Maintenance of social networks of first-time offenders to aid their integration into society upon release

Deepti Jayakrishnan

As I am not taking the second module, I propose a project, that will take longer than a semester to complete, to study (a) the effect of mass incarceration on an individual’s networks (b) how modification of rehabilitative programmes can help prison inmates, especially under-trial prisoners, in maintaining their positive networks that will ease their integration into society upon release.

Introduction: Incarceration disrupts an inmate’s positive networks of family, school, romantic relationships, jobs and has the effect of filtering the inmate into a vastly different set of networks upon release. While in the short term, incarceration has a negative impact on inmate’s the capacity to get a job, maintain relationships with children/siblings, it also affects intergenerational transition of things such as poverty. The significance of the topic under study lies in the fact that under-trial prisoners in India often languish in prison for periods longer than those they would have to serve, if their trial were to result in a conviction. Upon release after serving the required years upon conviction or even if acquitted, the long separation from society and associated stigma has a severe impact on a former inmate’s ability to return to the life/ job and social position held, prior to prison entry.

Hypothesis and objective: Helping prison inmates maintain their social networks prior to incarceration will ease their integration into society upon release.

Scope of data collection and limitations: The target is a section of the population, chosen on the criteria below, at Tihar Central Jail, New Delhi, one of the largest prisons in the world. I choose this prison in India as it is front-runner of progressive prison reform in India and therefore, its management is likely to be more open to conducting such a study.

I limit the study to under-trial prisoners as they constituted 80% of the total population in Tihar, according to prisoner profile data in 2009. I also limit the study to those prisoners who are first-time offenders and awaiting trial for crimes not punishable with death or life imprisonment. This limitation may be removed at a later stage, if resources permit it and the pilot project is found to have some degree of acceptance/success amongst prison officials and inmates.

Methodology: Keeping in mind the fact that ideas such as social bonding, cohesion and control, opportunity structures, diffusion, trust, and peer influence have significant manifestations in social network analysis, I would conduct two surveys, one at the beginning of the period of incarceration and two, upon the inmate’s release.

The first survey would include questions on personal and familial attributes including employment history, prior criminal record, family structure (such as joint or nuclear) and income levels. It would also include questions regarding affiliations to professional and social organizations (formal or informal), professional, romantic and platonic relationships currently in.

The second survey would include similar questions, three persons they most frequently communicated with during incarceration and an additional component on whether the inmate used, and how often the inmate used, the Tihar prison facilities such as the art studio, the computer lab, yoga and meditation classes, vocational courses such as tailoring, baking, etc. It would be ideal if the second survey can be conducted three months after release, instead of immediately upon release, but given the practical difficulties involved, it can be done only with those inmates who are released on parole or bail. In that event, the second survey would include questions on current job held and whether it was obtained through a contact in prison such as official, consumer of Tihar prison products or fellow inmate.

Network measures used: Ego networks in order to determine the the opportunities and constraints inmates face; factions (after the second survey) to understand new relationships created within prison and their strength; cliques, if any and centrality measures i.e. in-degree to determine popularity and out-degree for influence within prison.

According to sociologists such as Andrew Papachristos, crime spreads through risky relationships and behaviors. This study will help determine if maintaining the networks prior to a fist-time offender’s entry into prison will reduce his/her chances of building new offending relationships or gang relationships, which subsequently deter rehabilitation upon release and affect outcomes like employment, and even mortality.

References:

Bedi, Kiran, It's Always Possible: One Woman's Transformation of India's Prison System, Sterling, First edition, 2002, New Delhi.

Papachristos, Andrew V., “The Coming of a Networked Criminology? Using Social Network Analysis in the Study of Crime and Deviance,” Advances in Criminological Theory, Vol 13, 2011.

International Center for Prison Studies- India Prison Brief available at http://www.prisonstudies.org/info/worldbrief/wpb_country.php?country=94; accessed on 23 October 2013

Tihar Prisons: Prisoners’ Profiles available at < http://tiharprisons.nic.in/html/profile.htm>; accessed on 23 October 2013