Public Hostility

The concluding chapter makes clear that despite the negative outcomes for felons reentering society, a felony conviction has many “useful” purposes rooted in historical practices and politics. A felony conviction is a powerful tool that is integral to maintaining a discourse about “us” versus “them” that fuses distinct social-economic institutions, such as housing, education, and employment, to the criminal justice system. This chapter describes how the term “felon” defines an individual’s worth in such a way as to become a simple short-cut that widens the net of policies, maintains the broader social system of white supremacy, supports legal and political structures and tough-on-crime initiatives, and extends the original punishment to socially disable men and women convicted of a felony. This chapter argues that the negative externalities that restrict felons from accessing critical public assistance engender failure in the returning population, resulting in recidivism, and reinforce the concept of retribution.

Not Working and Unable to Work

This chapter explores the challenges felons face in securing employment, including criminal history background checks, industry restrictions, changes in public policies, the growth of technology, and the reluctance of companies to hire felons. Most participants reentered society unable to secure legal employment due to divergent levels of education and social capital, and the increased use of criminal history background checks. A job is critically important to successfully reenter society due to the increased practice of local and state governments imposing criminal justice fees and fines, as well as child-support payments in arrears. Based on interview and ethnographic data, this chapter details the challenges convicted felons encounter when looking for work, and also explores some of the strategies that participants used in an effort to secure gainful legal employment.

Education’s Failed Promise

Felons are characterized as a hard-to-employ population who have limited educational achievement, so large numbers of them remain unemployed. This chapter explores educational policies inside and outside of prison, and how the expansion of statutory limitations and tough-on-crime policies prevents prisoners and reentering felons from securing funds to go to school. Participants were unable to go to school when they were imprisoned, and upon coming home are pressured to get a job by parole and/or family rather than to go to school; however, most are denied employment opportunities due to statutory restrictions denying felons the right to work. As a result, individuals view education as a nonstarter, and this chapter argues that as a result of public policies, a vicious cycle develops as felons remain undereducated and unable to secure funds needed to get their GED or attend vocational schools, so they resort to criminal activities to live.

Felons Are Contemporary Outlaws

This chapter introduces readers to the world of prisoner reentry and a felony conviction, and describes the research context. Drawing on first-person narratives, the chapter describes the lived experiences of convicted felons reacclimating to society in order to communicate the concept of social disability. A felony conviction and prisoner reentry straddle multiple disciplinary perspectives; therefore, an interdisciplinary framework is established to link history, politics, race, and public policies to convey the layered reality of a felony and its distinct socially disabling consequences. Weaving together racialized policies, such as the War on Drugs, with details about the sheer number of felons living in numerous communities across the country, this chapter lays the foundation for the book by describing who is locked up and who reenters society. Additionally, main concepts are introduced to emphasize the underlying argument that a felony conviction is a socially disabling construct that is based on punitive tough-on-crime policies.

Unwelcome Homecoming

In this chapter, former prisoners’ narratives are used to explore what it means to serve time in the “total institution” of prison, the prison experience and its connection to prisoner reentry, and what it means to be a convicted felon in society. Society expects prisoners reentering society to succeed by getting a job and not returning to a life of crime, but many fail, yet scholars rarely incorporate felons’ voices into the analysis to understand why. This chapter argues that there are many contradictions embedded in the reentry process, that there is little public support and social capital, and that participants find out that reentering society is harder than they anticipated. Relying on first-person accounts, the chapter exposes why it is so hard to reenter by exploring participants’ experience of living under the oppressive penal chain attached to a felony conviction. Readers are introduced to a unique perspective on serving time in prison and reentering society as a felon.

Felony Conviction as Social Disability

This chapter introduces social disability theory to illustrate how felons are treated similarly to people living with a disability. Social disability theory is linked to the historical evolution of a felony conviction, the concept of stigma, infamous crimes, the politics of fear, and the racialization of crime. The history of race and race relations in the United States is an important component connected to a felony conviction, prisoner reentry, and social disability; race has been used to delegitimize entire communities as being deviant, and racial bias is seen in current public policies and the media’s presentation of criminals as black. This chapter explores the development of the public’s fear of black men, in particular. Politicians responded to the public’s fear by passing tough-on-crime policies to criminalize more behaviors as felonious and then using a felony conviction to socially disable felons.

Denying Access to Public Housing

This chapter reviews national housing policies, their evolution in relationship to “tough-on-crime” politics, such as “One Strike, You’re Out,” and the importance of housing for prisoner reentry success. Drawing on the perspectives of felons reentering society and on the foundational knowledge about race and politics explored in earlier chapters, this chapter details gendered responses to being homeless, what men and women do differently to survive, and how their survival tactics undermine their reentry success. Their experiences demonstrate the consequences of socially disabling policies that prevent the vast majority of convicted felons from accessing public housing and the negative ramifications of being a homeless felon. This chapter argues that as a result of socially disabling policies that deny most felons access to public housing, government has created a homeless population on the basis of historical concepts of infamy and fear of a black felon monster lurking in the shadows.