ABSTRACT
This chapter analyses incarcerated individuals’ expectations for after their release, which are informed by their ‘prisoner’ and ‘gendered’ identities and anticipated barriers during reentry. This covers aspects such as employment, relationships with family and friends, stigma, addiction, criminalised activity/recidivism, and desistance. Most incarcerated individuals found employment to be necessary for their reentry process but anticipated experiencing many barriers to finding a job after their release (e.g., stigma). They also placed immense value on their relationships with family. Men expect to have barriers providing for their families, while women expect to experience barriers to reentering their roles as caregivers. Exclusive to men were negative expectations for addiction, having no expectations for experiencing any barriers after release, and admitting to their likely return to criminalised behaviour on the outside. With regard to the latter, more women asserted there was nothing that could lead them back to criminalised activities once they were released. Most often, these assertions were made in the context of caring for their children. Finally, the chapter discusses the similarities and differences between men’s and women’s narratives within the context of social constructions of gender, pathways and life trajectories, and narrative identities (e.g., narratives of contagion).
