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13 Punishment & Soc'y 3 (2011)

handle is hein.journals/punscty13 and id is 1 raw text is: Article Punishment & Society 13(1) 3-28 Reentry as a rite @ The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: of passage sagepub.co.uk/journalsPerrnissions.nav of pa sageDOl: 10. 1177/1462474510385641 pun.sagepub.com $SAGE Shadd Maruna Queen's University Belfast, UK Abstract Mary Douglas argues that, 'There are some things we cannot experience without ritual? Ex-prisoner reintegration may be one of them. The punishment process involves an inordinate amount of ritual behavior, from the drama of the courtroom to the elaborate de-individuation processes involved in institutionalization. Durkheim argues that these rituals serve a distinct purpose for society: engendering social solidarity and shaping penal sensibilities. Like the commission of a crime, the reintegration of the former outcast back into society represents a challenge to the moral order, a delicate transition fraught with danger and possibility. However, unlike punishment, reintegration is not a process characterized by well-orchestrated and familiar rituals. This lack might explain the failings of prisoner reentry in contemporary society. This article reviews the socio- logical and anthropological literature on rituals, explaining what they are and what they do, focusing in particular on the role of status degradation ceremonies in criminal justice work. Drawing on this literature, the core elements that would be needed to develop rituals of reintegration powerful enough to counteract these degradation effects are discussed, and the potential impact of such hypothetical rituals is explored. Keywords ex-prisoners, parole, reentry, rites of passage, rituals Over forty years ago, Gorer (1965) made the radical argument that the British were uniquely poor at coping with death. In particular, compared to the elaborate Corresponding author: Shadd Maruna, Queen's University Belfast, Institute of Criminology and Criminal justice, School of Law, 28 University Square, Belfast, Northern Ireland, BT7 INN, UK Email: s.maruna@qub.ac.uk

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