Publications by Kevin Wright
Handbook on Prisons and Jails, 2023
Engaging with the voices of people who live and work in prisons and jails could include their per... more Engaging with the voices of people who live and work in prisons and jails could include their perspective on what is 'known' in correctional research. Theories, programs, and policies based on the evidence for what works to reduce recidivism could produce an artificial ceiling for the potential impact of our correctional system and, worse, could unintentionally produce harm to the people who live and work within it. Including people most impacted by the problem in developing solutions could bring together the inside knowledge of lived experience with the outside knowledge of what works to produce a more complete approach for corrections moving forward. I explore the possibility of improving the integration of lived experience with evidence-based corrections through a critical examination of the concept of risk in corrections. The current metric of system success is reduced recidivism as achieved through individual risk reduction. A reimagined definition of correctional success could be achieved by putting the people back in to leverage both research and experience. I end with a reflection on how my own professional lived experience has changed the way that I think about and approach my work as a scholar.
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Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, 2020
Reentry can be complicated and daunting, yet people leaving prison tend to be overly optimistic a... more Reentry can be complicated and daunting, yet people leaving prison tend to be overly optimistic about their capability to remain crime-free. This optimism could be good-where a hopeful mindset could be indicative of a prosocial future narrative. Or this optimism could be bad-where a naïve mindset could be indicative of a lack of preparation for the challenges ahead. Our goal is to explore the concept of perceived uncertainty for reentry success with a focus for how it may be useful in better preparing people to rejoin society. Using data from 200 women incarcerated in Arizona, we explore 1) the demographic characteristics that are associated with perceived uncertainty for reentry success and 2) the extent to which perceived uncertainty is associated with the identification of specific obstacles upon their release. Our findings suggest that most women are optimistic about their capability to stay out of prison, but that age, education, and custody level are associated with perceived uncertainty in this capability. Women with uncertainty are more likely to identify employment as a barrier that could bring them back to prison. We suggest that a focus on perceptions of uncertainty is critical for research and programming on prison reentry.
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The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 2020
People often leave prison worse than when they arrived; sometimes, they leave the same. People co... more People often leave prison worse than when they arrived; sometimes, they leave the same. People could leave prison better than when they arrived through a reimagined response to crime. They could be set up to live sustainable, fulfilling, and meaningful lives after prison. This approach could be informed by research on what makes for a meaningful life regardless of whether a person has come into contact with the criminal justice system. A reimagined corrections could view time spent in prison as an opportunity rather than solely as a punishment; an opportunity to repair harm, empower people, and promote public safety.
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Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research
Prison is a place with an accumulation of men who espouse toughness and aggression, where those w... more Prison is a place with an accumulation of men who espouse toughness and aggression, where those who deviate are punished and forced to renegotiate their thoughts on what it means to be a man. Behaviors not considered overtly masculine, such as receiving support in the form of correctional programming, may be off limits to men serving time. Guided by the larger masculinities and crime framework, we examine the perceptions of masculinity and its consequences through in-depth, semi-structured interviews with five incarcerated men in the state of Arizona. We focus on three questions: what does it mean to be a man? Does the prison experience alter this conceptualization? Does this conceptualization affect participation in correctional programming? Our results reveal that there is variation in how incarcerated men define what it means to be man, the incarceration experience matters for how incarcerated men define and express their masculinity, and what it means to be a man in prison indirectly impacts engagement in correctional programs.
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Corrections: Policy, Practice, and Research, 2020
Participatory action research (PAR) focuses on conducting research with
people, instead of on peo... more Participatory action research (PAR) focuses on conducting research with
people, instead of on people. While this collaborative approach has been
used across a range of disciplines, criminology has been slow to adopt the
tenets of PAR. The current article seeks to reinvigorate the discussion of
PAR as a research methodology within corrections. We highlight the
success of our own project, where five incarcerated interviewers conducted
over 400 interviews within the Arizona Department of
Corrections. We describe the project—how we set it up, our perceived
benefits, and our challenges—and we conclude with some thoughts on
how PAR can be expanded in corrections specifically and in criminal
justice in general. Our broader purpose is to highlight an innovative
methodology to ensure conversations advance research that is translated
into meaningful action.
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Journal of Criminal Justice, 2017
Objectives: Prison visitation serves as a critical setting by which prison life intersects with c... more Objectives: Prison visitation serves as a critical setting by which prison life intersects with civilian life. Yet, visitation research has produced conflicting findings. Using social support theory, we fill gaps in the literature by exploring three research questions: 1) What forms do relational dynamics and exchanges with visitors take? 2) What inmate characteristics are associated with these different types of dynamics and exchanges with visitors? And, 3) what effect do such experiences have on perceptions of reentry social support?
