A Critique of the Prison Reentry Discourse

• Author: Kevin Warner,Bill Muth,Laura Gogia,Ginger Walker
• DOI: 10.1177/0032885516635100
• Published date: 01 June 2016
• Date: 01 June 2016
• Subject Matter: Articles

The Prison Journal

2016, Vol. 96(3) 392 –414

© 2016 SAGE Publications

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DOI: 10.1177/0032885516635100

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Article

A Critique of the Prison

Reentry Discourse:

Futurity, Presence, and

Commonsense

Bill Muth1, Kevin Warner2,3, Laura Gogia1,

and Ginger Walker1

Abstract

This study raises basic questions about reentry programs in the United

States and the discourses of reentry that currently frame policy, research,

and programs. We compare Nordic discourses with those in the United

States and illustrate how the latter curtail a more complex understanding

of the presence of loved ones in the life of an incarcerated father. We

found that U.S. reentry discourses in general are future-oriented and

convey hopelessness about the capacity of loved ones separated by prison

to be positively present—physically and imaginatively—to each other. We

conclude the study with implications for a humanizing curriculum.

Keywords

reentry discourse, parenting, presence, futurity

Introduction

“With imprisonment, we do not take the whole life away. But we take parts of

life away.”

—Christie (2004, p. 103).

1Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia USA

2University College Dublin, Ireland

3University College Cork, Ireland

Corresponding Author:

Bill Muth, Virginia Commonwealth University, 4802 Sligo Lane, Annandale VA 22003 USA.

Email: wrmuth@vcu.edu

635100TPJXXX10.1177/0032885516635100The Prison JournalMuth et al.

research-article2016

Muth et al. 393

This study raises basic questions about family-oriented, prison-based reentry

programs in the United States. What exactly are prisoners reentering—job

markets? families? societies? Why are reentry programs needed? What does

the discourse of reentry “do to” prisoners and practitioners? Here, the term

discourse refers to language in use (Gee, 1996); that is, how language is used

by some to “do” something to others. We are particularly interested in dis-

courses about incarcerated parents and their relationships with their families

promulgated by those in positions of power vis-à-vis criminal justice sys-

tems. This, we might add, includes prisoners and their families, legislators

and policy makers, and researchers and practitioners like ourselves. We are

concerned about the adverse effects of family reentry discourses on all of us.

Logically, reentry programs might be needed most when the separation

from family is most severe (in terms of length of sentence, distance from

home, visiting policy, beliefs about the redemptive capacity of prisoners, pro-

gramming opportunities, prison culture, etc.). The rise of reentry discourses

in the United States is coincident with mass incarceration and harsh senti-

ments against those convicted of crime and “ex-offenders” as reflected in

political rhetoric and popular culture. This parallel trend suggests that the

most established reentry programs risk being the most attuned to the status

quo and its complacency with rampant rates of recidivism.

In this article, we illustrate ways that reentry discourses about parents and

their families perpetuate commonsense beliefs that legitimize certain

approaches to reentry, maintain status quo, and curtail the aims of a humanist

curriculum. We make our argument in three steps. First, we compare punitive

and socially inclusive penal policy, illustrated in particular by reference to

English-speaking and Nordic countries. This analysis will help us question

the “commonsense” that underpins notions such as “removal from society”

and “reentry.” Second, we use critical discourse analysis (CDA) to examine

policies and academic texts related to U.S. reentry. We show how these texts

frame policy and shape attitudes by perpetuating a discourse about reentry as

something that happens in the future, after prison, if at all. Third, we then

reflect on the way future-oriented reentry discourses curtail the possibilities

for effective family reentry by limiting what can be imagined and discussed

seriously by policy makers, researchers, and practitioners, and offer some

suggestions for a new reentry discourse and humanizing curriculum.

Punitive Versus Socially Inclusive Views of People

in Prison

Dominant features of prison systems in the United States and other

English-speaking countries—mass incarceration, longer sentences, fewer