Month: July 2025

Mike returned home to Philadelphia after a 15-year prison sentence and suffered an emotional breakdown.

“I just couldn’t stop crying … I don’t know. It was the anxiety. It was just a lot,” he said. “I was under a lot of pressure and it just came crashing down.”

Mike, who was in his late 40s when we spoke, told me about his childhood filled with abuse, his first arrest at age 14, and the over 20 years of his life that he spent behind bars.

As a registered nurse and nurse scientist who studies how incarceration affects mental health, I know Mike’s experience after release from prison is not uncommon. Studies show that Black men who have experienced incarceration have higher rates of PTSD, depression and psychological distress compared with Black men who have never been incarcerated.

Working in psychiatric hospitals in Philadelphia, I met many patients in crisis who had been incarcerated at some point in their lives. As a part of my doctoral research, funded by the National Institute of Nursing Research, I interviewed 29 formerly incarcerated Black men to understand how incarceration has affected their mental health.

My peer-reviewed findings were published in the journal Social Science & Medicine. All quotes shared here use pseudonyms to protect the men’s privacy.

Trauma of incarceration

Mass incarceration in the U.S. has serious health consequences for individuals, families and communities. In Philadelphia alone, over 20,000 people return home from incarceration each year.

While incarceration rates are declining in Philadelphia, the needs of those coming home remain significant.

Many formerly incarcerated men described experiencing or witnessing violence, including being beaten by correctional officers and witnessing close friends get assaulted or killed.

“You know you are not regular because you come from a traumatic situation, right?” said Thomas, 44, who spent 18 years incarcerated.

The participants expressed that racism was common, especially while incarcerated in facilities located in the rural central and northern regions of Pennsylvania.

“I ain’t gonna sugar coat it – Black people going up into them white people mountains, they call you [n-word] all day long and you basically there to accept it,” Antonio told me.

Incarceration was especially difficult for those who were held for months pretrial without ever being convicted and those incarcerated during COVID restrictions who spent more than 23 hours a day in their cells.

‘Even though I’m free, I ain’t free’

Participants described life on parole or probation, or in transitional housing, as another form of confinement.

Ken, 56, has been out of prison for over a decade but said, “I’m still locked up, even though I’m free, I ain’t free. You just get a whole new set of rules and regulations.”

Men described significant anxiety related to community supervision requirements, including difficulty sleeping the night before a probation appointment.

Participants also described distress caused by “no association” restrictions. These are common parole and probation requirements that prohibit people under supervision from interacting with others who have criminal records, are also under supervision or are currently incarcerated. Violating this requirement can lead to a technical violation and reincarceration.

While these requirements are meant to reduce the risk of reoffending, they often isolate people from supportive relationships and resources, including housing and employment.

“[There are] a lot of smart brothers in there. And it hurts my heart. And that’s where the depression coming in too,” said Reese, who spent six years incarcerated. “I can’t contact them in jail. … That’s just how it is in the system.”

Philadelphia has the highest rate of community supervision – including probation and parole – among the largest U.S. cities, according to a 2019 analysis by The Philadelphia Inquirer.

At that time, the Inquirer reports, 1 in 23 adults in Philadelphia were under community supervision – and 1 in 14 Black adults in Philadelphia.

The men I interviewed said they felt like parts of them never left jail or prison, while others felt that they brought prison or jail home with them.

Tyrese, 34, said he stays home as often as he can.

“I’ve been out of the joint for seven years now and feel like I’m still institutionalized, I guess,” he said. “I know people that don’t even come outside,” referring to other formerly incarcerated men.

Others had dreams that they were back in a cell, or at home still wearing jail clothing. Long after release, many described constant hypervigilance and anxiety.

“I can be walking to the bus station and there be people walking around me, I’m constantly watching them,” said Anthony, who was first incarcerated at age 18 and served 16 years. “I’m watching every movement they’re doing. That’s a habit I had from jail.”

Finding work

People who have been incarcerated often struggle to find employment after release, as many employers are unwilling to hire a person with a criminal record.

