The pains of release: Federally-sentenced women’s experiences on parole
| Author | Laura McKendy,Rosemary Ricciardelli |
| Published date | 01 April 2021 |
| Date | 01 April 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/2066220320948375 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/2066220320948375
European Journal of Probation
2021, Vol. 13(1) 1 –20
© The Author(s) 2020
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/2066220320948375
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejp
The pains of release:
Federally-sentenced women’s
experiences on parole
Laura McKendy
Rosemary Ricciardelli
Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada
Abstract
Contributing to the international literature on reintegration and parole governance,
we examine the release experiences of women (n=43) who served time in federal
Canadian prison through a qualitative content analysis of casework documents. We
show that the multiple stressors of release, combined with layers of social marginality,
may render the “pains of release” as equally compromising to (albeit distinct from)
those associated with imprisonment. Findings reveal several key pains of re-entry for
formerly incarcerated women experience: Over stimulation, social disorientation and
social precarity; missing “hooks” for new identities; parental and custodial struggles;
extensive parole obligations; and living conditions. Implications for policy and case
management practices are presented.
Keywords
Desistance, pains of release, parolee mental health, reintegration, parole case
management, parole governance, re-entry barriers
Introduction
Since the early works of Clemmer (1940) and Sykes (1958), prison sociologists have
been fascinated with the social realities of prison life, including the “pains of imprison-
ment” that shape experiences of incarceration. Varying over time, space, and for distinct
groups of people, the pains of imprisonment involve the deprivations, harms, burdens,
and frustrations associated with incarceration – many seeming unintentional and
Corresponding author:
Rosemary Ricciardelli, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 230 Elizabeth Ave. AA 4066, St. John’s,
Newfoundland, A1C 4L6, Canada.
Email: rricciardell@mun.ca
948375EJP0010.1177/2066220320948375European Journal of ProbationMcKendy and Ricciardelli
2020
Original Article
2 European Journal of Probation 13(1)
unofficial (Crewe, 2011; Crewe et al., 2017; Flanagan, 1980; Leigey and Ryder, 2015).
However, notwithstanding important exceptions, comparatively less attention has his-
torically been directed toward the pains that emerge when imprisonment ends and com-
munity supervision begins; that is, the “pains of release”.
Researchers suggest that individuals returning to communities following periods of
incarceration experience numerous obstacles as they attempt to rebuild post-institutional
lives; struggles in the areas of housing, employment, finances, substance use, health and
family reconnection are illustrative (Garland et al., 2011; Graffam et al., 2004; Phillips and
Spencer, 2013; Semenza and Link, 2019; Visher, 2004). Groups marginalized along social
lines such as gender, race, and mental health status, as well as those with certain criminal
history factors (such as sexual offences), are particularly vulnerable to such struggles
(Brown et al., 2007; Leverentz, 2011; Opsal and Foley, 2013; Visher and Bakken, 2014).
While the obstacles associated with reintegration have received considerable academic
attention (e.g. Leverentz, 2011; Moran, 2012; Opsal and Foley, 2013), fewer researchers
have analyzed the psycho-social and mental health implications of experiences of release
from custody and community supervision, which are not captured by analyses of institu-
tional challenges, or by the “pains of imprisonment”. Analyzing the post-release experi-
ences of women released from federal custody in Canada, we contribute empirically and
conceptually to research on the pains of release (Durnescu, 2011, 2019; Nugent and
Schinkel, 2016; Semenza and Link, 2019; Shantz and Frigon, 2009). Drawing on partici-
pants’ casefiles, we consider the multiple stressors women experience in the post-release
context as reported by case managers. Such stressors include the socio-psychological
changes accompanying the transition to the outside world, the disconnection between pro-
jected identities and structural realities, parental struggles, extensive parole conditions and
obligations, and living conditions. Rather than a straightforward period of progression
towards reintegration, and ultimately freedom, we suggest that re-entry can be associated
with a new set of pains that bear considerable impacts on parolee well-being.
The pains of release
The notion of the pains of imprisonment is most closely associated with the works of
Sykes (1958), who studied the prison social world in a men’s maximum security prison
in the United States. His work emphasized how punishment by way of imprisonment, as
opposed to historical modes of punishment reliant on physical violence, was character-
ized primarily by psychological rather than physical forms of pain. Since Sykes’ (1958)
classic study, authors around the world, studying different groups of prisoners, have
analyzed historical iterations and socially-nuanced versions of the pains of imprisonment
(e.g. in relation to long-term prisoners (Kotova, 2019; Leigey and Ryder, 2015); racial-
ized prisoners (Ugelvik, 2014); immigration detainees (Longazel et al., 2016; Ugelvik
and Damsa, 2018); young persons (Cox, 2011; Fagan and Kupchik, 2011) and gender
(Crewe et al., 2017; Ricciardelli, 2015; Soffer and Ajzenstadt, 2010). This scholarship is
underpinned by the recognition that the pains of imprisonment are neither static nor uni-
versal, but rather, are shaped by social-structural, institutional, and personal factors.
Further, many pains are seemingly unintended and unofficial, often extending above and
beyond the intended components of incarceration (Sexton 2015).
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