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Abstract Although employment is central to successful reentry, formerly incarcerated people struggle to find work because of criminal stigma, poor education, and sparse work histories. Prison credentials are proposed as one solution to alleviate these challenges by signaling criminal desistance and employability. Evidence regarding their efficacy, however, is inconsistent. In this article, I develop a novel explanation—the prison credential dilemma—highlighting the numerous and contradictory ways employers may interpret prison credentials as positive and negative signals. Drawing on 50 qualitative interviews with formerly incarcerated men in Franklin County, Ohio, I examine howthe prison credential dilemmaand the uncertainty it produces shape their job search strategies and pathways to employment. I find that participants concealed or obscured institutional affiliations of prison credentials on job applications to signal employability rather than their criminal records. In job interviews, however, prison credentials were used to divert conversations away from their criminal record toward skills and criminal desistance via the use of redemptive narratives. Participants also attempted to acquire credentials outside of prison and/or pursued temporary, precarious jobs, aspiring for such physically strenuous and poorly paid work to materialize into stable employment. This study has implications for prison programming as well as policies and practices aiming to improve reentry outcomes.
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Surveillance and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic for formerly incarcerated individuals
To date, most criminal justice research on COVID-19 has examined the rapid spread within prisons. We shift the focus to reentry via in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals in central Ohio, specifically focusing on how criminal justice contact affected the pandemic experience. In doing so, we use the experience of the pandemic to build upon criminological theories regarding surveillance, including both classic theories on surveillance during incarceration as well as more recent scholarship on community surveillance, carceral citizenship, and institutional avoidance. Three findings emerged. First, participants felt that the total institution of prison “prepared” them for similar experiences such as pandemic-related isolation. Second, shifts in community supervision formatting, such as those forced by the pandemic, lessened the coercive nature of community supervision, expressed by participants as an increase in autonomy. Third, establishment of institutional connections while incarcerated alleviated institutional avoidance resulting from hyper-surveillance, specifically in the domain of healthcare, which is critical when a public health crisis strikes. While the COVID-19 pandemic affected all, this article highlights how theories of surveillance inform unique aspects of the pandemic for formerly incarcerated individuals, while providing pathways forward for reducing the impact of surveillance.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1823316
- PAR ID:
- 10364144
- Publisher / Repository:
- SAGE Publications
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Punishment & Society
- ISSN:
- 1462-4745
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- Article No. 146247452210806
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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