From Returning to the Classroom to Returning Home: Examining an Education-Centered Reentry Pilot Program

• In Event: Roundtable: School & Education

Abstract

Unemployment and financial instability represent recidivism risk factors (Prison Policy Initiative, 2024; Vera Institute of Justice, 2024). Increasing access to educational opportunities serves as a recognized tool for decreasing recidivism (Council for Adult and Experiential Learning, 2024). Conventional reentry models focus on the issue of employment and overlook the opportunity to leverage education as a tool to promote employability. This roundtable examines a Midwestern university’s piloting of an education-centric reentry initiative embedded in its College in Prison program. When traditional reentry programs include educational services, they tend to relegate “education” to one “spoke” on the reentry cog and most often focus on GED attainment and vocational training. Although access to those services is vital to system-impacted people, a myopic view of education fails to create a continuum of educational services and introduces additional barriers to those seeking other forms of academic opportunities. Education-centric reentry programs remain rare. Presenters explore how this pilot includes push-in education-focused reentry services and positions this reentry component as the bridge that supports students as they return to the community and centers education as the hub from which associated reentry services stem.

Authors

• Barbara Walters, Eastern Michigan University

• Jenny Fritz, Eastern Michigan University

• Bonnie Miller, Eastern Michigan University

• Chelsea Muto, Eastern Michigan University

• Josh Hill, Eastern Michigan University