How Community College Reentry Programs Serve as Resource Brokers for Formerly Incarcerated Students

• In Event: Division J Vice Presidential Session. Racism and Carcerality in Higher Education

Abstract

Reentry programs on higher education campuses continue to expand, as academic institutions accept responsibility and acknowledge the importance of providing targeted services for formerly incarcerated (FI) students. The impact of community college reentry programs (CCRPs) is two-fold: they provide students the resources and support to succeed in college, while also fostering a community sensitive to the specific challenges often faced when readjusting to life outside of prison. This study examines how CCRPs serve as resource brokers for their students. It examines how FI students build support networks through their reentry programs, the role of higher education during the reentry process, and how these interacting institutional levers facilitate student success both inside and outside the classroom. The following questions guide our study:
1) What types of services do CCRPs provide to students?
2) How do students describe their experiences in CRRPs as they navigate the reentry process?
We use Small’s (2006) conception of resource brokers to examine how students use campus-based reentry programs to navigate reentry and higher education. We focus on two of Small’s assumptions: 1) resource brokers are “interorganizationally networked neighborhood institutions” (p. 277) and 2) resource brokers are spaces that provide community.
As a pilot study for a larger project on CCRPs, we recruited ten students to participate in our study, each of whom attended one of six public community college districts in California. We conducted semistructured interviews (Patton, 1990) that lasted about sixty minutes each. We coded the data with the qualitative software program Dedoose, using hybrid coding (Miles et al., 2014).
We find that FI students viewed reentry programs on their campus as a focal center for support. Most students were returning to education after a long period of time. Thus, upon release, students were transitioning not only back into their life post-incarceration, but also back into the education system. CCRPs brokered resources to their students both locally and externally. On campus, the programs connected students to scholarship and job opportunities and provided vouchers for books, gas, bus-transit, food, among others. The programs also provided students a communal environment of peers who constantly uplifted and empowered one another. Interactions within the reentry program provided key social gatherings where students could both learn about and trade information and resources to support one another emotionally and motivationally as they navigated the reentry process and their academic aspirations.
Those in the criminal justice system are de-citizenized while incarcerated and even once released. They are systematically stripped of civil liberties and are often unable to gain many of these back upon release due to institutional and political barriers. Over the years, California has continuously provided funding for community colleges serving incarcerated and FI students (Opportunity Institute, 2018). Community colleges with reentry programs have accepted responsibility for educating and providing services to those impacted by the justice system. Our findings can help inform the design and practice of community college reentry programs, as well as denote which areas need more financial and political support.

Authors

• Elif Asli Yucel, University of Southern California

• Jaymon T. Ortega, University of Southern California