Going Back

Chapter nine arrives at the question who was able to stay out of prison after re-entry, and who was not. It first discusses the strategies these lifers employed to navigate the conditions of parole. The interviewees mentioned several reasons in terms of ‘failing’ to stay out of prison: Being recalled for political reasons; catching up too quickly for lost time; falling back into old habits, and returning to prison as a safe place. The vast majority of re-incarcerated lifers returned to prison as a result of a technical violation, not a new criminal offense (criminal recidivism). What we should thus be questioning is not how these lifers are actively ‘going straight’ or desist, but rather, how they manage their parole conditions and similarly, how the parole system manages its parolees. The chapter further details how lifers experience their re-incarceration, with particular attention to older lifers.

Life after Life Imprisonment

Chapter seven explores the initial impacts of re-entering a world these lifers left many years ago. The chapter highlights specific roadblocks to re-entry. These include the ‘felon label’, the implications stigma, labeling, and the widespread availability of criminal background checks. These factors prevent lifers from obtaining housing and employment. The chapter discusses how interviewees managed the stigma of being an ex-offender. Deriving indicators from life-course theories, the chapter further details how relationships with family, intimate partners and children influenced the interviewees over the years. By being in prison for decades, these lifers have been removed from structures that favor maturation and provide sources of informal social control, such as employment, intimate relationships, family relationships and parenthood. Prison, in this view, has disrupted their journey of going straight.

A Life Sentence

Chapter five describes in depth the factors peculiar to long-term imprisonment, how the interviewees coped with these conditions and how they managed to adapt to (solitary) confinement over the years. The chapter discusses how lifers dealt with Sykes’ pains of imprisonment. This chapter goes deeper into what differentiates the long-term prisoners’ experience from those who are ‘passing through’ the prison system. It discusses the stages of the lifer prison career, their place in the prison hierarchy, and their fear of becoming institutionalized.

The Context

Chapter three describes how lifers for this study were recruited and the context in which the life history interviews took place. It also touches on the characteristics of the interviewees, and the geographical and cultural background that shaped their lives. This includes the place of incarceration (in particular Walpole State Prison and Bridgewater State Hospital), the time of incarceration and the socio-cultural context of their lives at the time of their crimes. They are a heterogeneous, though collective, group of individuals, whose histories leading up to the homicide were remarkably similar. Since virtually all interviewed lifers were on parole, this chapter also devotes attention to the nature of parole, parole supervision and the influence of the Willie Horton and Dominic Cinelli cases.

Reconsidering Lifer Reentry

Chapter eleven concludes by exploring the boundaries of two main theoretical models: Life-course theories and theories of cognitive transformation, in explaining success and failure among these lifers. The majority of the interviewed lifers, in a strict sense, desisted from crime, but still experienced great difficulty adjusting to life outside of prison. The chapter discusses ways in which the findings can be put into practical and policy recommendations, to better prepare this unique group of offenders for release to the community: By reclaiming self-efficacy in prison and through employment, by evidence-based programming, and by acknowledging the psychological aftermath of long-term incarceration. The chapter concludes with a discussion on reform in both prison and parole systems for lifers. Providing lifers a fair chance on the job market, adequate programming taking into account the prolonged period of confinement, and a sense of certainty in terms of reasons for recall enables them to start a life beyond bars.

Staying Out

Chapter ten delves deeper into the factors the interviewees mentioned as key to staying out. These included aging out of crime, a healthy fear for the conditions of parole, and self-efficacy, or having a sense of choice and control over one’s life. Non-incarcerated interviewees, as opposed to re-incarcerated individuals, reflected a strong sense of agency in their narrative. The process of desistance is thus not the result of societal forces, as emphasized by life-course theorists. Nor does it seem to be a resolution of an individual to change, as the vast majority of interviewees said that they underwent a transformation leading to a better version of themselves. What seems to be crucial for lifers in being successful in staying out on parole is a combination of social support structures, having regained a sense of control, and a strong awareness of the restraints that govern their day-to-day life.

Residual Effects of Imprisonment

This chapter addresses the effects of long-term incarceration on mental health. The long-term effects of exposure to powerful and traumatic situations, contexts, and structures mean that prisons themselves can bring about psychological problems resulting from prison trauma. Interviewed lifers described symptoms that were not limited to PTSD, but also included institutionalized personality traits (prisonization), social-sensory disorientation, and temporal alienation, or the idea of ‘not belonging’. Taken together, this cluster of mental health symptoms is described as the ‘Post-Incarceration Syndrome’, or PICS. Navigating the conditions of parole often clashed with their need for appropriate mental health counselling.

Understanding Desistance

This chapter draws from two predominant criminological theories that have been used to explain desistance from crime: Life-course theories and theories of cognitive transformation. Particular attention is paid to life-course notions including aging out and acquiring new social roles. This chapter also addresses the nature of the homicide and the influence of imprisonment to help us understand how the homicide offenders on which this study was based, fare post-release. Did prison act as a school of crime, as a deterrent, or simply as a ‘deep freeze’, which implies that offenders came out the exact way they came in? Finally, the chapter discusses potential harmful effects of imprisonment, including institutionalization. This chapter serves as a theoretical background in coming to understand the ability of lifers to build a life for themselves before, during, and most importantly, after release.

Introduction

The first chapter discusses the background and recent trends in the application of life sentences. Over the last decades, the number of lifers nationwide has been rising dramatically. It has been well documented that this growth is linked to policy changes, not to increases in crime rates. The chapter outlines the reasons why we should pay attention to the population of life sentenced individuals: The absence of crime reduction through incarceration, the financial aspects of applying prolonged imprisonment, the adverse social and psychological effects of long-term incarceration and finally, recent developments in legislation that may result in more life-sentenced individuals being released. This book seeks to shed light on this understudied population. While doing so, it assesses what determines success (desistance, or staying out on parole) versus failure (going back to prison) post-release. The chapter provides an overview of the book’s structure in addressing this question.

A Productive, Law-Abiding Citizen

This chapter takes a closer look at the notion of prison as a turning point. It demonstrates that the majority of interviewees described having experienced a ‘personal change’, an ‘epiphany’ or a ‘spiritual awakening’. It further details the vehicles for such a cognitive shift. Once these lifers made the decision to move away from their old lives, they described consciously distancing themselves from delinquent peers and surrounding themselves with a supportive and positive social network. This chapter goes deeper into the process underlying this change, and the associated redemption narrative. It shows that this narrative is not necessarily fake, in the sense that interviewees pretend to be someone they are not, but rather a reflection of how they wish to present themselves.