Few would disagree that neighborhood and place are important dimensions of reentry from prison, but we have a less clear sense of why or how they matter—and we rarely get a view of the lived social-interactional dynamics between people returning from incarceration and receiving communities. Intersecting Lives focuses on the processes by which neighborhood and place influence reentry experiences and how these shape community life. Through interviews and ethnographic observations, Andrea M. Leverentz brings readers into three very different Boston communities. These places and the interactions they foster shape reentry outcomes, including reoffending, surveillance, relationship formation, and access to opportunities. This book sheds crucial new light on the processes of reentry and desistance, tying them intimately to space and community, including dynamics around race, gender, gentrification, homelessness, and transportation.
Andrea M. Leverentz is Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts Boston. She is the author of The Ex-Prisoner’s Dilemma: How Women Negotiate Competing Narratives of Reentry and Desistance and coeditor of Beyond Recidivism: New Approaches to Research on Prisoner Reentry and Reintegration.
"A great contribution. Few studies on prisoner reentry focus on both the perspective of formerly incarcerated individuals and the perspective of the community."—Jennifer Cobbina-Dungy, author of Hands Up, Don't Shoot
"I have not ever seen a work quite like this. The particular focus on place feels refreshingly new and important."—Venezia Michalsen, author of Mothering and Desistance in Re-Entry
270 pp.6 x 9Illus: 3 b/w map, 6 tables
9780520379435$29.95|£25.00Paper
Jul 2022