The Urban Institute has mapped concentrations of prisoner reentry in several states and communities across the country. As a provider of research and technical assistance to the National Governors Association Reentry Policy Academy as well as through the Returning Home study, the Urban Institute has mapped the reentry to communities in Massachusetts, Michigan, New Jersey, Idaho, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Ohio, and Texas. The Urban Institute also established the Reentry Mapping Network, a partnership among 12 community-based organizations to create community change through the mapping and analysis of neighborhood-level data related to reentry and community well-being.
To examine both the impact of reentry on communities and the role of communities in a prisoner's reintegration process, the Returning Home study involves interviews with returning prisoners, focus groups with members of communities that are home to large concentrations of returning prisoners, and interviews with stakeholders involved in reentry activities at the community and city levels. The Urban Institute has also convened a Reentry Roundtable exploring the role of community institutions, such as faith-based organizations and local businesses, in prisoner reentry.
Recent Findings from the Urban Institute on Communities and Reentry
- A relatively large number of prisoners return to a small number of cities in each state. For example, Chicago and Baltimore received more than half of prisoners returning to Illinois and Maryland, respectively, in 2001. Houston received a quarter of all prisoners returning to Texas. In 2002, 2 of New Jersey's 21 counties accounted for nearly a third of returning prisoners. In 2002, more than one-third (37 percent) of adult prisoners returned to 2 of Massachusetts's 14 counties. Five of Idaho's 44 counties accounted for 73 percent of returning prisoners.
- Returning prisoners are often clustered in a few neighborhoods within those cities. In 2001, 8 percent of Chicago communities (6 of 77) accounted for 34 percent of all prisoners returning to Chicago. Thirty-six percent of respondents in the Maryland Returning Home study returned to 11 percent of Baltimore communities (6 of 55). In 2002, almost half of adult prisoners returning to Suffolk County, Massachusetts, returned to just 10 percent of Boston's 630 block groups. In Virginia, about half of all prisoners returning to Richmond in 2002 returned to 15 percent of the city's 163 block groups. In 2003, 7 percent of the Zip Codes (8 of 115) in Wayne County, Michigan, all of which are located in the city of Detroit, accounted for 41 percent of all prisoners released to parole in Michigan.
- High levels of social and economic disadvantage often characterize the communities to which prisoners return. The Chicago, Baltimore, Cleveland, and Houston communities that are home to the greatest concentrations of released prisoners have above-average rates of unemployment, female-headed households, and families living below the federal poverty level. In Virginia, New Jersey, and Massachusetts, the cities to which the greatest percent of prisoners return have poverty rates more than twice that of the state as a whole and are characterized by higher than average levels of unemployment and female-headed households.
- Prisoners do not necessarily return to the communities from which they came. About half of Returning Home respondents who returned to Chicago and Baltimore did not return to the neighborhood in which they lived prior to incarceration. These respondents reported that the principal reasons for relocation were either to avoid problems in their old neighborhood or because their families had moved.
- Former prisoners who relocate after they are released tend to move to neighborhoods similar to the ones they left. Illinois Returning Home findings show that prisoners who move at least once in the two years after their release move to neighborhoods with similar socioeconomic characteristics as the ones they left.
- Prisoners returning to neighborhoods perceived to be unsafe and lacking in social capital are at greater risk of recidivism. Illinois Returning Home respondents who viewed their communities as safe and good places to live were much less likely to return to prison and more likely to be employed than those who reported their communities were unsafe or characterized by low social capital. In addition, those who felt that drug selling was a problem in their neighborhood were more likely to have engaged in substance use after release than those living in neighborhoods where drug selling was not perceived to be a problem.
