“A Mixed Bag Of Tricks”: Desistance and Social Care During the Pandemic
- Peyton K Yourch
- Dec 16, 2020
- 35 min read
INTRODUCTION
During the course of my life, studies, and this research specifically, I have found that desistance and the journey to desistance is muddled with barriers that encourage reoffending, specifically for Black and Latinx individuals. In my work and studies, I was able to observe the struggle for post-incarceration success in one’s rehabilitation, the most influential success being financial stability, which created a “nothing to lose” mentality towards reoffending. Upon the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, I went to a protest and during a speech that voiced the fears of a “nothing to lose” mentality and I thought back to that experience and considered the general opportunity cost of desistance during a pandemic when “nothing to lose” might turn into “nothing at all”. My studies have taught me that the United States punitive justice system is one strongly rooted in racism, and the punishment of incarceration is not over when time has been served.
I found myself eager to know more about how the unique circumstances of the pandemic and how the economic relief provided institutionally played a role in desistance and where it had gaps. The CARES Act and housing moratorium have provided some of the most universally eligible relief packages that would be the most likely to potentially support formerly incarcerated individuals. However, it would be naive to believe that this policy was made with the formerly incarcerated in mind, but the potential support would be an unintentional benefit. There were ways that a disproportionately large sum of formerly incarcerated were disqualified but being formerly incarcerated wasn’t a disqualifying factor itself. In this paper I pose the following question: How has the social care policy afforded during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, impacted formerly incarcerated individuals in their journey to desistance and where were its gaps?
I argue that cash assistance and other social care policies during the pandemic aided desistance in the immediate term but failed to address gaps caused by the displacement of incarceration. The information my interviewee, a facilitator at a reentry program, provided explained the policy primarily as a “mixed bag of tricks” when she discussed the role it played for her clients. She emphasized the policy was a necessity for most if not all of her clients, like with many people, but lacked longevity because it demonstrated the lack of financial education caused by displacement from incarceration.
METHODOLOGY
Desistance Research and Methods
In Farrington’s article, “Advancing Knowledge About Desistance” (2007) they discuss the complications of measuring desistance and how it would be most effectively done. I would like to address these recommendations and how I am taking them into consideration concerning the methodology of my research. Desistance has two main problematic elements when measuring; (1) false desistance- since desistance as a measurement is the absence of an event, one can never be sure that the event won’t happen unless the individual dies and; (2) “true” desistance- when an subject does die and they will definitely not recidivate, that doesn’t measure the theory as to why a researcher posits that they didn’t recidivate. This is present in all research on desistance and should be taken into consideration when reading this research.
Additionally, Farrington (2007) advocates for how desistance should be measured in the future. They mention that it should be collected with both self-reported and official reports of desistance because they offer different pieces of information. Self-reporting can provide more intimate reasons as to why they have desisted, an earlier declaration of desistance than official reports may provide and records their desistance to account for if they have actually abstained from crime or if they haven’t been convicted of a crime. Official reports provide more uniform data on demographics and patterns that can be recognized and apply inferences to the general population. When they are used in conjunction with one another a researcher can then “investigate the extent to which results can be generalized over time, place, gender, race, different types of offenses, and different types of offenders.” They also state that one should research over a long period of time and use multiple cohorts in order for the research to be most effective, specifically Farrington advises observation with an 10-year accelerated longitudinal study by studying cohorts of 10 year age intervals. They advise this because it would yield the most accurate results with regards to when desistance occurs and why it has, while also considering variables, such as aging.
The methodology of this research differs from what is outlined by Farrington but was created based on the reasoning provided for each factor of Farrington’s advised methodology. Given the constraints of this research, being constrained to a short-term data collection, little access to formerly incarcerated individuals, and the looming constraint of a global pandemic since March of 2020, following the suggestions of Farrington will be impossible. I have circumnavigated this by measuring the population of desisters through a third-party observer which will provide as close to “self-reported” results as I can access. I interviewed a facilitator of non-profit reentry programs who works directly with the population that I am measuring. Using the testimonials of these folx as measurement provided direct access to the information that I measured and provided information as to where the policy supported desistance and where the policy’s gaps were. Since I only measured a time period, from March 2020 until late October, the onset of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic to a couple months after most of the economic benefits had run out, it alleviated the concern of “false desistance” as it is the measurement if they hadn’t reoffended during the pandemic’s economic crisis. What I have identified is the areas in a specific policy that supported formerly incarcerated individuals in their journey to desistance and where the application of the policy had gaps. Therefore, as long as they haven’t reoffended up until the point of interview, then I discern meaning from their desistance regardless of it being permanent or temporary. Also, using case manager’s testimonials provided relatively accurate comparisons from trends that they saw prior to the pandemic and since the pandemic, considering their expertise and 15 years of experience in supporting formerly incarcerated individuals.
