Note
Authors affiliated with: Department of Sociology, DePaul University; Concordia University; and, Department of Sociology, University of Chicago.
Summary
This report examines qualitatively the re-entry experiences and trajectories of 39 Chicago-area ex-convicts during the first year of their most recent release from incarceration in a State penal facility. Findings indicate that ex-convicts accommodate their criminal histories and current (limited) prospects for social and economic livelihood by “cocooning” themselves in tight-knit insular networks of family and close friendships. This insularity serves them well in the short-term, affording material and non-material benefits essential to daily life. In the long term, however, this accommodation of social and human capital shortages further reinforces their disenfranchisement vis-à-vis community life and the labor market, two key domains in the “successful” re-entry trajectory. Most ex-convicts—especially those who remain gang involved— ironically suffer “too much of a good thing” (i.e., close ties within dense networks) and too little of what past research has deemed integral to successful social capital accumulation—loose ties to people and organizations with the capacity to mobilize resources on which the ex-convict can capitalize.