This leaves about 35% of formerly incarcerated Black men unemployed.

At the time of our interview, Tay, 31, was working part-time in carpentry. “Because I had felonies on my record a lot of places won’t hire me,” he said. “And a couple of places that I was working with, they ended up firing me once they did the background check.”

These frustrations can easily spill over into family life.

Mark, 30, also works part-time and said he found himself frequently becoming agitated and snapping at his kids, other family members and his girlfriend. “I can’t get the job I want or the job that I need to do what I need to do for my family and I’ll be frustrated,” he shared.

Participants struggled with having to depend on others for basic needs upon release. Kenny, who is now self-employed as a caterer, recalled his experience a few years earlier. “I was crying. I was a grown man, almost 40 years old, and my mother had to buy me underwear, socks,” he said.

The importance of fatherhood

Despite their many hardships, some of the men spoke with joy about reconnecting with their children.

“I think the most positive thing that happened since I’ve been out of prison is I got custody of my sons,” said Ken, a father of two. “Them kids saved me.”

Like many of the other participants with children, however, he was frustrated about being unable to provide for them and worried about repeating harmful cycles.

“You want to do good, but it makes you think bad stuff when you don’t have the right resources,” he continued. “You don’t want [your kids] to do the same things you did.”

Others struggled to bond with their children after years of separation.

John, 29, explained, “The bonding is kind of awkward, because you wasn’t there, especially during the pandemic when there was no visits allowed.”

Returning to disadvantaged neighborhoods

Most people released from incarceration return to neighborhoods with high rates of poverty, violence and other disadvantages.

Shawn, who lives in pubic housing, showed me abandoned buildings and boarded storefronts in his neighborhood and described how the environment made rebuilding his life harder.

For many participants, returning to divested communities brought stress. They experienced frequent exposure to substance use, violence and negative police encounters, and they had limited access to basic resources and job opportunities needed to support recovery and stability.

“This is my real life. It’s not fake. It’s not no, ‘Well, why did he go back and do this or that?’” he said. “I live in an underserved, impoverished, danger zone – period.”

Moving forward

The experiences these men shared with me demonstrate how traumatic incarceration is, even many years after release.

Supporting the mental health of formerly incarcerated Black men requires trauma-informed services, such as culturally responsive counseling, peer support and care that acknowledges the lasting effects of incarceration.

It also means helping them build or rebuild their financial resources, reconnect with their children and loved ones, and supporting the broader communities they return to through investment in housing, employment and accessible health and social services.

Helena Addison received funding from National Institute of Nursing Research of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F31NR020434, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration and American Nurses Association Minority Fellowship Program, the University of Pennsylvania’s Presidential PhD Fellowship, and Jonas Philanthropies to support this study and/or her PhD training. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health, or any other funding organizations or institutions. The views expressed in written training materials or publications and by speakers and moderators do not necessarily reflect the official policies of the Department and Human Services; nor does mention of trade names, commercial practices, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S. Government.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump has said the “big, beautiful bill” he signed into law on July 4, 2025, will stimulate the economy and foster financial security.

But a close look at the legislation reveals a different story, particularly for low-income people and racial and ethnic minorities.

As a legal scholar who studies how taxes increase the gap in wealth and income between Black and white Americans, I believe the law’s provisions make existing wealth inequalities worse through broad tax cuts that disproportionately favor wealthy families while forcing its costs on low- and middle-income Americans.

The widening chasm

The U.S. racial wealth gap is stark. White families’ median wealth between 2019 and 2022 grew to more than $250,000 higher than Black families’ median wealth.

This disparity is the result of decades of discriminatory policies in housing, banking, health care, taxes, education and employment.

The new legislation will widen these chasms through its permanent extension of individual tax cuts in Trump’s 2017 tax reform package. Americans have eight years of experience with those changes and how they hurt low-income families.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for example, predicted that low-income taxpayers would gain US$70 a year from the 2017 tax cuts. But that figure did not include the results of eliminating the individual mandate that encouraged uninsured people to get health insurance through the federal marketplace. That insurance was heavily subsidized by the federal government.

