| The purpose of this research is to explore obstacles to prisoners successfully re-entering civilian communities. I identified a phenomenon of people coming out of prison, excelling in their career paths, but then eventually "falling" from their positive trajectories over time. This piece explores some of the reasons for that outcome using auto-ethnographic data. To better understand this phenomenon I developed the concept of the ex-civilian. An ex-civilian is no longer a prisoner yet not quite fully part of civilian society. This dissertation puts forth two major findings: First, ex-civilians suffer from unique vulnerabilities stemming from institutional fragilities, the demand for rugged individualism in mainstream culture, and cascading traumatic events. Second, these factors culminate in a painful liminal status for the ex-civilian. Given these findings, this dissertation proposes several recommendations to foster the caring and nurturing environment ex-civilians need to maintain positive trajectories back into civilian communities. |
