How Experiential Learning Can Help Students Understand the Challenges of Desistance

• In Event: Roundtable: Critical Teaching: Teaching Critically About Injustice and Inequality with Experiential Learning Strategies

Abstract

Critical issues in the corrections system involve understanding the importance of racial disparity, lack of resources available to adequately address the needs of those that are reentering society from prison and the urgent need to focus on how to teach criminal justice professionals to understand the host of social problems that may affect one's recidivism. As a result, I have incorporated pedagogical tools beyond the textbook to help aid in the teaching of difficult topics in class such as moral panic, racism, gender based violence and trauma. Some successful methods have been to administer assignments that require students to attend an AA/NA meeting, simulate being on home detention for a period of 48 hours and taking students to a trip to a local maximum security prison. These along with other forms of service learning and experiential learning, assignments can provide students with a better understanding of the system and the barriers people may face throughout their lives that may lead them to make the decision of engaging in a criminal act.

Author

• Liza Chowdhury, Fairleigh Dickinson University