The Republican majority in Congress predicted that the loss of the mandate would decrease federal spending on health care subsidies. That decrease cost low-income taxpayers over $4,000 per person in lost subsidies.

The Congressional Budget Office examined the net effect of the 2025 bill by combining the tax changes with cuts to programs like Medicaid and food assistance. It found that the bill will reduce poor families’ ability to obtain food and health care.

Wealth-building for whom?

Perhaps the most revealing part of the bill is how it turns ideas for helping low-income families on their head. They are touted as helping the poor – but they help the wealthy instead.

A much publicized feature of the bill is the creation of “Trump Accounts,” a pilot program providing a one-time $1,000 government contribution to a tax-advantaged investment account for children born between 2025 and 2028.

While framed as a “baby bonus” to build wealth, the program’s structure is deeply flawed and regressive. Although the first $1,000 into the accounts comes from the federal government, the real tax benefits go to wealthy families who can avoid paying taxes by contributing up to $5,000 per year to their children’s accounts.

As analysts from the Roosevelt Institute, a progressive economic and social policy think tank, have pointed out, this design primarily benefits affluent families who already have the disposable income to save and can take full advantage of the tax benefits.

For low-income families struggling with daily expenses, making additional contributions is not a realistic option. These accounts do not address the fundamental barrier to saving for low-income families – a lack of income – and are more likely to widen the wealth gap than to close it.

This regressive approach – regressive because the wealthy get larger benefits – to wealth-building is mirrored in the bill’s renewal and enhancement of the New Markets Tax Credit program. Although extended by the “big, beautiful bill” to drive investment into low-income communities by offering capital gains tax breaks to investors, the program subsidizes luxury real estate projects that do little to benefit existing low-income residents and accelerate gentrification and displacement. Studies show that there is very little increase in salaries or education in areas with these benefits.

A harsh new rule

The child tax credit is another part of the bill that purports to help the poor and working classes while, in fact, giving the wealthy more money.

A family can earn up to $400,000 and still get the full $2,200 tax credit per child, which reduces their tax liability dollar for dollar. In contrast, a family making $31,500 or less cannot receive a tax credit of more than $1,750 per child. And approximately 17 million children – disproportionately Black and Latino – will not receive anything at all.

More significantly, the law tightens eligibility by requiring not only the child but also the taxpayer claiming the credit to have a Social Security number. This requirement will strip the credit from approximately 4.5 million U.S. citizen children in mixed-status families – families where some people are citizens, legal residents and people living in the country without legal permission – where parents may file taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number but lack a Social Security number, according to an April 2025 study.

A burden on the poor

Perhaps most striking is the law’s “pay-fors” – the provisions designed to offset the cost of the tax cuts.

The legislation makes significant changes to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, lifelines for millions of low-income families.

The law imposes new monthly “community engagement” requirements, a form of work requirement, for able-bodied adults to maintain Medicaid coverage. The majority of such adults enrolled in Medicaid already work. And many people who do not work are caring full time for young children or are too disabled to work. The law also requires states to conduct eligibility redeterminations twice a year.

Redeterminations and work requirements have historically led to eligible people losing coverage. For SNAP, the bill expands work requirements to some Americans who are up to 64 years old and the parents of older children and revises benefit calculations in ways that will reduce benefits.

By funding tax cuts for the wealthy while making cuts to essential services for the poor, the bill codifies a transfer of resources up the economic ladder.

In my view, the “big, beautiful bill” represents a missed opportunity to leverage fiscal policy to address the American wealth and income gap. Instead of investing in programs to lift up low- and middle-income Americans, the bill emphasizes a regressive approach that will further enrich the wealthy and deepen existing inequalities.

Beverly Moran does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

President Donald Trump would like to see a “better option” than Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins to represent the state. He probably can’t get one.

