A new article by ISSI graduate student Xavier Durham in Punishment and Society highlights how more than 600,000 people leave U.S. jails and prisons annually and how security NGOs (non-governmental organizations) hire formerly incarcerated people, pushing the boundaries of how we conceptualize and measure the (re)production of socio-economic inequality. Durham draws from 35 interviews with employees of the California-based security NGO Urban Alchemy, to offer two findings. First, reentry workers’ employment experience in the security sector indicates a blurring of stigma where people are finding work because of their record and without a third-party service provider. Second, reentry workers come to occupy a position of “penal liminality” that puts them at greater risk of surveillance from both their employers and penal agents while simultaneously leveraging police interventions to accomplish organizational goals. This tense dichotomy reveals how security work blurs the roles of those who police and those that are policed.
March 18, 2026