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Abstract: 

Over the past nine months, I have had the privilege of observing the activities of a reporting center located in a large urban area and working with released offenders from federal prisons. During this period, I have seen the struggles released offenders are having in adjusting to the outside world. We seem to know very little about the strain that trying to live “slightly free” in the community creates for those attempting to return to a positive productive existence. Their successful reentry involves both learning how to survive the incarceration experience and making up for the deprivations encountered during incarceration. These deprivations go beyond the loss of liberty and include, for many offenders, the loss of “capital” in terms of education, labor skills, and social and cultural relations. These critical factors represent “capital” that was lost as a result of incarceration and that needs to be replaced or augmented—by what I think of as “recapitalizing”—to help the offenders desist from criminal activity. The recognition that the loss of capital coupled with the lack of opportunities to replace that capital presents an opportunity for supportive assistance in our work with offenders.

Keywords: Human capital; outlaw culture; restoring lost capital

Affiliations:  1: Executive Editor.