Beyond Basic Needs: Social Support and Structure for Successful Offender Reentry

Authors

Andrew S. Denney, University of Louisville
Richard Tewksbury, University of Louisville
Richard S. Jones, Marquette University

Abstract

"Barriers to successful reentry have long been identified as impeding an offender’s ability to successfully reenter society upon release from incarceration. As a result, research has long examined what shared obstacles the majority of offenders often face upon reentering society. Much of the research identifies factors such as poor education, obtaining/maintaining employment, stable housing, and transportation as common barriers to successful reentry. By using in-depth interviews with ex-offenders deemed as successful that were conducted by two respective non-profit agencies, the present study explores what significant requirements, if any, successful offenders perceive to need and/or have experienced as lacking while attempting to successfully reenter society. Findings from this study highlight that many of the research- identified needs are not major barriers because they are often provided for by various non-profit agencies. Furthermore, successful ex-offenders overwhelmingly identify poor social support as a major barrier that oftentimes remains neglected in government and non-profit organizational programming."

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.

Recommended Citation

Denney, Andrew S.; Tewksbury, Richard; and Jones, Richard S. (2014) "Beyond Basic Needs: Social Support and Structure for Successful Offender Reentry," Qualitative Criminology (QC): Vol. 2: No. 1, Article 3.
Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/qc/vol2/iss1/3