Rebuilding from the vacuum: A qualitative study of people with a recent history of incarceration

Thirty-four adults recently released from incarceration and living in transitional homes were interviewed in this qualitative study. An open-ended approach to interviewing was used to allow participants’ main concerns to emerge. Participants were primarily focused on rebuilding relationships to achieve stability post-incarceration. Participants who rebuilt stable relationships were able to work on internal goals (e.g., sobriety). Participants who did not rebuild stable relationships returned to existing social networks of unstable connections characterized by drug addiction, abuse, or criminal activity.     

“Doing the Right and the Good”: Thinking Against Mass Incarceration

In 1952, Rabbi Eliezer Yehudah Waldenberg (a member of the Supreme Rabbinical Court of Israel) and Rabbi Ben Zion Meir Chai Uziel (the Rishon LeTziyon and Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel) addressed the question of incarceration in a Jewish state according to the halakhic tradition. A generation later, Rabbi Chaim David Halevi the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv-Yaffo) also addressed this question. Their approaches shed light on the way we should be thinking about incarceration in general, and the overwhelming problem of the current moment in the United States: mass incarceration.