Inside-Out Student Perceptions

• In Event: The International Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program II

Abstract

This article covers the importance of service-learning opportunities in criminal justice programs. Criminal justice programs currently are not doing a good job of combatting negative attitudes like punitiveness and authoritarianism or encouraging positive attitudes like empathy in our students. Our programs are also not adequately encouraging students to consider careers in the field of corrections. Active- and service-learning techniques have been found to have many benefits to students. Inside-Out is explained as a course that takes place within a correctional facility that brings together students from a university and the correctional facility to learn about issues of social justice. This article examines qualitative data collected from the students in my first two Inside-Out courses to see what they thought of their experience and to determine whether punitiveness and empathy are affected through the course experience.

Author

• Jennifer Wingren, Metropolitan State University