Methods: Data were drawn from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project, which includes information on 687 visitors nested within 227 inmates. Latent class analysis and hierarchical generalized linear models were used to carry out these objectives.
Results: Both supportive and unsupportive visitors were identified. Individuals who were female, younger, had a higher number of previous incarcerations, and those visited by parents or partners were more likely to have supportive visitors. Inmates with visitors characterized as supportive had an increased expectation of instrumental support available upon release.
Conclusions: Social support theory furthers understanding of visitation and its effects and provides useful directions for policy and practice.
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A number of scholars, civil, and human rights activists have expressed concern about the negative... more A number of scholars, civil, and human rights activists have expressed concern about the negative impact restrictive housing may have on the physical and mental well-being of inmates. Rigorous, theoretically informed outcome evaluations, however, are virtually nonexistent. Guided by theory and existing empirical evidence, this study explores the future behavioral and mental health outcomes associated with completing an alternative approach to restrictive housing in the Arizona Department of Corrections. To explore program outcomes, we use paired-sample t tests to determine whether post-program behavior is significantly different from preprogram behavior. In addition, we use cross tabulations and independent samples t tests to identify relationships between individual-level inmate and program characteristics and program outcomes. Results from this study suggest that a more therapeutic restrictive status housing program has the potential to improve the future behavior of program graduates; however, future research is needed to build upon these findings.
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The children of prisoners can suffer from behavioral issues, poor school performance, and heighte... more The children of prisoners can suffer from behavioral issues, poor school performance, and heightened risk of crime and delinquency. Separation is part of what makes incarceration a punishment, but what can be done to ensure that it has the least harmful effect on children? Using data from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project, the current study seeks to examine the influence of different types of prison contact (inperson, mail, and phone) and frequency of contact on parent-child relationship quality and how those changes in relationship quality may influence child behavior. Examining results from the parent (n = 127) and child (n = 293) level, the study finds that in-person visitation can increase relationship quality, with mail and frequent phone contact also beneficial.
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The current approach to supervising offenders in the community has produced disappointing results... more The current approach to supervising offenders in the community has produced disappointing results in terms of reduced recidivism. In response to this, a number of scholars have turned their attention to the role that community corrections officers (CCOs) may play in ensuring successful community supervision. Early evaluations of CCO training have shown promising results, yet missing from this knowledge is a consideration for the legal cynicism that may be held by offenders. It may be unreasonable to expect CCOs to change the antisocial attitudes of offenders when those negative attitudes are directed toward them. The purpose of the current work, therefore, is to integrate ideas about legal cynicism into the knowledge about effective supervision to promote a more procedurally just community corrections. Our broader purpose is to encourage a more realistic understanding of the challenges of the officer-offender relationship in order to improve the efficacy of existing models of effective community supervision practice.
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The individual and social protective factors that help break the cycle of violence are examined. ... more The individual and social protective factors that help break the cycle of violence are examined. Specifically, this study investigates (a) the individual and social protective factors that reduce violent offending among previously victimized children, and (b) whether certain protective factors are more or less important depending on the type and frequency of childhood victimization experienced. Data on young adults from Wave III of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health are used (N = 13,116). Negative binomial regression models are estimated to examine the protective factors that promote resiliency to violent offending among individuals who reported being physically and sexually victimized as children. Results indicate that a number of individual and social protective factors reduce violent offending in young adulthood. With a few exceptions, these factors are specific to the type, frequency, and comorbidity of abuse experienced. The results suggest a number of promising approaches to break the cycle of violence among previously victimized children. Future
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Although the prison visitation literature is advancing in significant ways, it remains slowed by ... more Although the prison visitation literature is advancing in significant ways, it remains slowed by a reliance on a limited methodological approach. Here, we advocate for a new way to study visitation through the use of a mixed-method design. We discuss what knowledge can be gleaned by examining visitation differently and describe our efforts to do so by introducing a new data source: the Arizona Prison Visitation Project (APVP). This article outlines the methodology of the APVP and details the data collection process. We conclude with a discussion on how the APVP can be useful for guiding future research and policy.
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The qualitative analysis of individual cases has a prominent place in the development
of criminol... more The qualitative analysis of individual cases has a prominent place in the development
of criminological theory, yet progression in the scientific study of crime has
largely been viewed as a distinctly quantitative endeavor. In the process, much of
the theoretical depth and precision supplied by earlier methods of criminological
knowledge production have been sacrificed. The current work argues for a return to
our criminological roots by supplementing quantitative analyses with the qualitative
inspection of individual cases. We provide a specific example of a literature (i.e.,
criminal specialization/versatility) that has become increasingly quantitative and could
benefit from the use of the proposed approach. We conclude by offering additional
areas of research that might be advanced by our framework presented here.
