condition of association as it ignores the reality of concentrated incarceration. Moreover, the absence of a criminal record (and thus, the absence of this form of governance) certainly does not illuminate, with precision, “pro-social” others. Thus, to facilitate former prisoners’ buildup of an effective social support system and to limit unnecessary revocations due to the enforcement of the condition, parole should minimize the extent to which they list it on a parole agreement.

In the end, then, parole must consider the lived structural and cultural realities of parolee subjects as well as the multiple identities they hold; indeed, parolees are also mothers, children, employees, and friends, and the institution would be wise to capitalize on individuals’ attempts to inhabit these identities. These kinds of shifts would create an institution that compliments women’s existing efforts and desires to “go straight” rather than working against them.

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) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study was supported by the National Science Foundation (Grant 0703468) and a fellowship from the American Association of University Women.

Notes

Author Biography

Tara Opsal is an assistant professor in the Sociology Department at Colorado State University. Her current research interests include gender, prisoner reentry, and environmental crime and justice. Her most recent research has been published in journals such as Qualitative Research, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, and Sociological Inquiry.

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