In the United States, a large number of prisoners face urgent employment barriers for reintegration upon their release. The United States imprisoned the greatest number of its citizens than any other country, and it houses approximately 25% of the world’s total incarcerated population (Welbeck 1). No other country at the current moment or in the recorded history has put these many citizens behind bars. Each year, the United States prison releases more than 60,000 American inmates, and around 874,800 are under parole supervision inside their communities (Petrich et al. 335). Although US’s prison population has dropped, thanks to the rising number of releases, the number of people under community supervision within the carceral state is still astonishingly high. However, though people are seemingly returning to their communities, they return to society with nearly nothing because of the employment barrier. In the broader societal context of economic neo-liberalization, upon release and adjustments to parole, formerly incarcerated people face harsh realities like widespread unemployment (Cheliotis & McKay 696). According to Couloute and Kopf’s quantitative research in 2018, the ex-inmates are unemployed at an excessively high rate of over 27%, which is five times greater than the general unemployment rate in any moment of the United States’ history, including the era of the great depression (2). While successful reintegration is highly dependent on employment outcome, these cold hard facts demonstrate the prevalent employment barriers for reentry among the formerly incarcerated.
In the context of formerly incarcerated individuals’ employment hardships, Couloute and Kopf’s study sought to gradually break down the employment barrier by looking at factors that contribute to the difficulties in securing employment, with self-efficacy at the center of discussion. Existing research articles provide a useful framework and starting point for understanding self-efficacy’s important role in conditioning ex-prisoners’ employment outcomes. David Pitts, a senior research associate interested in community reintegration of paroled lifers, highlights the correlation between lack of self-efficacy and underemployment (4). Pitts states that “self efficacy is defined as belief in one’s ability to succeed in specific situations or accomplish a task; this can greatly influence how an individual approaches challenges and goals” (5). In particular, job search self-efficacy is defined as one’s confidence in completing tasks in regard to obtaining a job (Saks et al.). He argues that ow job-search self-efficacy predisposed formerly incarcerated individuals to the concept that difficult tasks like finding jobs are beyond their capabilities. People lose confidence in their abilities and tend to avoid challenging tasks that they do not think they can handle. Regenold et al.’s empirical research confirms the correlation between self-efficacy and employment outcome. In their research, data demonstrates that participants with a greater degree of self-efficacy were more likely to attain their employment goal than their counterparts with a lower degree of self-efficacy. Though existing research proves that self-efficacy is essential in determining successful employment outcomes, which is an integral part of reintegration and self-sustainability, there is a dearth of attempts to explore the factors that influence formerly incarcerated individuals’ diminishing self-efficacy.
Existing intellectual conversations revolving around the field of criminology often identify self-efficacy as an irreducible and single-axis measurement correlated with employment difficulties. However, instead of treating self-efficacy with a single-axis framework, I deem it important to analyze what emanates formerly incarcerated individuals’ low self-efficacy with a multi-axis approach. Therefore, my attempt in this article is to, hopefully, explain why formerly incarcerated individuals often end up with low self-efficacy due to different layers of belittlement, which penetrates within the penal system and reinforces social stigma that leads to perceptible significantly higher barrier to employment. Expanding the predominant understanding of low self efficacy’s correlation with unemployment, I believe that belittlement points toward approaches to effectively reform existing post-incarceration programs for self-efficacy restoration that may significantly boost individuals’ employment goal attainment.
In multiple social settings, belittlement has a proven record of downgrading people’s general self-efficacy level. Belittlement is “to make a person or an action seem as if he, she or it is not important” (Cambridge Dictionary). At the workplace, belittlement represented by overly severe and harsh appraisals given by employers creates low self-efficacy among employees, who see themselves as unimportant and meaningless at the workplace (Agadoni). Referring back to Pitts’ analysis on self-efficacy and employment attainment, in such undesirable professional settings, belittled individuals gradually lost faith in their ability to succeed in their current position or other potential job opportunities that better fit their skill sets. Comparably, belittlement also dwindles students’ self-efficacy in the academic setting (Li et al. 485). Instructor’s belittlement deters students from pursuing their academic interests, and loss of self-efficacy places significant barriers to their employment trajectory after graduation. Various research in fields other than criminology has discussed belittlement’s correlation with low self-efficacy. Therefore, correspondingly belittlement can destroy formerly incarcerated individuals’ self-efficacy and deter them from employment in different settings: within not only the penal system but also penetrates into civil society.
Belittlement penetrates the penal system, and prison serves as a starting point for diminishing self-efficacy. The carceral state recognizes people under incarceration and community supervision as individuals incapable of carrying out ethical self-governance and being responsible citizens (Werth 4). The horrifying journey of belittlement starts when offenders enter prison. Nati recalled his nightmarish experience in the California State Prison. Correction officers dug through his personal items daily to check if he illegally possessed heroin. Even worse, during the body cavity search, officers forced him to take off his pants and squat down with other prisoners. Nati said, “the prison, the belittlement, want to destroy my confidence and destroy me as a person.” This is only the start of the cruel journey of belittlement.