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Justice Quarterly
Drawing from the inequality and crime, racial invariance, and Latino paradox literatures, the eff... more Drawing from the inequality and crime, racial invariance, and Latino paradox literatures, the effects of inequality on youth reoffending are examined. Specifically, hierarchical logistic regression models are estimated to determine 1) whether racial and ethnic inequality have similar contextual effects on the continued delinquent behavior of at-risk youth, and 2) whether these effects are specific to black or Latino/a youth residing in Maricopa County, Arizona (N = 13,138). Findings suggest that racial inequality increases reoffending while ethnic inequality decreases reoffending. Additionally, Latino/a youth are less likely to reoffend in areas characterized by high income and racial inequality. Structural theories of crime should continue to account for the importance of culture and the resilient responses employed by Latinos/as living in criminogenic environments.
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Serious youthful offenders are presented with a number of significant challenges when trying to m... more Serious youthful offenders are presented with a number of significant challenges when trying to make a successful transition from adolescence to adulthood. One of the biggest obstacles for these youth to overcome concerns their ability to desist from further antisocial behavior, and although an emerging body of research has documented important risk and protective factors associated with desistance, the importance of the neighborhoods within which these youth reside has been understudied. Guided by the larger neighborhood effects on crime literature, the current study examines the direct and indirect effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending among a sample of highly mobile, serious youthful offenders. We use data from Pathways to Desistance, a longitudinal study of serious youthful offenders (N = 1,354; 13.6% female; 41.4% African American, 33.5% Hispanic, 20.2% White), matched up with 2000 Census data on neighborhood conditions for youth’s main residence location during waves 7 and 8 of the study. These waves represent the time period in which youth are navigating the transition to adulthood (aged 18 to 22; average age = 20). We estimate structural equation models to determine direct effects of concentrated disadvantage on youth reoffending and also to examine the possible indirect effects working through individual-level mechanisms as specified by theoretical perspectives including social control (e.g., unsupervised peer activities), strain (e.g., exposure to violence), and learning (e.g., exposure to antisocial peers). Additionally, we estimate models that take into account the impact that a change in neighborhood conditions may have on the behavior of youth who move to new residences during the study period. Our results show that concentrated disadvantage is indirectly associated with youth reoffending primarily through its association with exposure to deviant peers. Taking into account youth mobility during the study period produced an additional indirect pathway by which concentrated disadvantage is associated with goal blockage (i.e., the gap between belief in conventional goals and perceived potential to reach those goals), which was then associated with exposure to deviant peers and indirectly, reoffending behavior. We conclude that the neighborhood effects literature offers a promising framework for continued research on understanding the successful transition to adulthood by serious youthful offenders.
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The bulk of existing research on immigration and crime suggests that, counter to a number of theo... more The bulk of existing research on immigration and crime suggests that, counter to a number of theoretical perspectives and overall public and political opinion, indicators of immigration are either unrelated or negatively related to criminal behavior. Notably absent from this line of research is assessments of the impact of immigration on the social outcomes of ex-offenders and youth. Youthful ex-offenders in particular represent a vulnerable population that could be expected to benefit most from the protective effects of immigration as identified in the literature. Accordingly, in the present study we determine the importance of concentrated immigration (net of individual-level factors) in reoffending for a sample of previously arrested youth in the state of Arizona. In addition, we examine whether the effects of immigration on reoffending behavior are contingent on the individual characteristics (e.g. race, ethnicity, and gender) of youth. The implications for the ongoing theoretical, empirical, and policy debates surrounding immigration and crime are discussed.
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A consequential development in victimization theory and research was the idea that individuals wi... more A consequential development in victimization theory and research was the idea that individuals with low self-control self-select into the various risky behaviors that may ultimately result in their victimization. To establish the empirical status of the selfcontrol– victimization link, we subjected this body of work to a meta analysis. Our multilevel analyses of 311 effect size estimates drawn from 66 studies (42 independent data sets) indicate that self-control is a modest yet consistent predictor of victimization. The results also show that the effect of self-control is significantly stronger when predicting noncontact forms of victimization (e.g., online victimization) and is significantly reduced in studies that control directly for the risky behaviors that are assumed to mediate the self-control–victimization link. We also note that the studies assessing self-control and victimization are not representative of victimization research as a whole, with intimate partner violence (IPV), violence against women, and child abuse being severely underrepresented. We conclude that future research should continue to examine the causal processes linking self-control to victimization, how self-control shapes victims’ coping responses to their experience, and whether self-control matters in contexts where individuals may have limited autonomy over the behavioral routines that put them at risk for victimization.
