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Prisoner Reentry and Residential Change after Hurricane Katrina

Bibliographic Data

ID19974970
AuthorsDavid S Kirk (0000-0003-0037-4291, Professor of Sociology and Professorial Fellow, Nuffield College, University of Oxford, corresponding author)
Year2020
Pages240
Publication date2020-04-23
Open AccessNo
TypeBOOK
VenueHome Free (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherOxford University PressNew York (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/oso/9780190841232.001.0001
OpenAlexW4248027457
Open LibraryOL28067236M
ISBN9780190841232
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited129

This book is about building credible science to address the challenge of criminal recidivism. It does so by drawing upon a unique natural experiment that presented an opportunity to witness an alternate reality. More than 625,000 individuals are released from prison in the United States each year, and roughly half of these individuals will be back in prison within just three years. A likely contributor to the churning of the same individuals in and out of prison is the fact that many released prisoners return home to the same environment with the same criminal opportunities and criminal peers that proved so detrimental to their behavior prior to incarceration. This study uses Hurricane Katrina as a natural experiment for examining the question of whether residential relocation away from an old neighborhood can lead to desistance from crime. Many prisoners released soon after Katrina could not go back to their old neighborhoods, as they normally would have done. Their neighborhoods were devastated by a once-in-a-generation storm that damaged the vast majority of housing units in New Orleans. Hurricane Katrina provided a rare opportunity to investigate what happens when individuals move not just a short distance, but to entirely different cities, counties, and social worlds. This study draws upon both quantitative and qualitative evidence to reveal where newly released prisoners resided in the wake of the Katrina, the effect of residential relocation on the likelihood of reincarceration through eight years post-release, and the mechanisms revealing why residential change is so important after release from prison

Churning · Criminology · Economics · Geography · Hurricane katrina · Natural disaster · Political science · Prison · Recidivism · Relocation · Sociology · Witness · Crime Patterns and Interventions · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis · Disaster Management and Resilience · Law · 2005 · Criminals · Ex-convicts · Recidivists · rehabilitation · Relocation (housing)

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