In the era of mass incarceration, prisoner reentry has become an important social institution in the life worlds’ of the urban poor. This is especially the case for poor African-American men and women, Latinos, and increasingly poor white men. Yet we know little about the everyday experience of prisoner reentry or the broader implications of our current crime control strategies in shaping the experiences, interactions, and daily routines of urban life.
Drawing from ethnographic research on the reentry experience in several large cities, this Vera Institute of Justice presentation reveals how U.S. crime control policies have produced a new form of citizenship for the criminalized poor, changing the nature of American public and private life and transforming the shape of American democracy.
Reuben Jonathan Miller is an assistant professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Michigan, faculty affiliate in the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, and faculty associate in the Population Studies Center. His research, writing, and advocacy focus on the lives of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people and on how carceral expansion has transformed the urban landscape.
Miller's work has been published in journals of criminology, human rights, law, public health, psychology, sociology, and social work. He is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook on Poverty in the United States and two special editions of peer reviewed journals, one on poverty and incarceration, and the other on the state of African-American boys and men after Ferguson. He was honored to be invited to membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, one of the world's leading centers for critical inquiry and scholarly innovation, for the 2016-2017 academic year.
Miller is currently writing a book on prisoner reentry titled Halfway Home and has launched a study on carceral expansion in the United States and Europe.