Moving along the penal procedure from prison to parole and community supervision, the system continues to belittle individuals. Hannah-Moffat, Professor in Criminology at the University of Toronto, suggests parole subjects in the United States “[are] required close monitoring and direction on how to make the necessary changes and choices,” which resembles a de-responsibilizing parole system (Hannah-Moffat qtd. In Werth 2). In other words, the existing parole system rarely tells parolees that they have the freedom to choose how to act. Instead, parole focuses too much on the limiting nature of supervision, so individuals need to meet the conditions of parole before gaining ultimate freedom. As Werth suggests, Hannah-Moffatt’s quote criticizes the parole system’s de-responsibilizing nature, which produces the particular type of subject that is belittled and perceived as currently incapable of “adequately exercising self-management” (2).
Roddy and Morash’s quantitative research, “The Connections of Parole Communication Pattern and Self-Efficacy,” epitomizes the parole system’s structural problem of belittling individuals as incapable individuals of self-management, and such belittlement deters offenders’ job-seeking self-efficacy. In their research, Roddy and Morash highlight parole officers’ prevalent “conformity communication orientation,” which is the communication pattern “between agents and their clients…displayed through an emphasis on obedience to authority; stresses the importance of similar attitudes, values, and beliefs; and tightly regulates the flow of information and opinions.” In other words, the parole system continues to deem formerly incarcerated people as unethical persons incapable of making the right decisions that benefit society on their own. Rather than believing individuals can comply with rules and act ethically, the parole system, represented by the parole officers, attempts to put individuals in frames that restrict freedom and individualization. The parole system overrides incarcerated individuals’ attempts to make personal decisions and explore individualized identity as if these individuals’ personhood and actions are frivolous. Such conformity-oriented communication patterns in parole cause diminishing self-efficacy, especially for job-seeking, which further reinforces unemployment and struggling reintegration. Parole officers should remember the rehabilitative goal of parole and take other communication approaches to guide ex-offenders back into their communities, instead of only focusing on limiting their freedom through belittling conversation styles to avoid unwanted recidivism.
Belittlement pierces through the penal system and enters civil society, where social stigmas represent and reinforce belittlement. Oxford English Dictionary defines stigma as a “distinguishing mark or characteristic (of a bad or objectionable kind” and a mark of disgrace and infamy (Tyler 8). This is not a new concept- it’s been around for centuries. Tracing back to ancient Greece, stigmas were physically tattooed inscriptions of “words, symbols, and sometimes full sentences into people’s skin that mark them as outsiders of the society (Tyler 35). “Thief,” “Stop me,” and “know thyself” were the most common forms of stigmas on offenders’ foreheads (Tyler 35). These tattooed stigmas represent belittlement, for people from the higher social hierarchy intentionally belittle offenders and slaves to the bottom rung of the social hierarchy by inscribing belittling stigmas into their skin. These stigmatized people were eternally stuck in the lowest social hierarchy, with almost no access to other job opportunities, not to mention social mobility.
Specifically, stigma’s violent nature belittles people and communities. For formerly incarcerated communities, stigma can be physical representations like tattoos, rotten teeth, and gray sweatshirts distributed by the Department of Correction (DOC); stigma is also intangible, like slang uses and requirements to disclose criminal background. When employers meet job seekers with stereotypical social stigmas, they tend to turn down their request by considering candidates as someone with no professional skills and educational backgrounds.
Modern society settles on the shadow of the past, and belittling social stigma creates perceptible job-hunting barriers for formerly incarcerated individuals, further depressing their remnant of self-efficacy. Varghese et al.’s quantitative study concludes that “perceiving higher barriers have been associated with lower career aspirations and lower self-efficacy;” social stigma thereby lifts the employment barrier that further lowers formerly incarcerated people’s job search self-efficacy. Pitts argues that “employers are often reluctant to hire an ex-offender, and the stigma associated with serving a life sentence is likely to create even more concern among those who would consider hiring a lifer” (7). In other words, our society has stigmatized individuals with criminal records by connecting them with threats at the workplace. Though most people do not associate stigma with violence, stigma is a nuanced form of violent persecution that slowly and unobtrusively belittles people as outsiders. Influenced by social stigma, employers’ perceptions generate heightened barriers for the formerly incarcerated to locate entry-level jobs. Therefore, individuals lose their self-efficacy upon release because belittling social stigmas generate perceptible employment barriers. Understanding the factors that emanate low-self efficacy will help scholars and policymakers imagine new programs that promote self-efficacy. Parole procedure can better foster reintegration and employment outcomes if parole agents receive training emphasizing conversation-oriented communication patterns that preserve ex offenders’ self-efficacy. Conversation-oriented communication “encourages openness and participation in decision making,” which helps individuals maintain higher self-efficacy and cope with employment challenges (Roddy and Morash 777). Monica Bell, a law professor at Yale University, in her research “Legal Estrangement,” calls for “training officers to treat force as a last resort and ‘‘to view every citizen contact as an opportunity to build legitimacy through the tone and quality of the interaction” (2078). In other words, the parole system must provide proper officer training to avoid forceful and belittling conformity-oriented communication patterns. Individuals on parole are citizens of our nation whose dignity and personhood should be respected equally. Therefore, to fully legitimize parole’s goal of supporting reintegration, policymakers should prioritize training that reminds officers to encourage individuals with conversation-oriented communication. If more parole officers can use more encouraging verbal cues and less belittling forces when communicating with their clients, formerly incarcerated individuals can restore their self-efficacy and progress towards successful employment attainment.
