The Hardest Thing I've Ever Done: Reentry Realities of Criminalized Survivors

<p><span>Every year, hundreds of thousands of people throughout the United States are released from prison and face what Nelson Mandela called “the small things.”<span>&nbsp; </span>With few exceptions, the vast literature spawned by what some have termed the “prisoner reentry industry” has focused its attention on instrumental needs of people leaving prison – employment, job training and substance use treatment. Supports for how to manage what Nelson Mandela called “the small things” has largely been ignored. </span></p> <p><span>With respect to women returning from incarceration, their needs have been a secondary concern for the larger reentry movement. This is particularly true for basic adjustment concerns including housing, economic supports, and parenting concerns.<span>&nbsp; </span>Women have gender-specific challenges in addressing these issues. Finally, while both men and women experience the trauma of incarceration, for many formerly incarcerated women, the trauma of domestic violence, and sexual and physical abuse, magnifies their inability to re-acclimate to post-prison life.</span></p> <p><span>Reentry arguably has become the most popular of criminal justice reforms, securing bi-partisan support, public and philanthropic funding. The Second Chance Act was signed into law in April 2008, authorizing federal grants to state and local entities to introduce reentry program models. A first year appropriation of $25 million in 2009 quadrupled to $100 million by 2010. </span></p> <p><span>There has been mixed reaction on the part of advocates and academics to the so-called reentry movement. On the one hand, reentry as a criminal legal system reform leaves the basic structure of the U.S. system intact, doing little, if anything, to challenge the punitive policies that push people into prisons in the first place. While reentry programs implicitly recognize that social welfare policies and practices play in crime and justice, those considerations are placed at the back end, after someone has already spent years in prison. Loïc Wacquant, for example, challenges the reentry movement for failing to capture the reality that “…the vast majority of former convicts experience not reentry but ongoing circulation between the two poles of a continuum of forced confinement formed by the prison and the dilapidated districts of the dualizing metropolis ….” Yet standing side-by-side with these insightful critiques of reentry is the reality that people leaving prison themselves acknowledge the need for support in making the transition from years ensconced in a harsh total institution.</span></p> <p><span>Our discussion of the reentry needs of women has been strengthened by the inclusion of a coauthor, Emunah Evans, who has experienced the criminal legal system and is a leader in North Carolina’s reentry efforts.<span>&nbsp; </span>Her insights throughout this Article on issues that affect women’s pathways to prison, reentry, and the role of directly impacted people in achieving criminal legal system reforms underscores the imperative of listening to the voices of those who have gone through and survived the system.</span></p>