Bridging Criminal Justice Scholarship Into Higher Education: Implications for Research, Practice, and Policy

• In Event: Seeking Truth About the Context of School-to-Prison Nexus: Role of Racial Trauma and Healing

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: This conceptual paper explores the carceral practices embedded in K-12 and postsecondary education spaces that contribute to significant disparities in student access, inclusion, and success in higher education systems. Historically, K-12 and higher education have engaged in practices that criminalize students through the annual suspension of over 2.7 million students and over 120,000 students through expulsions (Novak & Fagan, 2022; Office for Civil Rights, 2018). Other practices include arbitrary policy development that creates additional hurdles for college students with previous criminal records to access housing, on-campus employment, or essential student services (Custer, 2018, 2021; Giraldo et al., 2017; McTier 2021; McTier et al., 2020). RATIONALE: Higher education scholars often argue that there is limited empirical scholarship on college students with previous interactions with the carceral system; however, in our review of the literature, we posit that education researchers can benefit from an exploration of criminal (in)justice, psychology, social work, and other social science fields to illuminate previous decades of scholarship on how to engage, support, and empower justice-impacted students to succeed in postsecondary education. FINDINGS: Specifically, we review available scholarship on school discipline practices (Carter et al., 2017; Skiba et al., 2014; Skiba et al., 2002), tracking youth into alternative learning environments and continuation schools (Brown, 2007; Kelly, 1993; Kim & Taylor, 2008; Lehr, Soon Tan, & Ysseldyke, 2009) the long legacy of prison education programs in the U.S. from 1780 to the present (Castro et al., 2018; Messemer, 2011), the sociolegal access and barriers to prison education programs through state and federal law changes (Brown & Bloom, 2018) reentry programs in postsecondary education for previously incarcerated college students (Delaney & Montagnet, 2020). SIGNIFICANCE: To improve and remedy past practices that further guide youth in the carceral system, this chapter provides recommendations for policy and practice for postsecondary education leaders and practitioners to create more inclusive college campuses.

Authors

• Adrian H. Huerta, University of Southern California
  Presenting Author

• Edgar Fidel Lopez, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maritza Elizabeth Salazar, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Gabriela Torres, University of Southern California
  Non-Presenting Author

• Miranda Yvonne Munoz, San Diego State University
  Non-Presenting Author