Interviews
Since my interview was able to obtain information about my subjects from a third-party observer, there were specific nuances to my interview process but also the organizations I reached out to. The sequencing of my questions followed the suggestions of Lune and Berg for semi standardized interviews from, “A Dramaturgical Look at Interviewing” (2018). I began my sequencing of questions with non-threatening questions such as “How long have you been working with formerly incarcerated individuals?” and “Can you briefly describe the services your organization provides?” which provided ample opportunity for my interviewee to speak on accomplishments regarding their work and feel more comfortable with me as an interviewer. Instead of finding a commonality or self-disclosing to develop rapport, I was able to establish rapport by being transparent. I believe that the folx that I interviewed are uniquely positioned as experts in observation for the reentry process. By emphasizing my perspective and why I choose these folx as interviewees I was able to solidify my role as an interviewer and also my respect and appreciation for the information my interviewee could provide me. In addition to my interview, my interviewee provided me an opportunity to sit in and observe the organization graduation ceremony which provided more context as to what the organization does and what the clients experience.
Additionally, I chose to reach out to nonprofit organizations and the specific one I did interview was for several reasons. Nonprofit organizations are typically among the forefront of human rights campaigns, ahead of governmental organizations but with greater resources than individuals. This demonstrates the tendency for NGOs and nonprofits whose funding requires them to prioritize the individuals in which they are serving rather than, say, parole offices, a governmental institution whose funding doesn’t have deliverables or require fiduciary obligation. The organizations that I reached out to as a whole, was available to all people and gathered information regarding the whole reentry process. A lot of reentry programs offer assistance in one aspect of the reentry process such as only education, only employment, or only housing. Seeing as all of the aspects of reentry affect the economic status and financial well-being of individuals during reentry, I believed that reaching out to organizations that provide holistic support would yield well-rounded and intersectional results.
Research During a Pandemic
All of my research took place between August and December of 2020, from my apartment in New York City in the midst of a global pandemic. While the pandemic ended up creating the centerpiece of what I have researched, it has also complicated the act of researching, especially reaching the group that I had intended. When reaching out to nonprofit reentry programs, I realized, having also been working at a nonprofit, that morale is quite low during this time. The reasons for low morale and response rates should consider the external effects of a global pandemic on New York City’s nonprofit and reentry support staff, the realities of their work. New York City funded organizations have been facing major budget cuts, mass layoffs/furloughs, lack of job security, drastic changes in services, and the workload is also increasing- undergraduate research is highly unlikely to be on the priority list for a lot of these organizations. I believe that this explains my tens of unanswered emails for reputable organizations and random chases to find anyone at any organizations that wouldn’t lead me to an empty voicemail.
The physical process of interviewing became more difficult as well. My interview took place over Zoom which began with technological difficulties. The call cut out as my interviewee lost connection. It also prevented me from connecting with my interviewee as I would have hoped. It is very easy to seem disinterested when on Zoom, as I took notes on the right side of my screen while my interviewee was on the left side of my screen. I was very actively taking notes during the process of my interview, but I was nervous I looked disinterested.
REFLEXIVITY AND POSITIONALITY
My identity as a queer white woman influences everything I do, whether it be passively or actively. My queer identity effects the language I use and the choices I have made to be more inclusive, because I would like the same treatment, for example my use of gender neutral terminology when referring to the authors in my review of literature. Additionally, I benefit from an intersection of my identity that grants me the privilege of not confronting the issue of reentry directly, as my subjects do, largely Black folx and people of color. Being a white woman, I have rarely had negative interactions with the criminal justice system, but I have been allowed in my studies and adult experience to unlearn and critically think about my own experience as it relates to everyone. I am actively attempting to account for and reckon with my identity as a white woman. When I am doing research that primarily affects folx outside of my identity, I acknowledge the lack of weight my anecdotal evidence and experience holds, withhold preliminary assumptions, and address unfounded biases that have been presented by me or my interviewees.
I am also someone who works in a nonprofit organization, whose position is funded by New York City. This identity provided me with specific insights as to response rates among potential interviewees and having been surrounded by nonprofit employees for the past year and a half, I understand how important of a resource these folx are in understanding the population that they serve. My experience as an employee, but also someone who has experienced economic hardships has served me in identifying the gaps in policy and benefits as I have seen the gaps up close. Additionally, it has served me in understanding what questions to ask and why.
My studies have focused on the criminal justice system, particularly my classes on race and American political development, restorative justice, and economic injustice. These classes shaped my perspective of the criminal justice system, economic injustice, and how both exist within systematic racism and reinforce each other as tools of oppression.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Desistance and Recidivism
Desistance vs. Recidivism as a Metric
Desistance refers to the cessation of something, and desistance from crime is exactly that, the discontinuation of criminal activity. Recidivism on the other hand refers to the act of engaging in criminal activity after criminal conviction. While recidivism sounds like the antithesis of desistance, they have very specific uses as applicable metrics and I would argue that desistance is a more effective metric for measuring post-incarceration outcomes.
Recidivism research and desistance research differ in how they emphasize the subject, which often leads to different outcomes. In recidivism research, the researcher is inherently measuring the likelihood of the subject to fail, the measurement is their act of failing in rehabilitation. The word ‘recidivism’ itself provides a barrier to even describe the positive, in essence recidivism indicates “they did not fail to rehabilitate themselves”, which restricts the research from surrounding the subject, an additional barrier of recidivism as a metric. Recidivism research often centers society’s best-interest rather than the interest of the subject, formerly incarcerated individuals, and any benefits to the subject is an unintended accident. Both desistance and recidivism metrics are limited in this way, but desistance tends to center positive outcomes and benefits to the formerly incarcerated individual. Language surrounding recidivism research prevents directly addressing the root causes of recidivism by putting the burden of desistance solely on the individual who was formerly incarcerated. This is particularly odd because there is substantial research to suggest that desistance is heavily influenced by communal support and social safety nets, making the individual’s desistance the responsibility of not only everyone in their own network but also the community.
