This project created a novel life history data set from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS) interviews.  The BRS is a longitudinal survey, interviewing 122 Massachusetts state prisoners newly-released to the Boston area a week before their release from prison, and an additional four times over the 12-month period post-release. Through the analytical transcription of nearly 300 interviews, this project consolidated a unique source of data on a key population whose experiences are difficult to fully capture with traditional social science research methods.  It examined respondents’ experiences from childhood through one year after release from prison and synthesized qualitative life histories with quantitative measures of social integration to provide an account on how individual biographies shape the transition from prison to the community.

Life history timelines were completed for a subsample of 50 out of the 122 respondents. The subsample is representative of both the larger BRS sample and the released prisoner population to Boston during the study timeframe. It captured the heterogeneity of the BRS sample and prison releasees while providing insight into their efforts to establish community membership in the context of a life history often characterized by extreme social and economic disadvantage. In addition to the subsample, 7 supplemental timelines were completed for the remaining female respondents not in this subsample. These life history timeline data on the female respondents were used in an undergraduate senior thesis to perform a comparative analysis on the differences in the reentry experiences of formerly incarcerated women and men.

Constructing the life history timelines consisted of initially reviewing data from the 5 survey instruments, the supplementary proxy interview (typically conducted with a family member of the focal respondent), accompanying qualitative field notes and phone/e-mail check-in notes and listening to the corresponding audio interviews, an estimated 6 to 8 hours of recordings for each respondent. Timelines were chronologically organized into summarized notes from birth through the year after release from prison in order to analyze respondents’ life experiences over different stages of development—childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Long quoted passages, short phrases and words were incorporated into the timelines to highlight the respondents’ own account of significant events in the life course. The life history notes were tagged with search terms to indicate respondents’ relationships with family and peers, their involvement with crime and the criminal justice system, their exposure to violence and utilization of drugs as well as various other topics. The life histories were then reviewed by the respondent’s original interviewer and transcription team to help ensure the accuracy of qualitative data analysis.

A key goal of this project was to introduce an innovative methodological approach to study and analyze data on a hard-to-reach population. Quantitative analyses of post-incarceration experiences can capture one’s employment status or residence at a given point in time, but are more challenged to explore the processual character of social integration. Coupled with a thematic tagging system and social context, the life history timelines complemented the quantitative data from survey instruments. The mixed-method analysis developed in this project has allowed us to explore associations between lifetime patterns of incarceration, social dynamics and variations in life histories. It has shed light not only on the context in which crime and incarceration occur but also on the larger context of severe deprivation experienced by BRS respondents since childhood.  The current project has expanded sociological analysis where traditional quantitative methods may be poorly suited, especially for those at the margins of social and economic life. In short, it contributed a mixed-methods approach for analysis that allowed for the collection of data at reasonable scale in a way that enhances data collection and facilitates the understanding of the life history and process of integration on this hard-to-reach population.

This project also provided a unique research training opportunity to the research team members. They were trained in data entry, methodologies and analysis for studying hard-to-reach populations. These members, including graduate and undergraduate students, have used life history data to analyze various aspects of the reentry experience, including family life, household dynamics and neighborhood attainment after incarceration as well as to examine the gendered transition from prison to the community of women. A BRS paper recently published in the Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences by Professor Bruce Western incorporated this rich life history data set to analyze the correlation between poverty and violence while tracing the context in which violence occurs throughout the life course. Western has also prepared a book manuscript on the reentry study that is due to the Russell Sage Foundation press in November 2016.

As the problem of prisoner reentry remains a question of key policy significance, the results of this new life history analysis may speak to important policy questions about the scale of incarceration and measures to ease the transition from prison to community.

Last Modified: 09/16/2016
Modified by: Bruce P Western