If training for parole agents cannot put a complete end to the dwindling self-efficacy in the penal system, workforce development programs can prove powerful in promoting self-efficacy in the post incarceration stage. Job training allows individuals to master professional skills and step forward in the workforce. According to Creed et al.’s ethnographic research with unemployed individuals undertaking occupational skills training programs, they conclude that “job-search self-efficacy will improve when unemployed people attend occupational skills training programs that do not specifically offer training in building confidence” (22). In other words, building the professional skillset itself can restore self-efficacy among unemployed individuals. Since the social stigmas prompt employers to consider ex-offenders as detached individuals from the labor market, equipping formerly incarcerated individuals with the skills they are interested in can elevate their self-efficacy, which will buttress their employment outcome and reintegration success.
Homeboy Industries is a gang rehabilitation and re-entry program based in Los Angeles, and their Workforce Development program epitomizes successful job training that stimulates self-efficacy restoration. Their occupational skills training programs affirms Creed et al.’s research. Homeboy Industries offers general training like Work Readiness Programs and more technical training such as Solar Panel Installation Training, Confined Space Training, and Culinary Training Program. Homeboy Industries has a proven record that these career development efforts allow clients to “learn, grow and create sustainable career growth opportunities while adding a perspective, dedication and tenacity many employers find attractive.” For instance, Fernando, a trainee at Homeboy Industries, now sees his capability to overcome barriers and succeed in both the workplace and multiple aspects of his life, which is a positive representation of professional job training’s role in buttressing self-efficacy restoration.
Career-oriented training empowers formerly incarcerated individuals’ self-efficacy by allowing them to see the wide range of skills they can capably master. Moreover, workforce development programs offering qualifications and field working experiences can dismantle, or at least reduce, the social stigma of labeling formerly incarcerated individuals as detached and uneducated laborers.
In sum, self-efficacy should not be seen as an irreducible measurement, and factors contributing to formerly incarcerated individuals’ diminishing self-efficacy must be considered when reevaluating existing reintegration programs. Dwindling self-efficacy stems from the belittlement that penetrates different stages in the United States’ penal system, from imprisonment to parole. Furthermore, perceptible higher employment barriers from social stigmas discourage self efficacy to the next level. Policymakers and governmental authorities should consider developing training for parole officers to incorporate more supportive communication patterns, stepping forward in buttressing ex-offenders’ reintegration starting from within the national penal system. In addition, non-governmental organizations offering post-incarceration programs may contemplate including job training so that individuals can find their positions in our society and transform into actively contributing members of their communities. Though policy-wise changes will not happen in a blink of an eye, exploring factors that contribute to self-efficacy, unemployment, and difficulties in reintegration is a worthy step to take to eradicate, or at least reduce, practices that hurt self-efficacy.
References:
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Couloute, Lucius, and Daniel Kopf. “Out of prison & out of work: Unemployment among formerly incarcerated people.” Prison Policy Initiative, July 2018.
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Saks, Alan M., Jelena Zikic, and Jessie Koen. “Job search self-efficacy: Reconceptualizing the construct and its measurement.” Journal of Vocational Behavior, 86, 2015, pp. 104-114. Tyler, Imogen. Stigma: The machinery of inequality. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020. Varghese, Femina P., et al. “Willingness to work among males on parole: A quantitative and qualitative analysis.” Psychological Services, 2022.
Welbeck, Timothy Nii-Okai. “Specter of Reform: Understanding the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 and its Role in Expanding the Modern Prison Industrial Complex.” Arlen Specter Center Research Fellowship, paper 7, May 2021.
Werth, Robert. “Breaking the rules the right way: Resisting parole logics and asserting autonomy in the USA.” Parole and Beyond. Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2016, pp. 141-169. Homeboy Industries. Workforce development. March 8, 2021,
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