Unmanaged stress can be the biggest factor leading formerly incarcerated persons to return to crime and drug use.
That’s according to a new study by a UT San Antonio criminologist whose research is shifting the focus on the causes of recidivism, finding that stress is a more reliable predictor than many other factors, including mental health issues.
The research, led by Chantal Fahmy, PhD, and published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, evaluated the complex factors that affect reintegrating men during the critical months following release from prison.
The findings highlight that while mental health struggles play a role, it is predominantly the day-to-day stresses of reentry that determine an individual’s success.
Challenge of reentry
Reentry is the process of rebuilding a life after being released from prison.
For many, the process is a “massive checklist” of tasks that can feel overwhelming, Fahmy said. Hurdles such as finding housing and securing employment, which are often parole requirements, can be particularly difficult for formerly incarcerated people, who face added stigma.
“A lot of employers are not willing to hire people who have to mark the box where it asks, ‘Have you ever been convicted of a felony?’” Fahmy said.
Other challenging requirements during reentry can include repaying victim restitution, child support payments, criminal justice fees and fines — which accrue interest during the prison sentence; pursuing education or attending mandatory therapies, and avoiding friends and family members involved in crime, which further isolates people.
“The hardest part is that the tasks can feel insurmountable,” Fahmy said. “People often return to the same neighborhood — and that’s probably in an underserved area — and interact with the same people. There’s a lot of temptation to return to old habits. This creates an added layer of chronic stress as you’re trying to tackle this checklist and prove yourself.”
Pernicious role of stress
Using a data sample from the LoneStar Project, made up of 499 men released from Texas prisons, Fahmy’s study analyzed self-reported offending and drug use in the 10 months following release.
The analysis relied on sophisticated mediation (such as logistic regression and the Karlson–Holm–Breen method) to untangle the relationship between mental health, stress and subsequent criminal behavior, including drug use.
The results suggest that while mental health issues measured before and after release appear to affect outcomes, it is stress that largely confounds the association between mental health and a return to offending or drug use.
In fact, stress as a predictor of criminal activity was found to be nearly 2.5 times higher than that of other factors, including the individual’s mental health status. When stress was factored into the analysis, the link between mental health and reoffending was reduced by more than 64%.
Fahmy said the findings point to two critical solutions that could dramatically increase reentry success: building up mental resilience to stress and reducing the stressors themselves.
Prison-based stress management classes are not a new concept. But in Texas, they are “few and far between,” Fahmy said.
“Even things like yoga in prison or teaching people how to meditate and being able to control their thoughts and feelings, can be very powerful because stress is ubiquitous in prison,” she added.
Fahmy also recommends that reentry planning start as early as possible.
“We always say that reentry starts on Day 1 of the prison term,” she said. “If you have a reentry plan — and in reality, this is a life plan for once you’re out [of prison] — it’s going to help mitigate a lot of those stressors that you know are inevitably coming.”
Redefining reentry success
As for reducing the actual causes of stress inherent in the reintegration process, Fahmy said that will be a longer journey. But policymakers, parole officers, social workers and others can play a role.
Fahmy is a proponent of adopting a more holistic, health-centered approach to reentry, moving beyond traditional benchmarks like job attainment and avoidance of rearrest.
“For too long, we’ve used strict indicators of recidivism to measure success, saying, ‘OK, well, they failed because they recidivated,’ or conversely, ‘They’re doing fine because they’ve avoided arrest,’” she said.
“We need to zoom out and look at the whole person: their health, their families, their general social and psychological well-being,” Fahmy added.
She hopes that a more holistic approach to measuring success will lay the groundwork for more holistic intervention and support that helps break the cycle of recidivism.
“So many people are being rearrested; they’re being reincarcerated,” Fahmy said, pointing to one Bureau of Justice Statistics study that found that 82% of formerly incarcerated people across 24 states, including Texas, were rearrested within 10 years of reentry. The study also shows over 60% returned to prison in the same timeframe across 18 states, including Texas.
“There’s clearly something wrong with the reentry process, which we can’t repair until we look at the full picture,” she said.