Recidivism research is measuring the subject’s failure to rehabilitate themselves and reenter society. This creates challenges for conducting and writing about recidivism and its results as it often consists of the use of double negatives and confusing language. The fact that it uses failure as a metric, allows information to get lost in the mix. Bahr et al., (2009), illustrates a good example of how measuring recidivism can, on occasion, be a disservice to the researcher. Bahr et al.’s study, “Successful Reentry” measured life qualities that separated successful parolees (those who were discharged after 3 years of parole) and parolees who failed (those who returned to prison during their parole). In this study, they measured differences in relationships, employment, and age. When discussing the variable of having a job, Bahr et al., found that more successful parolees had a full-time job, and therefore concluded that having a full-time job may reduce recidivism. When discussing this result, the researchers posit that having a full-time job correlates with desistance because it provides structure and “it leaves less time for boredom and association with undesirable friends,”. This conclusion contrasts with a statement directly from a subject who cited that financial pressures of underemployment and unemployment as the main reason they engaged in illegal activity, and didn’t mention the want or need for structure or “undesirable” friendships. Recidivism research is very effective in understanding trends and correlations in circumstance, but can sometimes lead to lapses in analysis.
Factors of Desistance
The factors that promote desistance are addressed when “... the proximate causes of crime are affected,” meaning that when the problem that originally caused an individual to commit a crime is resolved they are more likely to successfully desist from future crime. Factors of recidivism are often simplified into the presence or absence of “...housing, employment, finances, relationships (partner/spouse and family), alcohol and drugs” but where one may be a strong cause for recidivism its inverse may not be an equally strong factor of desistance. For example, association with other formerly incarcerated individuals is a strong factor of recidivism and the inverse of this would be no relationship with formerly incarcerated individuals. But a strong factor of desistance is relationships with people, regardless of their criminal history. While depriving one of said relationship may decrease recidivism it won’t inherently increase desistance. Factors of desistance and recidivism are very interconnected but cannot be inverted to accurately describe the other.
There are two main categorizations of desistance; subjective and social factors. Subjective factors of desistance are when an individual has a change in self, whether that’s motivation, or how they conceptualize their own identity. Social factors are when there’s a quantifiable change in a status, such as employment or marital status. These two categorizations can describe the factors individually and how they affect the individual and their identity but are often so interconnected that they cause one another. Subjective and social factors influence each other in the ability to desist from crime and an individual’s confidence in their desistance. “With an adequate sense of hope, a person may both select into and take advantage of positive social opportunities, such as employment or marital attachment.” These interactions portray how a local community and society as a whole support desistance either legislatively or prefiguratively.
Desistance Research is Not a Vacuum
Factors of desistance do not affect all demographics equally. There are externalities that affect some identities more than others and there are power dynamics in place that provide proximity to power and privilege in turn causing some groups to have greater desistance rates.
Research strongly suggested that getting married would increase the likelihood of desisting for men under the assumption that they put a lot of importance on their marriage. This is not universal, Black men are less likely to alter their daily routines and who they spend their time with upon getting married making this social change less likely to promote desistance among Black men specifically. There are also some solutions that yield more positive results for some groups than for others as a whole. Every individual’s experience or identity is not always accounted for in population statistics, as is the nature of population statistics. For example, earned income tax credits (EITC) yields more impactful results for women than for men, most likely due to the disproportionate burden of child support arrears that garnish men's wages coming out of prison.
Additionally, it is important to note that I am discussing and providing insight into what can be done to aid desistance and support formerly incarcerated individuals and their community. Desistance that has been researched, specifically in the U.S. should be considered under the established punitive justice system and there are often policies that are aimed to reduce recidivism rates that often cause the recidivism. There is not one reason for desistance, and the idea that one policy adjustment can increase desistance is naive. When considering the results of this research, in order for real benefits to be seen it would need to be in conjunction with prison reform, or better yet, abolition.
Social Care, The Welfare State, & Unintended Financial Consequences on Desistance
When we exist in a society with one another, there is an element of common good and communal support, a strong factor in aiding desistance. A welfare state is when a state supports and protects the health and well-being of its citizens. The activeness of a welfare state affects the existence of social care, the labor, normative focus on obligation, and the financial and emotional cost of providing for a person’s social and economic well-being. Federal government provided economic safety nets are welfare programs and consist largely of cash or near cash welfare, in-work tax credits, disability programs, social insurance, and health insurance. Social care is applied in the context of this research, as organizations and institutional policy that provide economic support or ease the economic burdens of the formerly incarcerated. It has been shown that welfare, and cash assistance specifically, can be beneficial to those in poverty worldwide, due to its flexibility.
