Every year, hundreds of thousands of jailed Americans leave prison and return to society. Largely uneducated, unskilled, often without family support, and with the stigma of a prison record hanging over them, many if not most will experience serious social and psychological problems after release. Fewer than one in three prisoners receive substance abuse or mental health treatment while incarcerated, and each year fewer and fewer participate in the dwindling number of vocational or educational pre-release programs, leaving many all but unemployable. Not surprisingly, the great majority is rearrested, most within six months of their release. What happens when all those sent down the river come back up--and out?As long as there have been prisons, society has struggled with how best to help prisoners reintegrate once released. But the current situation is unprecedented. As a result of the quadrupling of the American prison population in the last quarter century, the number of returning offenders dwarfs anything in America's history. What happens when a large percentage of inner-city men, mostly Black and Hispanic, are regularly extracted, imprisoned, and then returned a few years later in worse shape and with dimmer prospects than when they committed the crime resulting in their imprisonment? What toll does this constant "churning" exact on a community? And what do these trends portend for public safety? A crisis looms, and the criminal justice and social welfare system is wholly unprepared to confront it.Drawing on dozens of interviews with inmates, former prisoners, and prison officials, Joan Petersilia convincingly shows us how the current system is failing, and failing badly. Unwilling merely to sound the alarm, Petersilia explores the harsh realities of prisoner reentry and offers specific solutions to prepare inmates for release, reduce recidivism, and restore them to full citizenship, while never losing sight of the demands of public safety. As the number of ex-convicts in America continues to grow, their systemic marginalization threatens the very society their imprisonment was meant to protect. America spent the last decade debating who should go to prison and for how long. Now it's time to decide what to do when prisoners come home.

Product Description: In 1995, James Q. Wilson and Joan Petersilia undertook the project of writing a comprehensive textbook on crime, inviting 26 internationally recognized authorities to write chapters in their areas of expertise. Their efforts resulted in the best-selling and critically acclaimed text 'Crime'...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Book by Petersilia, Joan (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

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Product Description: America's prison population has quadrupled in the past two decades, with an enormous impact on families, communities, correctional officers, policy makers, and prisoners themselves. The use of imprisonment as a means of social control has come to the fore in many public debates—whether the issues be deterrence, incapacitation, public spending, overcrowding, or the effects of imprisonment on the offenders' later lives...read more (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: Criminal Justice Policy is an authoritative collection of previously published writings addressing the most important issues which have dominated the field during the past fifteen years. Topics covered include: international perspectives on the extent and nature of crime; theoretical explanations for the onset, escalation and termination of criminal behaviour; the social context of crime; evaluating alternative crime policy options; crime control policy and the future...read more

Product Description: This reader brings together information on the issues, data and programmes that comprise community corrections. It provides an overview of the changing face of community corrections and the debates about it, followed by commentary on and assessments of various programmes. (view table of contents, read Amazon.com's description)

Product Description: The number one issue of concern to Americans today is predatory crime, and we are pouring billions of dollars into programs designed to combat its threat. But how have these measures succeeded - or failed - in fighting crime? Now, Crime provides the authoritative evidence we need to understand the consequences of our policy choices...read more

Product Description: Alternatives to prison and incarceration are explored in this volume. The contributors discuss intensive probation supervision, electronic monitoring, home confinement, shock incarceration, day reporting centres, the use of fines, split sentencing and the controversial issues surrounding alternative punishments...read more

Product Description: Alternatives to prison and incarceration are explored in this volume. The contributors discuss intensive probation supervision, electronic monitoring, home confinement, shock incarceration, day reporting centres, the use of fines, split sentencing and the controversial issues surrounding alternative punishments...read more

Product Description: softcover