Through the Looking Glass: Taking Stock of Offender Reentry

• Published date: 01 February 2018
• Date: 01 February 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1043986217750443
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/1043986217750443

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2018, Vol. 34(1) 69 –80

© The Author(s) 2018

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DOI: 10.1177/1043986217750443

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Article

Through the Looking Glass:

Taking Stock of Offender

Reentry

Melinda D. Schlager1

Abstract

Offender reentry has been part of the fabric of the criminal justice system since the

first prison opened its doors and people who went in the front door were, at some

point, released. Traditionally, the research on offender reentry has either supported

best practice by determining what specific individual-level programming “works” or

“doesn’t work” or it has assessed the success of programs in terms of their ability to

reduce recidivism. And while we may have moved the dial in the last 50 years with

respect to what we know about individual-level offender reentry attributes, there

is no effective overarching narrative to explain the offender reentry phenomenon.

Overwhelmingly, practitioners and academics in the criminal justice system operate

within a paradigm that assesses and evaluates everything using risk. Unfortunately, a

risk- or deficit-focused approach to viewing offender reentry severely limits our ability

to think differently about the problem. However, if we employ a paradigm for offender

reentry that focuses less on problems and more on strengths, different outcomes

are possible. Work done in social work that promotes “strengths-based, solution-

focused, capacity building, asset creating, motivation enhancing” empowerment

models that accentuate the positive serves as an exemplar for us to use in criminal

justice when discussing offender reentry. The three strengths-based principles adapted

to offender reentry and discussed here are as follows: Officer–offender relationships

that emphasize collaboration will promote law-abiding, prosocial behavior; offenders

who are empowered will be more likely to seek to change; and cooperation from the

community is key to successful offender reentry. Fiscal, political, and common sense

reasons for using a strengths-based approach to offender reentry are discussed.

Keywords

offender reentry, what works, risk, strengths-based

1University of North Texas at Dallas, TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Melinda D. Schlager, Professor, University of North Texas at Dallas, Dallas, TX 75241, USA.

Email: melinda.schlager@untdallas.edu

750443CCJXXX10.1177/1043986217750443Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeSchlager

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