Welfare Benefits After March 27th, 2020
There are four specific programs that are of specific importance to consider within the context of the 2020 global pandemic. They are basic income (stimulus check/cash assistance), unemployment insurance, housing, and access to food (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, SNAP, Electronic Benefit Transfer, EBT, and Women, Infants and Children, WIC). These programs were specific economic benefits that were provided by the U.S. government within the CARES Act or by New York State Executive Orders. Some benefits existed prior to the pandemic like unemployment insurance and governmental programs meant to aid access to food and were expanded after March 27th, but some are policies that were insured to specifically assist people during a time of extreme levels of unemployment during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic.
The benefits were federal, state, and local and aided basic income, unemployment insurance, access to food, and/or housing. Federally, through the CARES Act, there was; a one-time payment of $1,200 that was adjusted for married couples and people with children and phased out among higher income individuals, a 13 week expansion of unemployment insurance with a supplemental $600 universally applied, and an expansion in SNAP and EBT benefits. State-wide, for New York State, Governor Andrew Cuomo declared a state of emergency and enacted an eviction moratorium preventing tenants from being evicted for COVID-related hardship.
Being eligible for most or any of these economic benefits is a privilege as many people were unable to receive benefits, most often cited with the stimulus check and unemployment due to administrative red tape but also outdated systems and uneven distribution of requirements. In reference to the stimulus check, a capacity gap identified was, “Some households did not receive a payment because they were ineligible or because their incomes are too low to require them to file a tax return, and the IRS therefore did not have the information needed to send them the payment.” This capacity gap that is identified is very counterproductive in terms of an economic stimulus meant to aid the poor but the people that needed it the most were of lowest income who were/are in a particularly precarious position yet were unfortunately left out. Claims for unemployment were delayed and often denied because of an outdated system, and similarly so with increased requests for SNAP and EBT benefits. The eviction moratorium has not been universal as there are still people being kicked out or threatened to be kicked out as landlord attorneys have a history of finding loopholes. On the local level, direct services and mutual aid have typically been the most indiscriminate and universally accessible form of benefits, given the historic position of nonprofit organizations and community organizations being ahead of social rights. This puts nonprofit organizations in a unique position to analyze the effects at all three levels.
Intersection Between Incarceration and The Welfare State
When considering desistance, one of the foundational factors with a strong correlation of the likelihood to desist is economic well-being, as described with financial security and employment. There are obvious gains and losses to not committing a crime vs. committing a crime when considering all aspects of one's life such as physically, emotionally, morally, and financially. Those gains and losses interact in an opportunity cost and cost-benefit analysis while making one’s decision to engage in criminal behavior again or not. Added economic well-being is a strong factor that increases the utility of not committing a crime and can be affected most directly through welfare programs.
In Doleac’s paper (pending publication), they describe the relational model of this decision process with the classic Becker model which weighs the expected utility of committing a crime vs. expected utility from not committing a crime to conceptualize the decision-making process of engaging in criminal activity:
(1 − p)Uc1 + pUc2 > Unc
Where p is the probability of being punished, Uc1 is the utility or net gain from committing a crime and not being punished, Uc2 is the utility or net gain from committing a crime and being punished, and then all of those factors are weighed against the expected utility of not committing a crime, Unc.
The Becker model functions by analyzing the individual’s decision-making process and deduces how subsequent policy should be made. Traditional thought, as reflected in the Becker model, is that any policy that increases the probability of being punished or decreases the overall payoff from committing a crime will deter crime. The concern I have regarding this method of decreasing utility of criminal activity is that there may be a misappropriation of the perceived cost one feels after their first incarceration, the punishment can cost less the second time than the first time.
The Becker model is a subjective cost/benefit analysis that changes for each individual, as certain aspects are difficult to universally quantify, such as emotional burdens, this model is meant to mathematically illustrate theory. Economic factors such as access to secure housing, employment, income, and the means to pay off one's debt are some of the more influential social factors that play into the decisions of desistance. Laub and Sampson (2001) consider conventional attachments that are often considered universal amongst formerly incarcerated individuals concerning their lives and desistance:
“Some of the most important seem to be attachment to a conventional other such as a spouse, stable employment, transformation of personal identity, and the aging process. These predictors and processes of desistance do not seem to vary much by offender characteristics or type of crime.”
During this global pandemic, when conventional attachments have been almost entirely severed, most notably employment and economic stability. By the numbers the U.S. population as a whole was affected by the COVID-19 pandemic economically “The (official) unemployment rate spiked to 14.7 percent in April 2020 and has remained above 10 percent through July (the most recent data available) during COVID-19, while it reached 10 percent for only a single month in the Great Recession,”. These numbers are based on the official unemployment count which doesn’t include the people that were ineligible for unemployment, the people who didn’t apply, the people who had just entered the job market and didn’t have a job to lose, and many more.
