Beyond the prison walls: Some thoughts on prisoner ‘resettlement’ in England and Wales
| Author | Roger Moore |
| DOI | 10.1177/1748895811425445 |
| Published date | 01 April 2012 |
| Date | 01 April 2012 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Criminology & Criminal Justice
12(2) 129–147
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1748895811425445
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Beyond the prison walls:
Some thoughts on prisoner
‘resettlement’ in England
and Wales
Roger Moore
Formerly Nottingham Trent University, UK
Abstract
In recent years there has been an increased focus on prisoner resettlement in government policy
in England and Wales. Two contrasting trends have been evident. Post-release supervision in
the form of enhanced monitoring and surveillance for offenders on statutory licence has grown
significantly, while post-release support and provision for adult short-sentence prisoners has
been minimalist and remains non-mandatory. This article will examine the problematized status
of resettlement in terms of: (a) differentiated meaning; and (b) policy formulation and application.
It is argued that ‘resettlement’ attracts many key assumptions and that societal expectations of
what can be achieved may be ideationally and conceptually flawed. The discussion centres on both
theoretical connections and uncertainties, together with the respective policy implications. An
indicative schema of ex-prisoner re-entry is outlined for further analytical exploration and critique.
‘Re-entry’, a ‘buzzword’ in the USA, is preferred for this schema rather than ‘resettlement’ which
is the favoured term in England and Wales.
Keywords
desistance, human and social capital, re-entry, resettlement
Introduction
Resettlement has assumed a higher profile in contemporary penal policy in England
and Wales (Her Majesty’s Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation [HMIPP], 2001; Home
Office, 1998, 2004a, 2004b; House of Commons, 2004; Maguire and Raynor, 2006;
Corresponding author:
Roger Moore, School of Social Sciences, Nottingham Trent University, Burton Street, Nottingham,
Nottinghamshire, NG1 4BU, UK
Email: rlmoore@tiscali.co.uk
425445CRJXXX10.1177/1748895811425445MooreCriminology & Criminal Justice
Article
130 Criminology & Criminal Justice 12(2)
Ministry of Justice, 2010a; Social Exclusion Unit [SEU], 2002). As part of their over-
all reset tlement strategy, HM Prison Service has identified seven pathways or factors to
address reoffending (now increased to nine, following the Corston Report (Corston,
2007)). Additionally, pathfinder resettlement projects were created to implement and
evaluate ‘through the prison gate’ initiatives for offenders1 serving terms of less than 12
months (HMIPP, 2001; Lewis et al., 2007). ‘Resettlement’ has superseded throughcare
and aftercare and, together with the associated concepts of re-entry and reintegration
(Maruna and LeBel, 2002; Maruna et al., 2004), has emerged as a major theme in the
discourse on the community transitions of post-release offenders. However, what ‘reset-
tlement’ means is unclear (Hedderman, 2007; Raynor, 2007). To the Prison Service
(Ministry of Justice, 2011b: 1), resettlement refers to the `assistance and support’, pre-
and post-release, from statutory and non-statutory agencies to enable ex-prisoners and
their families to `prepare for life after prison … return to normal life … and cope …
without re-offending’ – to access accommodation, welfare benefits, education and train-
ing, gain employment and address personal problems.2 For McNeill (2004), there is the
broader issue of social reintegration and acceptance. But what does ‘reintegration’ sig-
nify, and resettlement too, when many offenders have never felt either ‘integrated’ or
‘settled’ (Ramsbotham, 2003)? Imprisonment in such cases can be both an extension and
confirmation of long-experienced marginalized status (SEU, 2002).
According to Maruna et al. (2004), there is no coherent theory of resettlement. Instead,
we find a collection of associated ideas and concepts involving policy-makers, practi-
tioners and academics within a wide-ranging resettlement discourse. One striking feature
of resettlement as policy is that it has remained relatively untouched by desistance theory
(Maguire and Raynor, 2006). Trying to understand why offenders cease to offend (Farrall
and Calverley, 2006), as distinct from longer established aetiological theorization, has
assumed growing importance within academic criminology yet has barely resonated in
government resettlement policy and service delivery, nor in criminal justice/legislative
developments in the management of post-release supervision.
The central focus of this article is to examine resettlement as a problematized theo-
retical and empirical construct for offender transitions from prison to the community.
As already indicated, the selected penal domain is England and Wales; however ‘reset-
tlement’ transcends national boundaries and much of the discussion here has wider rel-
evance (see, for example, Padfield et al., 2011, for a comparative study of release
systems in contemporary Europe). At a general level, resettlement denotes a return to
wider society but what that may signify in terms of individual circumstance is neither
self-evident nor sufficiently reflective of the complex interaction of factors and varia-
bles that make up post-prison experiences. To understand resettlement more fully, the
concept needs to be disaggregated into salient theoretical elements and their empirical
contexts identified and explored. There are four core strands in the following discus-
sion. First, it is argued that ‘resettlement’ is invested with certain normative and pre-
scriptive characteristics derived from generalist views of society, that differentiation is
not sufficiently acknowledged and that many presuppositions exist about the social,
cultural and economic environments in which offenders find themselves following
release. Second, an introductory three-phase theoretical schema of resettlement, as re-
entry, is proposed. Third, the relationship between resettlement, re-entry and desistance
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