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Book review: Marieke Liem, After Life Imprisonment: Reentry in the Age of Mass Incarceration

Document Cited in Related
Vincent
AuthorJohnna Christian
DOI10.1177/1362480617743885
Published date01 February 2018
Date01 February 2018
Subject MatterBook reviews
/tmp/tmp-17hMnouyUILCLM/input 144
Theoretical Criminology 22(1)
Marieke Liem, After Life Imprisonment: Reentry in the Age of Mass Incarceration, New York
University Press: New York, 2016; 288 pp.: 9781479882823, $28.00 (pbk), 9781479806928,
$89.00 (cloth)
Reviewed by: Johnna Christian, Rutgers University, Newark, USA
The parallel phenomena of mass imprisonment and mass reentry in the United States are
well documented, but arguably, still not fully understood. Marieke Liem’s book, After
Life Imprisonment: Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration, is compelling reading, and
expands upon prior research with her focus on men and women returning to Boston, MA
after serving a sentence of “life imprisonment” for a homicide offense. Liem convinc-
ingly argues that “lifers” who serve long prison terms (often for decades), face special
challenges upon release that are not adequately captured by scholars or addressed by
correctional systems.
Liem first provides the framework for her study by examining the life course and
cognitive transformation theories of desistance. She sets out to explain the differences
between the “persisters” who remain involved in crime and return to prison, and the
“desisters” who stop offending and live as law abiding citizens. As the book demon-
strates, distinctions between success and failure are not clear. Many of the desisters had
periods of re-incarceration at some point after their initial release, and some persisters
remained in the community for relatively long periods of time before re-incarceration.
Moreover, lifetime parole supervision placed all of the lifers under prolonged control and
surveillance by the criminal justice system.
Liem’s research is based on in-depth narrative interviews with participants recruited
through prisoners’ rights organizations, attorneys, and religious organizations advocating
for prisoners. Lifers who had returned to prison were recruited through the Massachusetts
Department of Corrections. The vast majority of the study...

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