The population of formerly incarcerated individuals has a concentrated population of the people who are specifically at risk of losing their economic safety net during the COVID-19 pandemic, not to mention are more at risk of contracting the virus itself. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic formerly incarcerated individuals are disparately vulnerable to “reduced employment opportunities, housing and food insecurity, discrimination and stigma, lowered wages, and an inability to reconstruct their identities, exercise their agency, and build enough dignity to avoid reincarceration.” Half of formerly incarcerated individuals report unemployment or an income below the poverty line. In further dissecting this population, Black folx and people of color disparately create a large majority of formerly incarcerated individuals. The effects of financial burdens post-incarceration are exacerbated among Black individuals and people of color when compared to their white counterparts, and more extensively when compared to those without a prison record. In alignment with Becker’s model, the addition of the CARES Act, in conjunction with a pandemic that has ravaged prison systems, there should be an increase in desistance. The CARES Act would increase the utility of not committing a crime as one can’t receive unemployment insurance or a stimulus check in prison, and food and housing is relatively secure when compared to their situations pre-incarceration. The COVID-19 pandemic has also made it increasingly more dangerous to be in prison, as COVID-19 is very easily transmitted in prisons and the most widely used prevention method is solitary confinement. With this context in consideration, formerly incarcerated individuals are most at risk for financial hardships and would benefit greatly from an economic relief package, provided the relief package is created with the formerly incarcerated in mind.
THE STORYTELLING ORGANIZATION
I was able to work with an organization, the Storytelling Organization to collect my data from a facilitator at a reentry program focused on storytelling as a means of successful and humane reentry and from observations made at the program’s graduation ceremony. The program my interviewee, Laurel, and I discussed, consisted entirely of formerly incarcerated individuals. There are additional programs at the Storytelling Organization that were created in response to research and meant to address the needs of family members of the formerly incarcerated and support groups for women heads of households that a majority of formerly incarcerated return to. The mission of the organization is to provide a safe space for formerly incarcerated individuals to reflect on their experience and gain confidence in re-telling that experience. Laurel describes the function of the program as,
“a training program for these formerly incarcerated men and women to share their stories. And we found that people had these stories, they wanted to tell these stories, but without any formal training or skill sets or encouragement or support to do that, they often would tell their stories and it really wasn’t as powerful as it could’ve been... it’s not therapeutic, it’s a skills based training that borderlines on a therapeutic level - I am not a therapist, that is totally out of my scope of practice, but I am a very strong facilitator”
The training exists in cycles that are 9 weeks of training, and a 10th week is the graduation ceremony where the graduates of the program present their storytelling ability and share their own story. Laurel estimated the breakdown of the population she serves as primarily Black folx, a “small scattering” of Latinx individuals, and she has only ever served two white people in her six years with this organization. She did not mention whether she works with any other ethnic groups, assumingely because she primarily serves Black and Latinx individuals.
The structure of the organization generally follows a desistance research metric perspective. By putting the focus on the formerly incarcerated individual’s well-being, the organization removes the burden from the formerly incarcerated, and the observer and subject interact in a non-hierarchical dynamic, which encourages open and clear communication. The Storytelling Organization offers financial support with $30 per session stipend and metro cards because “we want our participants and our storytellers to know that their time is valuable”, which emphasizes her client’s well-being. In a lot of the language Laurel used surrounding the discussion of her clients she removed the burden of rehabilitation from her clients. For example, when she was discussing her client who was struggling to find work she said,
“with a young lady I know who came home, she had mental health issues that were addressed when she was in prison and she was medication stabilized, violent crime, served her time, came home and could not find work. Just could not find work - of course she couldn’t find work.”
Laurel actively chose phrases that put the burden or fault on her situation like saying “of course she couldn’t find work”, she emphasized that her path was set for her and the barriers she faced in rehabilitation were not because she wasn’t trying. In another example, when talking about the plights of individuals reentering society in general she said, “what happens is they come home with these great intentions, they, you know, rose colored glasses on, they’re open to maybe something being different and then they come back to the same old thing. Right? There is nothing else offered.” By following her statement up with “nothing else offered” she places the burden on society, the community, and policy who is at fault for the lack of rehabilitation.
PRIMARY DATA ANALYSIS
Over the past couple of months, I was able to collect data from the organization I described in the previous section. The Storytelling Organization invited me to a graduation ceremony for their first virtual session in addition to allowing me to interview a facilitator with their reentry program. My interview and observation at the graduation ceremony provided me with a strong understanding of the unique financial burdens that present themselves in the reentry process. My research and observations have demonstrated the ways that people's lived experience reinforced theory. Laurel provided an example of economic social factors in conjunction with subjective factors established desistance, which reaffirms the literature that emphasized the importance of these factors interacting with one another. She dissected the economic social factors and how they affect her clients, and by doing so she unintentionally illustrated the theory about barriers to reentry that prevent financial success. Based on how the clientele of this organization faced their employment and financial needs, Laurel demonstrated how the pandemic may adjust the Becker Model and theoretically presented the needs that should be addressed for the formerly incarcerated. In my interview and at the graduation ceremony I observed how the post-pandemic policies were successful in addressing the immediate needs of the formerly incarcerated. The shortcoming of the policies were the many severe gaps identified as the policy failed to address the long-term needs or the barriers to financial stability that exist among formerly incarcerated individuals.
In several points during my interview with Laurel, she painted me a picture of how the reentry process looks for her clients. She was expressing the reentry process that she had observed countless times from a perspective that most often centered her clients. Her observations illuminated the shortcoming of policy and institutions to care for formerly incarcerated individuals before and during a global pandemic. Before the global pandemic, her clients were incredibly vulnerable to economic oppression, and the pandemic exacerbated aspects of this vulnerability, and policy gaps created new vulnerabilities of its own.
