ABSTRACT
The United States crossed an alarming threshold of mass incarceration in 2007, when the adult population under correctional supervision reached its peak of over 7.3 million people at yearend 2013. The release of prisoners is the norm; 95% of all prisoners are eventually released, which means that as the prison population goes up and down, reentry is constant and has reached its own critical juncture. The criminal justice system is a paramount government institution in the lives of many urban and rural residents. Critical reentry research offers a new way of thinking about prisoner reentry. Critical scholars focus on understanding power relationships, language, social practices and norms, and systems that marginalize, oppress, or complicate relationships between the state and individuals. Critical reentry makes an effort to understand and explain that there is no politically neutral way to apply the law because it is inherently contradictory, and these contradictions are imbedded within its doctrines and systems.
