What We Talk About When We Talk About Parole: Incarcerated Men's Individual and Communal Strategies for Community Reentry

Social bonding theory (Hirschi, 1969) suggests that a supportive social network will improve how individuals experience incarceration and community reentry. Considerable research has illustrated how social support systems contribute to better in-prison behavior, prompt prosocial identity change, and, eventually translate into lower long-term recidivism rates. Yet little research has examined how incarcerated men draw upon their social support networks in the lead-up to release, or how releasing authorities consider evidence of such social support in their decision-making. Here, I rely upon a mixed-methods design to explore these research questions. In Part I, I conducted 107 interviews with incarcerated men about how they utilize social support, both in-prison and out-of-prison, and their perception of how criminal justice administrators view this support. In Part II, I further investigate the parole board decisionmaking process. Using a sample of nearly seven hundred cases (n=694), I examine how the presence of support letters coupled with other behavioral and demographic factors impact release decisions. Collectively, these findings suggest that incarcerated men draw upon limited social support networks leading up to release and reentry, most often concentrating around in-prison support systems, including other inmates and correctional counselors. During the pre-release process, incarcerated men reported concerns over how criminal justice officials interacted with, perceived, and treated their external social support systems. These concerns led incarcerated men to further limit or manage their interactions with family and friends. The quantitative portion largely confirmed inmates' concerns, finding that correspondence-related variables had no impact on release decisions. Instead, behavioral factors---most notably, the recommendation by a correctional counselor---emerged as the most significant factors to parole board member decision-making.