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          To acquire my information for this study, I conducted five in-depth semi-structured interviews (Please see Appendix A for my interview protocol); three were with women and two were with men. I acquired my sample by convenience sampling.  One of the women I know personally (she is a family member), and she referred me to four other people that have spent time in jail. The criterion I had for my participants were simple: they must have spent at least five weeks in jail for non-violent crimes and are not currently incarcerated. Just over a month in one place gives a person time to settle, and time to get used to the surroundings. All of the interviews were conducted in the north-eastern region of the United States, in March of 2009. Only one interview was conducted with each participant, and each interview was less than one hour long. The interviews conducted with family members were conducted in their respective homes. For nonfamily members, the interviews were conducted in a restaurant. The participants were not given any compensation for participating in the interviews. Out of courtesy I purchased a cup of coffee for one person I met in a restaurant. 


          The participants were initially asked to participate by the family member I aforementioned. The family member called them, told them about what I was doing, and asked them if I could contact them. It was quite an easy process, which was relieving.
As previously noted, three of my participants are women, and two of my participants are men, which I decided to talk to as well in order to triangulate the information I received from my female study participants. All of my participants are white. Below is the socioeconomic background and previous incarceration experience of my study participants (names have been changed for privacy):













                         

 

 

 

                          

        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

       The participants appeared to be very comfortable with my presence. They were very generous in sharing their story, and two of the participants, in particular, were very excited about the study I am conducting and asked for me to contact them when I was finished so they could know how the study went and what I found. One participant, however, Kelly, was a little shy and became emotional throughout the interview, but she did not want to stop. Once she overcame her emotions and felt a little more comfortable with me, she opened up much more and offered more information than when the interview started.



         When I conducted the interviews I audio recorded them, with the permission of the participant (a copy of the informed consent form is attached in Appendix B). I then transcribed the interviews verbatim. Once the transcripts were complete, I coded them for major themes and patterns.

 

        I could not interview more people who have spent time in jail, I could not interview officials in the correction facilities. If this study were to be expanded upon, I would strongly recommend including more people who have spent time in jail, corrections officers, directors, and probation officers. Observations of jails and the inmates would also add a great amount of valuable information to the study as well.    

        My study is not without limitations. Due to time constraints, I was only able to interview five people, and I feel that many more people should be interviewed to obtain a more complete picture. I would have also liked to have interviewed corrections officers and directors of correctional facilities, to obtain an overview of the programs implemented and the reasoning behind the programs. Unfortunately, for the same

 

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