Overview
Many people leave prison with few resources and return within a few years. This paper, led by J. Harford, studies a reentry program from the point of view of the people in it: inmates living in a Transitional Housing Unit (THU) of a Pennsylvania state prison while preparing for release. The question was which factors help, which hinder, and what participants wish had been available.
The study is qualitative and uses the Enhanced Critical Incident Technique. Thirty male inmates residing in a THU were interviewed with a set protocol, and the reported incidents were extracted, compared, merged, and sorted into categories.
Key points
- 1,470 incidents were extracted from the thirty interviews: 866 helping incidents, 420 hindering incidents, and 184 wish-list items.
- Each group was organized into ten categories.
- Recognizing a personal need to change was among the largest helping categories and was reported by all thirty participants.
- The largest hindering category was living with inmates who were not invested in the program, reported by 25 participants.
- Wish-list items included individualized plans that could continue to be supported after release.
Event
Academy of Management, August 2019; abstract published in the Academy of Management Proceedings.
Citation
Harford, J., & Chae, C. (2019, August). Helping and hindering factors for inmates meeting the challenges for successful community reentry. Academy of Management Proceedings, 2019(1), 13372. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMBPP.2019.13372abstract