A home is more than a roof over your head: Post-prison reintegration challenges in Austria
| Author | Doris Schartmueller |
| DOI | 10.1177/2066220320908252 |
| Published date | 01 April 2020 |
| Date | 01 April 2020 |
| Published By | Sage Publications, Inc. |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220320908252
European Journal of Probation
2020, Vol. 12(1) 17 –33
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
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DOI: 10.1177/2066220320908252
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
A home is more than a roof
over your head: Post-prison
reintegration challenges in
Austria
Doris Schartmueller
California State University, Chico, USA
Abstract
Life after prison can pose challenges for the formerly incarcerated, their families, and
wider communities. This research studies Austria where probation services are either
mandated by the court or sought voluntarily after prison. Through semi-structured
interviews with formerly incarcerated individuals, reintegration experiences from their
perspectives are examined. The narratives emphasized social factors that either assuage
or complicate life after prison. The main factors addressed were stable housing, the
maintaining and (re)building of relationships, and employment. Overall, a lack of stable
housing appeared to complicate life after prison the most and also negatively affected
relationships and employment. For some, life after prison was further exacerbated by
immigration status and a perceived stigma related to the nature of one’s convictions.
This study shows the importance of working towards a better understanding of the
social context individuals are released into after prison to better meet their individual
needs and to counteract recidivism.
Keywords
Austria, narratives, post-prison, probation assistance, reintegration, social context
Introduction
Life after prison can be very challenging for the formerly incarcerated individuals, their
families, and wider communities. The term reintegration is commonly used to describe
the long-term adjustment of the formerly incarcerated to community life, which is both a
Corresponding author:
Doris Schartmueller, Department of Political Science and Criminal Justice, California State University, 400
W 1st St, Chico, CA 95929-0455, USA.
Email: dschartmueller@csuchico.edu
908252EJP0010.1177/2066220320908252European Journal of ProbationSchartmueller
2020
Original Article
18 European Journal of Probation 12(1)
process and a goal (Visher and Travis, 2003, 2011). The adjustment process is considered
to be gradual, and its goal is usually defined a “crime-free” or “law-abiding” life (Bahr,
2015; Visher, 2015; Taxman, 2004; Zurhold et al., 2011). Extant reintegration research
can be divided into two major groups. While desistance research has stressed the impor-
tance of individual characteristics such as maturity and the development of a “crime-
free” identity (Maruna, 2001; Maruna et al., 2004), other studies have examined the
social context an individual is released to as factors negatively influencing reoffending.
Overall, complimenting research on social factors with the desistance literature has
found to be important for a more thorough understanding of reintegration. While people
might want to change their lifestyles after prison, specific social factors surrounding
them, such as relationships, employment, and housing often contribute to bolstering “the
necessary resilience” (Armstrong and Durnescu, 2016: 4).
Regardless of the focus, reintegration research usually aims at understanding which fac-
tors over the course of one’s reintegration journey hamper reoffending and hence heighten
public safety, the predetermined goal in that convoluted process. As most research on rein-
tegration tends to be conducted with individuals who are under some form of community
supervision model that emphasizes continued control and restriction of liberties, the nar-
row focus of recidivism as an indicator of reintegration seems obvious. However, this lens
also prevents us from understanding the complexities of life after prison. As individuals
will reenter the communities from which they came, the narrow focus on recidivism as
reintegration failure ignores that life after prison should also be about reconnecting the
formerly incarcerated with the many social institutions that they had left behind.
In the country of Austria, reintegration is a topic that has gained little scholarly atten-
tion. This is surprising, as Austria applies a specific model of probation for those released
from prison that lends itself nicely to the study of the reintegration process. First, the
formerly incarcerated are not under the auspices of peace officers but rather receive
“community assistance” through the private organization Neustart. This organization
focuses more on providing services rather than control and supervision. Second, not
every person released from prison is mandated to serve a community supervision term.
Still, anybody who is in need of services can receive voluntary probation assistance
through Neustart.
It is this Probation Assistance Model of Austria that I find provides a fruitful ground
for a study of the reintegration process that does not set the absence of recidivism as the
end goal in an individual’s post-prison journey. As the Probation Assistance Model does
not emphasize supervision and control but cares about the reintegration needs as defined
by the clients first, it invites for a study of the social factors facilitating or impeding that
process as defined by those actually experiencing it. In order to capture these complex
challenges that come with life after prison, I conducted semi-structured interviews with
formerly incarcerated individuals who could speak directly to their reintegration experi-
ences. In alignment with the Probation Assistance Model, I examine the factors they
believed had proven beneficial or challenging on their personal journeys after prison. I
hope that this research will contribute to a more thorough understanding of individual
reintegration experiences not only in Austria but elsewhere. It might also help to better
understand how successful reintegration not only checks the box of public safety but is a
large contributing factor to the overall well-being of a community.
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