The moderate GOP senator causes frequent headaches for the White House when it comes to securing her crucial vote, which is needed to pass key elements of Trump’s agenda.

That’s led White House officials to discuss a potential Collins replacement in the state if she opts not to run for reelection, though there are no thoughts of actually launching a primary challenge.

But in a state that continues to trend blue, local Republicans warned, Collins is effectively the lone Republican who can fend off high-level Democratic challengers in the state. Republicans point to her seniority in the upper chamber and appropriations role as unique advantages no other candidate would match. And while Collins may frustrate the MAGA wing, a different Republican more in line with Trump’s agenda would also be much more likely to lose the seat.

For Collins to drop out “may be for very conservative people a wish list item,” said Andre Cushing, a Penobscot County commissioner and former Republican state senator.

“But, candidly, I think she’s made her announcement and she is the kind of person that doesn’t do those things lightly,” Cushing said. “She certainly has my support even when I disagree with her.”

Collins’ unique position in Maine shows the limits of Trump’s political power. The president has been fiddling with all levers of the midterms equation — ordering Texas Republicans to redraw a map, pressuring battleground House Republicans to seek reelection rather than run for higher office and now exploring primary challenges against the handful of incumbents who have bucked him. Collins, the Senate Appropriations Chair, has been frustrated by White House attempts to clawback spending that she supports, and has been vocal about her disagreements.

There appears to be little appetite — in either party — for challenging Collins, who won reelection by 9 points in 2020, despite Joe Biden easily winning the state.

That victory, which followed record Democratic spending and a wave of public polls suggesting Collins would lose, has left Democrats facing their own struggles to find a formidable challenger this year, even as they point to her dipping approval rating.

Top Maine Democrats including former Maine Senate President Troy Jackson and Secretary of State Shenna Bellows, who ran against Collins in 2014, have opted to run for the state’s open governorship instead. Rep. Jared Golden of the 2nd District is running for reelection.

That has left national Democrats without a top recruit in what should be one of their most competitive offensive targets. Gov. Janet Mills, who is term-limited, would be their top recruit. But Mills, 77, is older than Collins, 72, and the two women have generally had a good working relationship. The Democratic governor doesn’t seem eager for what would likely be a bruising Senate battle.

Even as some Republicans in Washington grow frustrated with Collins, there is no appetite to primary her back home.

“I don’t think any reasonable person that might be interested in that position would think about challenging her,” said Maine GOP strategist Alex Titcomb.

Collins has already publicly indicated plans to run for reelection. Her fundraising surged in the second quarter of the year, according to campaign finance reports filed this week. And a super PAC planning to back her said it raised $5.6 million so far this year. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is already cutting digital ads for Collins.

Democrats’ best hope to flip the seat would be if Collins did not seek reelection. Republicans would have to scramble in their attempts to find a replacement — she is the only GOP candidate to win statewide in Maine since 2014.

“Everybody knows that Susan Collins is a gift to the Republican Party in Maine,” said Garrett Mason, the former Maine Senate majority leader and GOP gubernatorial candidate.

Collins has ruffled some GOP feathers in the first six months of Trump’s term with high-profile votes to oppose his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, and the sprawling “One Big Beautiful Bill.”

A similar dynamic played out during Trump’s first term in office, when conservatives slammed her vote against the Affordable Care Act repeal. But Collins largely rallied the Republican base in her favor for her 2020 reelection campaign, even earning an endorsement from former Gov. Paul LePage, who had previously been critical of her.

But Republicans in the state know that when it comes to Maine’s Senate seat, there is no “better option.” A Collins retirement — or primary loss — likely means the GOP loses the seat. And many in the state still pride themselves on her senior status in the Senate, something even another Republican could not immediately replicate.

“If someone were able to run against her and by chance beat her, that would be a really bad thing for Maine,” said Mason, the former majority leader. “But I just don’t see that happening. That’s not what’s on the ground here.”

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Sen. Eric Schmitt says isolationist label ‘is a slur’

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