Financial Burdens of the Reentry Process
As I mentioned in my review of literature, subjective and social factors interact with one another to create desistance in an individual. That is when both a positive change in self or motivation is joined by a positive change of status it increases the likelihood of desistance. Laurel provided me an example of this interaction for a “young lady” that she had worked with in one of her earlier cycles of the program, pre-COVID-19. Upon leaving prison, she joined the Storytelling Program while also searching for employment. Laurel discussed the “young lady’s” attempt to gain employment as largely unfavorable, she had not been getting calls for interviews and when she had, “she would get hired and [the employer would] do a background check and they would say ‘Mmm, yeah we found someone else that we thought would be more appropriate’.” The lack of change her employment status, the social factor, in conjunction with subjective negative self-talk that Laurel described as, “she came to the training that night and she was crying to us and said ‘I’m never gonna get a job, I don’t even know why I’m doing this, this is so stupid, I feel so dumb, I really thought I was gonna be able to do this’.” established a lesser likelihood of desistance. While Laurel never said that this “young lady” reoffended, likely due to early intervention, Laurel did state that “she’s on the verge of giving up” after describing these circumstances, to imply that “giving up” would consist of reoffending, which demonstrates the inverse relationship of the subjective and social interaction.
The early intervention that may have prevented the reoffending was addressing of the failing subjective and social factors. Through the Storytelling Organization, her subjective needs were supported, “she was being told how courageous she was, and how strong she was, and how brave she was, and what a great leader she was - ‘cause she was such a great leader in the training, and I just think it gave her a place to go where she got the support that she needed to ride out that storm.” Social factors were addressed by being encouraged to get her master’s degree in social work which changed her educational status, and in turn her employment status as she is now a behavioral specialist in a drug treatment program in the Bronx. These two factors interacted and likely caused one another in order to establish this individual’s desistance from crime on an interpersonal level.
On an institutional and policy level, change allows a perceived “equal opportunity” of the employment playing field. Laurel pointed out more specifically Article 23a, which is a New York State law preventing employers from discriminating against a potential or current employee based on their conviction history. This would theoretically assist in positively changing an individual's employment status, an economic social factor. The problem that Laurel described with that policy’s application is that, while the mindset of people is a problem, it is impossible to monitor as incarceration does not have to be cited as the reason people are not hired, there are more tangible sources of discrimination. Being in prison looks bad on a resume, because of prison, but also because there’s little to show for it, which is likely to cause a potential employer to not hire a formerly incarcerated individual. Using the example where the “young lady” could not find work, Laurel cited the reason that she faced so much trouble finding work as having a major gap on her resume, “came home and could not find work. Just could not find work - of course she couldn’t find work, you know? There was not really much on her resume except for 6, 7, 8 year old, you know, jobs, there was nothing new and up to date.” Additionally, Laurel described the lack of marketable skills her clients have after incarceration. Among the in-prison programs that exist in New York prisons, many of the programs were performative in their purpose of rehabilitation. She described a scenario that she sees often with her clients in a very passionate manner,
“Well, you take the plumbing program, and the papers that they print out for you [doesn’t] mean [anything]. They’re meaningless, they’re not from a reputable school, they’re not even recognized by New York State. This is a New York State facility… that breaks a lot of guys’ hearts, they come home with these printouts, ‘Look at all this stuff I’ve done!’ but none of it is credible, none of it means anything [in obtaining future employment].”
Upon describing the performative rehabilitation of the New York State Prison System, she had demonstrated a major gap in the policies prior to COVID-19 and also the gaps in rehabilitation processes in the prison industrial complex.
Of the factors of desistance, social factors are more tangible in how they can be externally effected, and economic social factors are especially crucial when considering a population of individuals that are especially vulnerable to poverty. A large portion of formerly incarcerated individuals are in poverty or are of lower-income, but the challenges faced by the formerly incarcerated who are also in poverty establish vulnerabilities that are different than those in poverty.
Formerly incarcerated individuals face the unique burden of being denied financial education and skills caused in large part by their displacement from their community. The barriers to financial success that are present in reentry largely consists of the lack of facets that are traditionally used to establish financial skills that were severed due to incarceration. The traditional facets that are interrupted with incarceration are exacerbated in Black and Latinx communities. The traditional facets consist of social capital, severing familial and mentorship networks, and delaying the age in which there is a learning curve for developing these skills. The lack of social capital that is demonstrated with large resume gaps and prevents effective interpersonal skills that may aid during interviewing and resume writing. Familial and mentorship networks can open the door for a first job outside of incarceration which closes the resume gap, teach financial skills, co-sign a loan or assist in opening a credit card by using their credit to help an individual build theirs, and assisting the individual in skill development which furthers employment options. Incarceration delays the age at which there is a learning curve for developing these skills, meaning that middle-aged people who were released from prison are now paying bills for the first time, likely with technology they’ve never used before when people usually do so between 18-22 and are likely not given the same lenience as those younger.
