The 3rd International Conference on Persons Deprived of Liberty's Transformative Education for Successful Re-entry brings together researchers, academicians, scholars, government officials and workers, private agencies, and other cause-oriented participants.  The conference highlights sharing information and research outputs from invited international experts and local researchers who will discuss relevant information and best practices related to College Education Behind Bars (CEBB). 

One of the aims of the conference is to mobilize the energy, talent, training, knowledge, wisdom, expertise, research, and experience related to higher education inside the prison community to expand access to quality higher education in prisons/jails and to academic re-entry of support services for currently incarcerated and formerly incarcerated students. Show more...

The theme “Beyond Barriers:  Reconnect and Rebuild” opens doors for a broad range of presentation topics and to various possible presenters. The focus allows for aspirational, transformational, disruptive, and productive approaches. It provides a broad lens for considering inclusivity within higher education inside prisons/jails. Most importantly, developing a model for people outside of prisons who work to go beyond the barriers, reconnect, and rebuild to bring higher education into prisons/jails is an invitation for those who are currently confined inside to dream of being and thinking beyond the walls. 

The theme recognizes that barriers are a central and significant challenge for the work of higher education in the prison population: barriers to transition from prison to campus, barriers from prison to community, barriers within the prison for college programs, barriers between prison administrators and educators, barriers to funding, barriers for former PDLs to find the jobs, barriers to alleviate stigmas, and barriers to higher education in general. The theme sets forth the question, “How do we go beyond these barriers or obstacles?”    We envision the conference as a venue to address these barriers and other obstacles and, ultimately, to propose collaborations, partnerships, and strategies to move beyond these barriers by initiating productive, lively, and accessible conversations. We emphasize “beyond barriers” because we also envision new ways to work together in a future with equitable access to excellent education inside and outside prisons and jails and with full opportunities for all people within prisons, which may mean alternatives to our current system. 

We invite and encourage a broad spectrum of papers from all community members, including, but not limited to, researchers, academic advisors, artists, college/university administrators and faculty, students, community organizers, faith-based groups, formerly incarcerated PDLs, BJMP, and BuCor officials, practitioners and staff of higher education in prison, and re-entry service providers. For the third conference, we especially encourage papers highlighting collaboration, dialogue, community engagement, and creative expressions related to restoring dignity and achieving justice for the incarcerated.

We have identified six conference tracks relevant to higher education inside prisons and jails. All papers should connect to the conference theme “Beyond Barriers: Reconnect and Rebuild” as well as to the purpose of creating an inclusive stakeholder community committed to equitable access to quality education. Show less...