Living After Prison:The Experience of (Re)integration to Society After Release From an Ontario Correctional Facility

As individuals are released from incarceration in Ontario institutions they face a variety of barriers to their successful (re)integration. With the current reconviction rate at 44% within the first year of release, those being released quite clearly have trouble with this period of their lives. This study will therefore examine the (re)integration process at different stages, in order to understand how people cope with life after prison, and how their experiences of incarceration continue to affect them long after release. Understanding the ways that identity production and gender come to be affected by, and affect, time spent inside, and importantly the (re)integration process, will provide an in-depth look at the lives of individuals going through these processes. This will be achieved through ethnographic data gained throughout the fieldwork process, along with examinations of academic literature focused on identity, gender, and power.