Economic stability is rare for the formerly incarcerated as poverty-level income is very common if they have an income at all. Additionally, this economic oppression is uniquely posited against Black and Latinx people who are formerly incarcerated as this cross section due to higher rates of “social detachment from skilled employment and the stigma of criminality.” Laurel provided the following insights regarding her primarily Black and Latinx clients, their credit score is likely to be very low when they leave prison, as it becomes difficult to nearly impossible to pay off loans or bills when you’re incarcerated. Laurel explained the barrier to financial success as a cycle,
“...work related and finance related people are struggling. You know, somebody comes home from prison and they can’t even get an apartment because they don’t have a credit score right? You have to have a credit score, and that takes years to do, and you can’t even get a credit card because you don’t have any work history and you’re not working. So, it’s just like this cycle - this ridiculous cycle.”
When considering these burdens, they are largely present because of the displacement caused by incarceration. With familial or mentorship networks, the individual would likely have somewhere to stay or a secondary account holder to get a credit card and eventually build credit. If they were incarcerated at a young age, they may not have work history. A lot of people who go into the prison system are very young when they are originally “put in the system”. One of the graduates from Laurel’s program described their struggle of being incarcerated young and the contrast of being an adult when they were released. They stated, “I didn’t know how to pay bills… I didn’t know how to build credit,” financially, they were stuck, having lost formative years in financial maturity and little understanding of financial management. The maturation of financial skills is a crucial consideration when it comes to immediate policy solutions, like the CARES Act.
Pandemic for the Formerly Incarcerated
The 2020 Global Pandemic ravaged communities, health-wise and financially. Laurel provided a breakdown of how COVID-19 affected her client’s income, employment, and placed them into four relatively all-encompassing categories. (1) Her client’s that were employed, but were fired in March or April when there was mass job loss, “the few jobs that people did have, [now] they didn’t have them”; (2) Her client’s that were employed but were “risking their lives going out and doing what they were doing” while working essential jobs, for her clients they were largely grocery store employees and hospital support staff; (3) Her clients that were released but didn’t get the opportunity to be employed before the mass unemployment and now remain unemployed; (4) Lastly a small portion of her clients who worked in “outreach, drug treatment, tried to do it from home,”.
To then apply the pre-policy situation that Laurel described into the classic Becker Model,
(1 − p)Uc1 + pUc2 > Unc
provides a fruitful theoretical analysis of the gaps any subsequent policy would want to address the needs of the formerly incarcerated. The probability (p) of being caught and charged remains largely unchanged given the pandemic based on what the circumstances Laurel described. The utility of committing a crime and not being caught (Uc1) would become more profitable for the majority of Laurel’s clientele who found themselves in categories 1, 2, and 3 as the pressure to pay bills, rent, mortgage, and other financial distress creates an urgent need for money. The utility of committing a crime if one is caught (Uc2) would decrease and become moderately more of a cost for all of Laurel’s clients when considering the dangers associated with incarceration during the COVID-19, but is likely not a major consideration when in financial distress. The utility of not committing a crime (Unc) would have decreased for the client’s in categories 1, 2, and 3 due to the loss of income, risk of life, or the lack of perceived opportunities that would decrease the profitability of not committing a crime. The decrease in Unc would largely not have the same effect on those who were able to transition their work into working from home, but this was a privilege that is not afforded to most of Laurel’s clients.
In addressing the change of circumstance that may lead to reoffending and decreased desistance, effective counter-policy or institutional support would address the changes in utility described. Policy or institutions would need to decrease the urgency for money by either providing that money or providing leniency on the payment of these bills. Additionally, it would counteract the burdens felt by those who lost income, face increased risk to life, or lost hope in finding a job. Desistance was and is not an easy task for formerly incarcerated individuals who were vulnerable to risks of poverty, homelessness, and the pandemic-specific pressures of one's own death or that of a loved one.
Post-Pandemic Social Care Policies and Its Gaps
When I asked Laurel about the policies that existed in response to the pandemic, the CARES act and the local eviction moratorium, she began her answer with a sigh and, “this is a mixed bag of tricks”. Laurel saw the forms of relief as very temporary solutions but if other supplements were not provided then her clientele would suffer severely. There were points in the interview where it was evident that she was fearful for what her clients may have faced had there not been this action. Laurel stated, “I think it - without it, it would’ve been really scary”. The hypothetical fear she was describing, had the relief packages not been provided, addressed the potential physical harm to her clients. Additionally, she was concerned for their livelihood due to fiduciary reoffending based on their hardships, as her following remarks were describing increased “reports of violence and robberies and shootings and looting,”. It was evident that what she had observed among her client base is that it was necessary but was also harmful.
The CARES Act, specifically the stimulus check, unemployment insurance, and expansion of SNAP benefits, was necessary for the survival of Laurel’s client base. It secured their food and eased financial pressures. This injection of income eased the urgent need for money for bills, in conjunction with the housing moratorium that eased concerns of housing insecurity. This theoretically decreased the utility of committing a crime because there was increased support to address the concerns that would increase this utility and also would increase the utility of not committing a crime as the support would cease if they were incarcerated. Laurel had expressed her admiration of the policy in how it supported her clients by stating “the CARES Act was a good thing, I think it was a smart thing to give people maybe a little more than they might’ve been used to normally”. With every positive comment Laurel had regarding policy, whether the CARES Act or the housing moratorium, it followed with a “but” where she described the gaps the policy had in application, in this case she said, “but without proper skills, and again, this is a life skill - financial money management”. It was evident that in Laurel’s perspective the policies were beneficial, but she needed to emphasize the concern she had for the longevity of this relief in almost every statement.
