Learning with the Others: Perspective-Taking and the Future of Criminal Justice in the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Abstract

Alumni of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program declare their experience in the course as “life-changing.” If this impact holds true for all who have completed an Inside-Out course, the program will have transformed over 60,000 lives. We examine attitudinal change among Inside-Out alumni on factors expected to be influenced as a result of the ‘dialogue across difference’ critical to the foundation of the program. Across four courses representing 86 students, nonincarcerated “Outside” students reported higher post-course scores in support of the humanity of people incarcerated as compared to pre-course scores. Incarcerated “Inside” students reported higher post-course scores in support of the fairness and effectiveness of the criminal justice system as compared to pre-course scores. Our findings build on the limited empirical assessments in support of the numerous anecdotal accounts of the transformative power of a program that has been taught over 1,200 times across 48 U.S. states and 14 countries.

Keywords:

• Correctional programming
• Inside-out prison exchange program
• intergroup contact theory
• prison education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Approval for the project was obtained from both Arizona State University’s Institutional Review Board and the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. Two of the authors are trained facilitators of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, having completed training at the Inside-Out Training Institute, and all four classes were taught by trained facilitators. Additionally, we have followed the recommendations established in the Inside-Out Perspectives on Ethical Inquiry document in carrying out our work (available at http://www.insideoutcenter.org). This includes asking the same questions of both sets of students, maintaining the confidentiality of both sets of students, and ensuring that participation is voluntary with no risks or benefits of participating.

2 Given that our sample sizes were fairly small, we also used nonparametric Wilcoxon signed-rank tests to examine pre-post differences. For all three dependent variables, these results were similar to those from the paired t-tests, and so we only present t-test findings.

3 We believe that this is an important finding given research documenting the importance of perceptions of police procedural justice on later perceptions of the criminal justice system process (Alward & Baker, 2021) and given research documenting the importance of perceptions of procedural justice on future outcomes like recidivism (Beijersbergen, Dirkzwager, & Nieuwbeerta, 2016). We do not believe, however, that a more positive perception of the existing justice system should take the place of actual efforts to enhance the effectiveness and fairness of that system.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Cassandra Philippon

Cassandra Philippon, M.S. is currently completing her doctorate in Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Maryland – College Park. Her research interests include the sociology of punishment, corrections and reentry and aims to explore the experiences of legal system-impacted individuals.

Kevin A. Wright

Kevin A. Wright, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and is the Director of the Center for Correctional Solutions at Arizona State University. His work focuses on enhancing the lives of people living and working in the correctional system through research, education, and community engagement. He was awarded the 2020 American Society of Criminology Teaching Award for creating transformational education opportunities.

Cody W. Telep

Cody W. Telep, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Associate Director in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Arizona State University, where he has been a facilitator in three Inside-Out classes. He has a Ph.D. is in Criminology, Law and Society from George Mason University. His research interests include the impact of police practices on crime and disorder, assessing the relationship between police activities and perceptions of legitimacy, and examining how to advance the use of evidence-based policies and practices in policing and criminal justice.

Olivia P. Shaw

Olivia P. Shaw, M.S. is a 2nd year doctoral student at Arizona State University. Her research interests focus on correctional rehabilitation and re-entry, program efficacy and evidence-based practices.