Book review: Andrea Leverentz, The Ex-Prisoner’s Dilemma: How Women Negotiate Competing Narratives of Reentry and Desistance
| Author | Jennifer Cobbina |
| DOI | 10.1177/1362480614549682 |
| Published date | 01 February 2015 |
| Date | 01 February 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Book reviews |
142 Theoretical Criminology 19(1)
Andrea Leverentz, The Ex-Prisoner’s Dilemma: How Women Negotiate Competing Narratives
of Reentry and Desistance, Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, NJ, 2014; 248 pp.:
9780813562278, $85.00 (cloth), $26.95 (pbk)
Reviewed by: Jennifer Cobbina, Michigan State University, USA
In The Ex-Prisoner’s Dilemma: How Women Negotiate Competing Narratives of Reentry
and Desistance, Andrea Leverentz brings to life the predicament women experience fol-
lowing their prison release. Confronted with competing messages from various individu-
als and institutions, former prisoners must learn to negotiate conflicting messages about
who they are, who they should be, and how they should live their lives. Leverentz draws
on narrative accounts of 49 current and former residents of Mercy Home, the pseudonym
she gave to a halfway house in Chicago, to illustrate how women define their lives as
they reenter society and attempt to desist from crime. Her sample consists largely of
African American women from low-income neighborhoods, who she interviewed multi-
ple times over the course of a year, as well as 26 members of their social networks (i.e.
family members, romantic partners, friends, co-workers). She argues that women’s nar-
ratives were influenced by their experiences at the halfway house that infused them with
self-help and 12-step rhetoric. On the one hand, women’s involvement in such programs
proved advantageous because it promoted a sense of self-efficacy and relationships,
encouraged them to take responsibility for their past behaviors, and allowed them to
move forward with their lives. On the other hand, she observes that 12-step narratives
fail to consider women’s structural realities. Women were taught to work hard and be
persistent, implying that they controlled their reentry success. However, self-help mes-
sages typically conflicted with women’s structural position, as they faced institutional
barriers and invisible punishment (i.e. employment restrictions, stigma) associated with
having a criminal record, which affected their reentry and desistance process.
Leverentz further chronicles how women’s social identities as a mother, sister, daughter,
girlfriend or wife, and friend often conflicted with their sense of self as defined by self-help
and 12-step messages they received from the halfway house programs. While motherhood
and family were central to women’s identity, at times, familial obligations conflicted with
their recovery and desistance attempts. Some family members expected women to main-
tain familial roles even when these role expectations conflicted with their attempts to desist
from crime. Moreover, Leverentz found that women constantly negotiated their familial
relationships due to problematic dynamics that conflicted with recovery narratives sug-
gested by the programs. For example, they typically kept regular contact with family mem-
bers who were involved in criminal behavior even though they were told to avoid such
associations. In contrast to problematic familial relationships, women in the study often cut
ties with romantic partners and friends to focus on their own recovery and desistance
efforts.
Leverentz notes that most women in her study internalized the goals of finding
employment and securing stable housing, which they ascribed to the broader cultural
narratives of success. Though women accepted these goals, they often faced barriers to
attaining financial independence, higher education, and a home in a quiet neighborhood.
Hence, former prisoners modified the messages they received in such a way that fit with
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