About the Report The Report, Part II: Review of the Re-Entry Process:

chapters and policy statements:
About the Report of the Re-Entry Council

Policy Statement 21, Research Highlight 2

Many of the communities that receive released individuals are ill prepared to absorb those with low employability.

Most inmates return to low-income, disadvantaged communities with limited employment prospects. [1]   These communities often have large numbers of low-skilled residents and relatively few unskilled jobs, let alone skilled jobs offering long-term employment stability. Peer groups in these neighborhoods presumably provide relatively few contacts to the world of legitimate work. [2]   All residents in these neighborhoods are adversely affected by what has been coined "spatial mismatch" - a surplus of workers relative to the number of available jobs in certain neighborhoods. [3]   Weak networks and contacts will continue to exacerbate the employment difficulties of this population. [4]  

  1. Nancy G. La Vigne et al., A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Illinois (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2003); Nancy G. La Vigne et al., A Portrait of Prisoner Reentry in Maryland (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2003). back
  2. William Julius Wilson, When Work Disappears: the World of the New Urban Poor (New York: Random House, 1996). back
  3. Keith R. Ihlanfeldt and David L. Sjoquist, "The Spatial Mismatch Hypothesis: A Review of Recent Studies and Their Implications for Welfare Reform," Fannie Mae Foundation Housing Policy Debate 9, no. 4 (1998); Michael Stoll and Steven Raphael, "Racial Differences in Spatial Job Search Patterns: Exploring the Causes and Consequences," Economic Geography 76, no. 3 (2000): 201 - 23. back
  4. Harry Holzer, Steven Raphael, and Michael A. Stoll, Employment Barriers Facing Ex-Offenders (Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2003). Harry Holzer, "Informal Job Search and Black Youth Unemployment," American Economic Review 77, no.2 (1987). back
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