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Exploring the Challenges Former Prisoners Face Finding Work

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Boys and Men in African American Families

Part of the book series: National Symposium on Family Issues ((NSFI,volume 7))

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Abstract

In their chapter, “Families, Prisoner Reentry, and Reintegration,” Harding and colleagues speak powerfully to the role that the family plays in shaping former prisoners’ life chances immediately post-release. The authors could do more, however, to deepen our understanding of the challenges the formerly incarcerated face upon exit from prison and of families’ responses to these challenges. Because Harding and colleagues do not engage the growing body of research linking former prisoners’ employment problems to their lack of engagement in a job search, resulting from a whole host of challenges structural in nature, these issues largely go unexamined, as do the family’s response. The authors also seek to make sense of the ways in which the family helps and hinders without directly studying the families involved in the process. In this chapter, I complicate both our understanding of the labor market challenges faced by prisoners and also the family’s role in facilitating and hindering their reintegration, given these challenges.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA

    Sandra Susan Smith

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  1. Sandra Susan Smith
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Correspondence to Sandra Susan Smith .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Trinity College of Arts and Science, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA

    Linda M. Burton

  2. Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

    Dorian Burton

  3. Social Science Research Institute, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Susan M. McHale

  4. Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Valarie King

  5. Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA

    Jennifer Van Hook

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Smith, S.S. (2016). Exploring the Challenges Former Prisoners Face Finding Work. In: M. Burton, L., Burton, D., M. McHale, S., King, V., Van Hook, J. (eds) Boys and Men in African American Families. National Symposium on Family Issues, vol 7. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-43847-4_9

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