The Nexus of Homelessness and Incarceration: The Case of Homeless Men in Trenton, NJ

Abstract

This article explores the nuanced connections between homelessness and incarceration as told through life stories of homeless men in Trenton, New Jersey. A recurrent theme in the stories was the experience of incarceration. This cycle of male homelessness and incarceration has its origins in the structural conditions of poverty, discrimination, and unemployment in Trenton. It is self-replicating because of a cultural process in which people learn and repeat how to engage with the world. Men copy other men; this is how they learn gender. If fathers or other positive male role models are absent, men are prone to learn gender from idealized, hypermasculine images that feed into the cycle of male homelessness and incarceration. When incarcerated men leave prison and return home to fatherless families and impoverished inner city neighborhoods, this has an adverse impact on them, which has an impact on the dynamics of those families and neighborhoods.