Many of Laurel’s clients had felt the gaps of a short-term financial injection to solve a long-term financial crisis having never saved money, most never had the privilege of living beyond paycheck to paycheck. Laurel saw many of her clients suffer from this circumstance, “people who don’t have much or have never had much, you give them something, they don’t know what to do with it, so they spend.” This intense spending may have been helpful for the economy, but once July was over and the government stopped the unemployment insurance, and the pandemic was still roaring, these same people still couldn’t get a job and were left without any source of income. As for the New York City housing moratorium, Laurel also saw this as a temporary solution. The moratorium secured housing, for now, but it also dug a deeper hole. The end of the housing moratorium is and will be the perfect storm for formerly incarcerated individuals. Their jobs were likely at risk with the onset of the pandemic or lives were at risk upon continuing employment with little to no hazard pay, in conjunction with a high likelihood of being financially immature due to their circumstances, making them the demographic to fall precisely through these policy gaps.
As mentioned earlier, formerly incarcerated individuals face a unique displacement that robs the formerly incarcerated of financial education and skills and money management. By severing social capital and networks the formerly incarcerated are at an increased disadvantage to obtain gainful and lasting employment when compared to the rest of the individuals in the job market that is now very overpopulated with people who were recently unemployed. The CARES Act, that provided the financial injection, also allowed significant aid to those who have maintained the traditional facets in obtaining financial education and will have provided relatively long-term aid. When considering formerly incarcerated individuals’ financial ability, specifically the ability to make an injection of money last beyond the weeks in which it is injected, the aid proved to be less than helpful. Laurel described this circumstance as,
“However, you can give people money, but if they don’t have the skills to manage money, it doesn’t end well. So, there was a lot of substance abuse, drinking, car buying, clothes buying, sneaker buying, and people weren’t paying rent, people weren’t, you know, saving maybe for when this is over. So, lack of financial management or the skills to handle money and, you know, they were like 4 - 5 year olds with Christmas.”
This description displays the effects of displacement on the individuals that she works with. Her description of the circumstance seems to infantilize her clients at first glance, but when reading further, her emphasis is to state that her client’s reaction is understandable and it’s difficult to expect any different. Her comparison of her clients to children was not meant to make her client’s seem childish but instead to illustrate their stagnation and financial immaturity. She discussed their actions as if they are not her client’s burden but instead an oversight of the policies in place. The social care policy’s lack of longevity has left Laurel’s clients in the same situation that they were in before the policy took effect at best, or in more debt with no income at worst. While Laurel believes that it was a necessary safeguard to tide over her clients in the time being, her client’s are long overdue additional support to continue their desistance. The fact that there are no long-term solutions cause concern and will likely lead to greater problems later or present itself as a premature interference in desistance metrics.
CONCLUSION
In the Peace and Justice Studies discipline, recidivism and support for the particularly vulnerable populations of formerly incarcerated individuals is an all-encompassing issue. Providing support for people to not reoffend contributes to peacebuilding through desistance and while also pre-figuratively providing justice to those facing economic despair by hindering the disparate policing of low-income and racial minorities by communal support of desistance and safety nets.
The role of this research is not to provide a singular method to increase desistance. Desistance is a multi-causal phenomenon and providing economic benefits will not fully restore justice for formerly incarcerated individuals during their reentry process. The information that I have provided in my analysis is particularly useful in terms of addressing the punitive justice system’s gaps and seeing what can be done now to better serve this population as a supplement to the punitive justice system. However, a supplement to the punitive justice system is still punitive justice. The data I am analyzing leads me to ask which policy or action could be taken immediately to best provide justice to the subjects of this research. In the long term, actions toward abolition and the transition of restorative justice should be researched as to how those systems effect desistance, account for peace and justice, and address historical and systemic injustices against Black, Indigenous, and people of color.
In the future, further research should be done in order to analyze the entire picture of social care policy on formerly incarcerated individuals. Research that utilizes pandemic desistance data, when it is available, to see the effects of social care policies during the pandemic may be beneficial to put into context how much the policy gaps my research has found affected desistance as a whole. It also may be helpful to see how social care policies have aided or effected desistance in other systems that may account for financial educational displacement to see if other gaps arise when my interviewee’s observations are accounted for. As social care policy is considered, if it is meant to support formerly incarcerated individuals policy makers will need to consider the effect that incarceration has on the maturation of financial skills, in order for cash assistance to be beneficial.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank my advisor, Dr. Emily Welty, for her unwavering guidance. I don’t think I could have written this thesis, especially during this time without her and her support. I also want to thank my partner, Sidarth Varma, and my sister, Paige Yourch, for reading and editing my paper throughout the past months and providing me honest feedback. I would also like to thank my teachers, Mrs. Fran Lohnes and Mr. Peter Robinson, who provided me an early introduction to research and fueled my passion for it. Lastly, I would like to extend my gratitude and admiration to my interviewee, her organization, and her clients, for providing me a glimpse into their lives and experience.
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