Prison Re-Entry With Professor Marcus Kondkar, PhD And Daniel Tapia

Whole Body Mental Health Radio

Daniel Tapia is a life-long resident of Uptown New Orleans. When he was 11 he started working to support himself and his family, and like many others in his community, selling drugs was one of the few opportunities he had to make money. In 2005 he was wrongfully convicted of second degree murder and sentenced to life without the possiblity of parole. Prior to his transfer to a state correctional facility he survived Hurricaine Katrina and the subsequent flooding while in the custody of Orleans Parish Prison. As is the case for many people in prison serving life without parole sentences Daniel did not have access to educational programming, but he never gave up. Finally the opportunity presented itself and he began studying business management through independent and long distance studies at Louisiana State University where he maintained a 3.0 grade point average. He also completed a certification program through Penn Foster Career School for automobile repair. After years of appeals, Daniel was finally offered a new trial, and after 12 years in prison was finally relased. When he first came home, he was rejected from numerous jobs and housing opportunities because of his felony record. However, just as he did with his education in prison, and his pursuit of a new trial, he never gave up. In the year after his release Daniel secured gainful employment, a stable place to live, he is a father, and he is Lead Mentor at RisingFoundations - where he is able to pursue his passion of guiding other men and women in changing themselves, their communities, and the circumstances around them. Marcus M. Kondkar joined the Loyola Sociology Department in 2000 and now serves as Chair. His teaching and research interests include criminology, sociology of law, and sociological theory.He has published his work in the American Journal of Public Health, Legal Systems of the World, Social Justice, and The Sociology of Katrina: Perspectives on a Modern Catastrophe. He is currently conducting research on three grant-funded projects: one on prisoner reentry best practices (USDOJ), a second on youth mentoring and gun violence (USDOJ), and a third on prison sentencing patterns in Louisiana (Vital Projects Fund). Other recent projects have included a geospatial study of the relationship between incarceration and neighborhood violence, and a study on sexual coercion and partner violence among college students.Since coming to Loyola Dr. Kondkar has received the University Senate Excellence in Teaching Award and the Marquette Research Fellowship. He has also served as Chair of Women’s Studies.We will be discussing the effect of what Dr. Kondkar calls the “corrections turnstile” - neighborhood turnover due to incarceration and reentry - on homicide patterns in New Orleans neighborhoods. Using geo-coded homicide data and residential addresses for every corrections admission and release from 2000 to 2015, Dr. Kondkar has demonstrated the very strong relationship between correctional turnover and violence, particularly homicide. In addition to the documented destabilizing effects on family bonds and community networks, elevated turnover rates foster continuous, often violent, contests for power at the neighborhood level. What he has found undermines the claims that high incarceration rates reduce violent crime and may actually suggest the opposite.