Neighborhood social ecology and individual attributes: integrating the contextual and individual risk factors in reentry
Date
2020
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Publisher
University of Delaware
Abstract
As the United States enters a decarceration era, the factors predicting reentry success have received a rapidly growing body of research attention. The majority of extant studies to explain recidivism draw heavily from micro criminological theories to identify released prisoners’ individual level risk factors such as family relationships, employment stability and subjective intention to desist. A relatively thinner line of research attention has been paid to the factors that go beyond individual attributes. Among a handful of studies that expand beyond individual-level attributes to assess the contextual effect of neighborhoods to which released prisoners return, they predominantly used neighborhood structural/economic characteristics as the proxies of neighborhood context, leaving the roles of community cohesion and disorder understudied in the context of reentry. ☐ This dissertation contributes to the literature by first using an integrative theoretical framework to assess neighborhood social cohesion as well as released prisoners’ individual level risk factors in the context of reentry with a sample of 549 serious adult offenders who were under parole supervision after their release from state prisons of Texas, Illinois and Ohio. In addition, it contributes by capturing another relevant dimension of neighborhood context of individual reentry—crime opportunities and guardianship. The respective effects of drug activities and parole practice on individuals’ recidivism in a community are evaluated. ☐ Multiple regression models are used to assess the disparity of neighborhood cohesion, parole practice and drug activities across different neighborhoods, and their impact on individuals’ reentry and reintegration. The findings provide a comprehensive assessment of the effects of community cohesion, disorder and individual risk factors on reentry outcomes. Findings reveal that although attenuated family bonds and financial difficulty are individual-level risk factors that undermine reentry, they represent only part of the story. When individual risk factors were controlled, neighborhood cohesion and disorder still exhibited significant influence on individuals’ reentry outcomes over and beyond the individual level factors. In addition, parole practice, similar to policing, is not universal but contextual: Parole officers’ support was weaker toward those who dwelled in disordered neighborhoods while stronger toward those who dwelled in cohesive neighborhoods. Lastly, there is an interplay of neighborhood context and parole practice in the reentry process. Parole officers’ support demonstrated an amplified protective effect against recidivism for former prisoners who dwelled in well-ordered communities.
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Keywords
Desistance, Family relationships, Human agency, Parole, Reentry