Getting out, fitting in, getting on: being and becoming an ex-prisoner

© 2013 Dr. Diana Frances JohnsReleased prisoners return to prison at alarming rates. Cycles of offending and reincarceration are reinforced by each subsequent experience of imprisonment. It is the community, to which released prisoners return, which bears the brunt of harms embedded in this cycle. Current correctional thinking views ex-prisoners in terms of individual (re)offending risk. Yet ex-prisoners are caught in ‘risky systems’ that impede social integration, perpetuate social exclusion, and increase the risk of offending and reimprisonment. This thesis aims to challenge conventional narratives of post-prison ‘reintegration’ which distinguish ex-prisoners as inherently risky (un)reformable subjects, and reoffending and reimprisonment in terms of individual failure and failings. In foregrounding the subjective experience of men’s release from prison, it seeks to uncover aspects of that experience which can explain how and why men become caught in post-release states of liminality, released yet not wholly free. The research takes a constructionist interpretivist approach, using phenomenography to qualitatively map the post-prison phenomenon, via in-depth semi-structured interviews with ex-prisoners and post-release support workers. It applies a unique theoretical lens comprising three conceptual tools: assemblage, culture and liminality. Together, these provide a way of seeing ‘into’ the post-prison realm. The research findings reveal commonalities in men’s post-release experience: the importance of a home, a job, and social support. Important differences emerged in their sense of belonging in the prison world and their capacity to leave it behind. Workers’ perspectives revealed common understandings of prisoners’ release and post-release ‘success’, yet different conceptions of the post-release subject as ‘client’ or ‘ex-prisoner’, and of the post-release support role. The points of intersection between these different perspectives, analysed through the assemblage-culture-liminality lens, reveal the significance of three domains of post-release experience: home, in terms of men’s sense of belonging and ability to ‘fit in’ outside prison; identity and its sub-themes of ex-prisonerhood, drug use, unemployment, and fatherhood; and connection, encompassing men’s sense of connection to others and the role of community in providing opportunities for social integration. The findings illustrate how imprisonment shadows men’s post-prison experience, and that without community acceptance, and reintegrative opportunities and rituals, ex-prisoners’ social exclusion persists. For men without socio-cultural resources to sustain life outside prison, the risks of reimprisonment are ever-present. Reintegration depends on released prisoners finding acceptance and support in the community, to enable them to develop these resources and thereby become ex-prisoners