Beyond Bars Book Review

The greatest sin that a criminal can make is getting caught on the wrongdoing that he or she has done. On the other hand, for civilians, having criminals pay for their crimes is the greatest reward. But not because man is now a criminal, man can no longer change for the better. “Men are being sent to prison for punishment, not to punish them.” (C Sulivan, 2009), as they re-enter society, they face countless of struggles that their title of being ex-convicts carry.
The primary authors of this study are Jeffrey I. Ross and Stephen C. Richards. They are the authors of the book “Beyond Bars: Rejoining Society after prison” in the year 2009. Their claims are not based on any research-based methodologies but rather with first hand experiences and personal observations. After being released from prison, most of the re-entries suffer from employment and housing discrimination from society, that corrections officials ignore the formidable challenges that ex-inmates, both men and women are facing in finding employment and housing (JI Ross & SC
Richards, 2009).
In this paper, there are three subjects that are to be specified; man, reentry and recycle. Man will be used to generalize all gender, since the paper will be including all kinds of ex-convicts, whether they are male, female or both. reentry will mean that when a criminal is released on parole, probation or man’s sentence is over and will return to society. Recycle on the other hand is when the reentry is convicted once again and is sent back to prison to serve another sentence.
Society treats ex-inmates indifferently despite the government’s tremendous efforts to fulfill their needs such as in terms of employment and housing in which are essential to a man’s life. The study will focus on two main points, employment and housing. Returnees experience difficulty in obtaining decent employment due to the increase of global crisis and the burden of being an ex-offender. More to that, as they are being sent back to society, they acquire limited options for housing because of security reasons for those members of the society, leaving the returnees with options that surround them with much temptations such as; prostitutes, drugs and alcohol.
The author of this study will be conducting a mix research method.
In order to obtain concrete grounds for the author’s claims, the author is to comply with the qualitative type of research, but at the same time, to assure that the author’s claims apply to the author’s intended audience, the author will perform quantitative type The scope of this paper will include all kinds of ex-convicts; from robbers to sex offenders to murderers. It will also include the way society treats re-entries, how the said treatment will affect the re-entries and how do they face the struggles or what happens to the ex-inmates as they embark on their changed lives. The respondents of this paper will be limited, as well as the struggles that re-entries are facing. The author’s respondents will only cater the Senior High School students of 11-Demetrio of Xavier University-Ateneo De Cagayan and the issues will only cover both employment and housing
issues.
Aside from the uniqueness of the data compilation that is supporting this paper, the respondents as well as the intended audience will be the possible future criminals of society, which is the youth. The purpose of this paper is to mainly share awareness to society regarding the struggles that returnees has been facing. Although there have been a number of researchers before the author, the researcher of this paper desires to share some personal insight in the youth’s point of view. Criminals can come from anywhere, can be anyone, each and every person is a potential criminal, thus, through this paper, the author will be able to let the youth know that ex-offenders are humans as well who deserves second chances.