2021
Megan Rigsby Klein
- Associate Professor
- Oakton Community College
Abstract
Mass incarceration and its disproportionate effects on Black and Brown communities across the United States is a pressing social justice issue. Men and women who are released from prison with a college degree are much less likely to return to prison within five years. Yet despite the achievement of earning a degree while incarcerated, there are significant barriers to successful reentry and these barriers are shaped by gender. How can higher education programs in prisons better facilitate the reentry process? Interview and focus-group data collection at one men's and one women's prison centers the voices of the incarcerated as the foundation for curriculum development around the topic of reentry.