Introduction

This book was initiated during a time when the American public, policymakers at all levels of government, and researchers in a number of disciplines were focused on the issue of prisoner reentry. This heightened interest in the causes and consequences of the annual flow of individuals leaving the nation's prisons was certainly overdue. The cycle of arrest, removal, incarceration, and return of large numbers of people, mostly men, who are disproportionately drawn from minority urban communities, constitutes one of the most profound social developments in modern America. Anyone interested in the well-being of these communities surely benefits from an understanding of the impact of America's expanded reliance on imprisonment as a response to crime.

Yet, although understandable, the new interest in prisoner reentry is somewhat perplexing. What, after all, is new? The fourfold increase in the rate of incarceration in America since the early 1970s has been the topic of considerable public and academic discussion. The fact that, with few exceptions, most prisoners are released to return home is well known. The phenomenon of prisoner reentry is not a sudden development – on the contrary, the size of the annual reentry cohort has been growing steadily since the early 1970s. But, for some reason, the national discussion of crime and punishment over the past three decades has not paid sufficient attention to the formidable consequences of the unprecedented growth in incarceration.