Skip to main content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Prisoner Reentry, Parole Violations, and the Persistence of the Surveillance State

"The increasing reliance on revocation as a standard tool of parole supervision has created a "separate path to prison for large numbers of former prisoners" ... Despite the routine use of parole violations and sanctions - collectively referred to as “back-end sentencing” - as a means of surveillance and punishment, policymakers and reentry scholars are only just starting to explore the contribution of this process to the reentry recycling of offenders through the correctional system" (p. 1-2). This dissertation examines how parole revocation impacts offenders' abilities to successfully reenter their communities. Five chapters make up this dissertation: introduction to parole violations and the three stages of prison's revolving door; the role of social service proximity in prisoner reentry-"how neighborhood contextual conditions shape the likelihood that parolees receive violation reports"; institutional sanctions in context-the impact of county-level characteristics on parole outcomes; the effects of short-term custodial sanctions on labor market outcomes among former prisoners; and conclusion.