Getting the Runaround: Formerly Incarcerated Men and the Bureaucratic Barriers to Reentry

Getting the Runaround explores the bureaucratic challenges faced by formerly incarcerated men returning to New York City, highlighting the need to shift reentry away from an austerity-driven framework and towards a vision of social justice and inclusion.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 248 pages
Publication date: 05 September 2023
Publisher: University of California Press

Getting the Runaround delves into the intricate bureaucratic realms of prisoner reentry, shedding light on the challenges faced by returning citizens as they navigate the complex institutional circuit of parole offices, public assistance programs, rehabilitation facilities, shelters, and family courts. Drawing upon three years of ethnographic fieldwork and forty-five in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated men returning to New York City, John M. Halushka compellingly argues that the very institutions tasked with facilitating the transition from incarceration to community life paradoxically hinder reintegration by imposing a multitude of bureaucratic hurdles. This cumbersome "runaround" extends beyond mere inconveniences and becomes an extension of state punishment, exacerbating material poverty and diminishing citizenship rights. Through the narratives of men entangled in vicious cycles of poverty, bureaucratic processing, and social control, Halushka vividly illustrates the pressing need to shift reentry away from an austerity-driven, compliance-based framework and towards a vision of social justice and inclusion.

Weight: 352g
Dimension: 152 x 229 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780520388697