Many parolees face a difficult road to staying on the straight and narrow, often returning to disadvantaged neighborhoods. While poverty and lack of housing don’t help, a new study says a big factor in whether parolees reoffend is how many other parolees are in the same area—sparking a competition for already limited resources.
Alyssa Chamberlain co-authored the study featured in the journal Justice Quarterly. Chamberlain is an assistant criminology professor at Arizona State University, who analyzed Ohio parolee data from 2000 to 2009. She spoke with ideastream's Tony Ganzer.
CHAMBERLAIN: “Cleveland itself had about 14,000 parolees return between that time period, and this is compared to Columbus that saw about 9,500, and Cincinnati that had about 7,000. What’s interesting though, is that even though Cleveland saw the most parolees, Columbus neighborhoods actually have the highest concentrations. For example, 26% of parolees in Columbus go back to just 5% of Columbus neighborhoods, but it’s only 18% of parolees in Cleveland that go back to that same 5% of Cleveland neighborhoods. And when we look at this clustering specifically in Cleveland, you see that these neighborhoods are not right next to each other, these high clusters of parolees. They are spread along the east side of the city, and these areas they don’t have a lot of job opportunities for parolees, there’s not a lot of opportunity, and what is there tends to be blue collar or service jobs, and these are not necessarily high-paying jobs.”
GANZER: “How does your research into the concentration of parolees fit into the larger picture of what these folks are going through after doing their time?”
CHAMBERLAIN: “They’re going to these disadvantaged neighborhoods, and when they return to neighborhoods that also have these high populations of parolees, that the already limited resources that exist in these neighborhoods are just stretched too thin, they can’t accommodate these large populations.”
GANZER: “So you’re not saying that the concentration of parolees is any more important than other things that are working against these folks?”
CHAMBERLAIN: “We found that factors like poverty and disadvantage weren’t significant in our model—they did not significantly predict recidivism. And what it boils down to is: the majority of parolees are going back to disadvantaged neighborhoods, and so this is something that all parolees generally have to deal with. But what they are differentially exposed to is the concentration of other parolees. This is a problem because too many parolees in one neighborhood is going to stretch already limited resources beyond their capacity. And by resources we mean everything from housing, jobs, to the ability of families and other neighborhood institutions like churches to help these returning prisoners. So as a result, they don’t get the help that they need.”
GANZER: “So this isn’t necessarily peer pressure to reoffend, so to say, it’s just that these folks are falling through the cracks on very basic needs.”
CHAMBERLAIN: “Well certainly the peer pressure is likely there. They are returning back to these neighborhoods and there’s going to be existing criminal networks there, and that certainly will complicate the ability of an individual to stay crime-free. But simple things like finding a job, finding a place to live, getting help for drug problems, for alcoholism, these factors can help turn the tide in the favor of the parolee and keep them on the up-and-up.”
GANZER: “So what’s the take-away, I guess, for policy makers as you look at this data and we think about what’s happening to parolees when they come back?”
CHAMBERLAIN: “Well from a policy perspective there’s a number of things that can be done. First, we can simply target neighborhoods with large ex-offender populations with more services. Another thing that we find is that neighborhoods that have high concentrations of parolees that return to them, but also are fairly stable in terms of their populations—so neighborhoods that have a long-term resident base—that seems to be a protective factor against recidivism. Ultimately though, we need to reduce the number of people going into prison every year, and until we do this we will not see a reduction in the parolee population in neighborhoods, or a reduction in the number of people going back to prison.”
Alyssa Chamberlain is an assistant professor at Arizona State University.
To get another perspective on challenges faced by parolees, I spoke with James Walker, now a community facilitator at the 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter in Cleveland. He served 30 years in prison, released 8 year ago.
With him in studio was Charles See, the executive director of the community re-entry program at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries in Cleveland. I asked them both to respond to what Alyssa Chamberlain said:
SEE: “Many of the people who come back, they are certainly seeking a second chance, they hoping not to recidivate and working toward that end. But when you look at the resources that get significantly thinned-out, you’ve got multiple competition looking for the few jobs that are there. Those kinds of factors are going to lend themselves toward recidivism. One thing I’d like to say early on: [Chamberlain] kept referring to individuals as ‘returning prisoners.’ We like to think of folks coming back from prison as ‘returning citizens.’ It humanizes the folks, and it puts the emphasis on the person and not the condition.”
GANZER: “James, you were in this situation: you did return, you faced these challenges. What was your reaction to what the data show?”
WALKER: “I thought that Dr. Chamberlain was very thoughtful. I’d say that her examination of these issues is useful. Yeah, she talked about the importance of targeting these neighborhoods with more services—what does that mean? It has been said and emphasized in many places that perhaps the single most important thing that we can do to increase re-entry success is to increase work opportunities. So any discussion about how we can increase re-entry success that doesn’t begin with employment, to me, is missing a beat from the very start.”
GANZER: “James, when she talked about a strain on services she did mention things that can help folks deal with drug addiction or alcohol addiction. What was your experience coming back after doing your time, into a neighborhood? Did you find a strain to get help that you needed at that time?”
WALKER: “Cleveland is an area that provides abundant opportunities for those type of interventions. So when we talk about resources specifically earmarks for re-entry, then against I’m interested in employment, even housing. Yes, drug abuse treatment, alcohol treatment, mental health treatment, yes those things are necessary. But those things are available in the community. To whatever extent they are amplified by re-entry support services that’s a good thing, but I think that is like low-hanging fruit, for me. ”
SEE: “I agree with James about the access to some services, when you drill down though, if you’re talking about a lot of folks need residential services, there’s a paucity of beds available, there’s long waiting lists to get those folks in. So there are some services that you can get in, you can get counseling, you can get in to some peer group support kinds of things. But when you start drilling down and you say ‘in able to address this, this is what we need’ we can certainly expand the level of service, and improve that level of service for people who have significant needs.”
GANZER: “Charles, you’ve been working in this for 40-some years in helping folks come back into the community. One thing that Dr. Chamberlain said was Ohio is fairly progressive in how it’s looking at the recidivism issue. Would you agree with that?”
SEE: “Yes I would. I’m real pleased to be in Ohio, certainly when it comes to the whole area of criminal justice, given the fact I think there are only two or three departments of corrections around the country that still maintain the word ‘rehabilitation’ in it. So the conversation about how to we rehabilitate, should we be rehabilitating, Ohio is still in that conversation and I’m pleased with that, and we’ve been progressive. We’ve got some work to do now: I don’t think that we’ve hit a panacea here. But Ohio is willing to engage in that conversation. We’ve got a director of corrections who is adamant about trying to provide the best prison environment that’s possible, and moves in that direction.”
Charles See heads the community re-entry program at Lutheran Metropolitan Ministries.
James Walker is a community facilitator at the 2100 Lakeside Men’s Shelter.
