CfP: Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform
Corrections, Rehabilitation, and Reform: 21st Century Solutions for 20th Century Problems
On
October 5, the Prison University Project will host an academic
conference at San Quentin State Prison in which incarcerated students
and outside scholars will exchange ideas about “Corrections,
Rehabilitation, and Reform.” We welcome proposals for individual papers
(20 minutes in length) and full panels. As far as we know, this will be
the first-ever academic conference located inside a prison in the U.S.,
and we are eager to broker a dialogue in which academic scholarship and
those within the sphere of the criminal justice system support and
improve one another.
In an era in which “rehabilitation”
is increasingly rewarded but nevertheless difficult to quantify, in
which prison populations increase at the same time as abolitionist
movements intensify, and in which racial and economic injustice are
prime contributors to prison overpopulation, it is urgent to generate
new ideas. While many scholars outside of prison focus on just these
questions, we posit that the answers are inadequate until incarcerated
scholars are able to weigh in on the debates that shape their own lives
and futures. This conference seeks solutions for the ills of the
criminal justice system in the U.S. that came about in the 20th century.
We believe that if incarcerated Americans come together with scholars
from the outside, we might generate valuable debates and ideas about the
direction that 21st century reform might take.
The Prison
University Project has been running a college for people incarcerated
at San Quentin State Prison since 1996. We run twenty classes each
semester and have over 700 active students. The mission of the Prison
University Project is to provide excellent higher education to people at
San Quentin; to support increased access to higher education for
incarcerated people; and to stimulate public awareness about higher
education access and criminal justice.
To propose a paper
or panel please send a 300-500-word proposal, 100-word abstract (for the
conference program), and a 50-word biography to Jesse Rothman at ajamgochian@prisonuniversityproject.org by May 31, 2018.
Panels
will range from the practical, to the theoretical, to the programmatic;
possible topics may include, but certainly will not be limited to, the
following:
Practical:
- Social isolation and education
- The school-to-prison pipeline
- Educational goals and incarcerated students
- Social and cultural relevance in curricula and faculty training
- The place of technology in incarcerated spaces
Theoretical:
- Socio-biology and criminal behavior
- Cognitive biases in the criminal justice system
- communitarian, civil-society oriented approaches to incarceration
- The impact of prison higher education on individual and social behavior
- The impact of academic culture on social behavior and expectations
Programmatic:
- The meaning of resilience
- Uses of technology in prison education
- The role of technology in alternatives to incarceration
- The impact of higher education programs on partipants and the prison community