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During the last several decades, the expanding prison population has resulted in a record number of former inmates attempting to reintegrate back into communities.1 The capacity of state and federal correctional systems to manage prisoner reentry has not kept pace with the increasing number of returning prisoners.2 Supervision agents, who are often overwhelmed with large caseloads, must focus exclusively on supervision and are unable to assist with the reentry process.3 Communities are reluctant to accept convicted felons, and released prisoners are not eligible for many forms of public assistance.4
Saddled with large budget deficits in the wake of the recent financial crisis, many states are realizing the high cost of housing record numbers of prisoners.5 Reducing prison populations, and thereby reducing corrections spending, has become a central concern for many states. Newly released offenders, however, are often unprepared for life outside the prison.6 Returning prisoners face a number of obstacles to successful reintegration, including unemployment, debt, homelessness, substance abuse and family conflict.7 Indeed, research has shown that roughly two-thirds of prisoners will be rearrested within three years of release.8
Findings from recent research, however, underscore the importance of social support in helping offenders desist from crime and, more narrowly, recidivism.9 Social bonds and social support are common elements in many criminological theories, both as a key to crime prevention and a mechanism for desistance from crime. Social control theory suggests, for example, that an individual's attachment, or bond, to a conventional lifestyle prevents him or her from offending,10 whereas general strain theory proposes that family bonds and social support help ease the stresses related to reentry, making prisoners less likely to engage in subsequent criminal behavior.11 Life course theorists, meanwhile, view the release from prison as a potential turning point in the lives of offenders in which attachment to family members could provide them both the opportunity and incentive to desist from crime.12
While offenders are in prison, visits from family and friends offer a means of establishing, maintaining or enhancing social support networks. Strengthening social bonds for incarcerated offenders may be important not only because it can help prevent them from assuming a criminal identity,13 but also because many released prisoners rely on family and friends for employment opportunities, financial assistance and housing.14 Anywhere...