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Victims and Offenders, 2013
Over the last several decades significant progress has been made in identifying the evidence-base... more Over the last several decades significant progress has been made in identifying the evidence-based components of successful offender reentry. These advancements have often been limited to specific disciplines and frequently are developed by academics or practice-based researchers independent of one another. Further, although a large body of knowledge has been compiled detailing the significant predictors of recidivism, the specific mechanisms by which these correlates either reduce or increase recidivism remain largely unknown. Accordingly, the present work seeks to build a more complete framework of offender reintegration by integrating existing knowledge on what works in reducing recidivism across multiple levels of analysis. We argue that social support provides an organizing concept for understanding the existing relationships in recidivism research. The implications for continued theoretical development and future testing of the model are discussed.
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Cesar, Gabriel T and Kevin A. Wright. 2013. "That Ain’t the Only Way to Be: The Reintegration of... more Cesar, Gabriel T and Kevin A. Wright. 2013. "That Ain’t the Only Way to Be: The Reintegration of Dennis “Cutty” Wise From an Individual-, Community-, and System-Level Perspective" In Peter A. Collins and David C. Brody (Eds.) "Crime and Justice in the City as Seen through The Wire" (pp. 259-278). Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press.
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Wright, Kevin A. 2013. "The Private Prison" In Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Mary K.... more Wright, Kevin A. 2013. "The Private Prison" In Francis T. Cullen, Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Mary K. Stohr (Eds.) "The American Prison: Imagining a Different Future" (pp. 173-192). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage
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Publications by Kevin Wright
people, instead of on people. While this collaborative approach has been
used across a range of disciplines, criminology has been slow to adopt the
tenets of PAR. The current article seeks to reinvigorate the discussion of
PAR as a research methodology within corrections. We highlight the
success of our own project, where five incarcerated interviewers conducted
over 400 interviews within the Arizona Department of
Corrections. We describe the project—how we set it up, our perceived
benefits, and our challenges—and we conclude with some thoughts on
how PAR can be expanded in corrections specifically and in criminal
justice in general. Our broader purpose is to highlight an innovative
methodology to ensure conversations advance research that is translated
into meaningful action.
Methods: Data were drawn from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project, which includes information on 687 visitors nested within 227 inmates. Latent class analysis and hierarchical generalized linear models were used to carry out these objectives.
Results: Both supportive and unsupportive visitors were identified. Individuals who were female, younger, had a higher number of previous incarcerations, and those visited by parents or partners were more likely to have supportive visitors. Inmates with visitors characterized as supportive had an increased expectation of instrumental support available upon release.
Conclusions: Social support theory furthers understanding of visitation and its effects and provides useful directions for policy and practice.
of criminological theory, yet progression in the scientific study of crime has
largely been viewed as a distinctly quantitative endeavor. In the process, much of
the theoretical depth and precision supplied by earlier methods of criminological
knowledge production have been sacrificed. The current work argues for a return to
our criminological roots by supplementing quantitative analyses with the qualitative
inspection of individual cases. We provide a specific example of a literature (i.e.,
criminal specialization/versatility) that has become increasingly quantitative and could
benefit from the use of the proposed approach. We conclude by offering additional
areas of research that might be advanced by our framework presented here.
people, instead of on people. While this collaborative approach has been
used across a range of disciplines, criminology has been slow to adopt the
tenets of PAR. The current article seeks to reinvigorate the discussion of
PAR as a research methodology within corrections. We highlight the
success of our own project, where five incarcerated interviewers conducted
over 400 interviews within the Arizona Department of
Corrections. We describe the project—how we set it up, our perceived
benefits, and our challenges—and we conclude with some thoughts on
how PAR can be expanded in corrections specifically and in criminal
justice in general. Our broader purpose is to highlight an innovative
methodology to ensure conversations advance research that is translated
into meaningful action.
Methods: Data were drawn from the Arizona Prison Visitation Project, which includes information on 687 visitors nested within 227 inmates. Latent class analysis and hierarchical generalized linear models were used to carry out these objectives.
Results: Both supportive and unsupportive visitors were identified. Individuals who were female, younger, had a higher number of previous incarcerations, and those visited by parents or partners were more likely to have supportive visitors. Inmates with visitors characterized as supportive had an increased expectation of instrumental support available upon release.
Conclusions: Social support theory furthers understanding of visitation and its effects and provides useful directions for policy and practice.
of criminological theory, yet progression in the scientific study of crime has
largely been viewed as a distinctly quantitative endeavor. In the process, much of
the theoretical depth and precision supplied by earlier methods of criminological
knowledge production have been sacrificed. The current work argues for a return to
our criminological roots by supplementing quantitative analyses with the qualitative
inspection of individual cases. We provide a specific example of a literature (i.e.,
criminal specialization/versatility) that has become increasingly quantitative and could
benefit from the use of the proposed approach. We conclude by offering additional
areas of research that might be advanced by our framework presented here.