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Conclusion Close examination of this country’s retributive criminal justice policy decisions over the last three decades reveals the devastation left in their wake. Each decision taken separately created a host of consequences . But when one steps back and examines the impact of those policies as a whole on individuals and communities, one can see the massive toll on both lives and potential that short-sighted decisions can take. Americans patted ourselves on the back and declared ourselves victorious in the War on Drugs because we believed we regained control of our streets by sending low-level drug dealers into prisons for extended periods of time. But we failed to prepare for the postwar devastation by ignoring the impact of releasing poor, unskilled, and chemically dependent individuals back into communities. In our zeal to remove “comforts ” from prisoners, we withdrew education, drug treatment, and vocational training and never implemented real health care as a central part of the prison system. And when a few notorious failures in the parole system came to the public’s attention, we responded by withdrawing political support for the parole function, even though the parole agent offered a way to monitor and facilitate the transition of prisoners back into their communities. The claim of victory was as premature as it was inaccurate. But there is still time to change that story. Notwithstanding the bleak picture that I have painted thus far, there are a number of new and innovative efforts that should provide hope. The collaboration of government and nonprofit agencies has provided some promising results. The faith community has refocused some of its efforts into street-level activism , moving outside the church walls and into the surrounding communities . Faith-based organizations work with young people and the formerly incarcerated to better reintegrate them into their communities. Resources in these communities are already stretched thin, and the in- flux of individuals with a variety of needs only serves to further desta176 bilize neighborhoods on the brink of collapse. So as we begin to contemplate solutions, we should be mindful that there may be greater needs in reentry planning for people of color. Invariably, people of color released from prison return primarily to communities of color. In many African American and Latino communities there are such a large number of people returning from jail and prison that the cycle of incarceration and reentry actually transforms the neighborhoods. Without the requisite social and economic resources, these communities hover at the edge or, as one group of authors puts it, the “tipping point,” beyond which incredibly high levels of personal and neighborhood disorganization and chaos occur.1 These neighborhoods can be affected by what researchers John Hagan and Bill McCarthy term “criminal embeddedness.”2 Once released from prison, a large number of people of color return to inner-city environments filled with criminogenic risks and threats.3 Increasingly we see that not only cities and states are affected by the recent incarceration boom, but neighborhoods and communities are directly affected as well. Jeffery Fagan, Valerie West, and Jan Holland, in their important work on the effects of crime and incarceration in New York City, reveal that incarceration is no longer simply a consequence of neighborhood crime but rather may be integral to the ecological dynamics that actually elevate crime in given neighborhoods.4 Fagan et al. analyze the incarceration rates in New York City and attribute the skyrocketing rates of the last two decades to increased street-level drug enforcement .5 Overwhelmingly the target of this enforcement has been “mainly minority neighborhoods.”6 Analyzing patterns of incarceration and return, the Fagan et al. research contributes significantly to the conversation about reentry and its implications for communities of color. Their research suggests that “it is not uncommon for certain residents to cycle between the prison system and their communities several times.”7 The media and popular culture have intentionally or inadvertently conspired to demonize prisons and offenders. As troubling as the television news, dramas, and movies have been in portraying inmates and recently released ex-offenders, some of the worst depictions have been saved for offenders of color. The lens of race and ethnicity in the media only serves to contextualize how difficult the prospect of reentry can be in many real communities. This constant focus on race and crime, along with the dearth of people of color in nonstereotypical roles in primetime television, only contributes to the continuation of stigma. Conclusion | 177 [18.216.114...

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