SCC-PG - Prisons Evolving as Connected Communities

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United States prisons exist in geographically bounded, technologically disconnected communities. Restrictions on services and isolation from the outside world, including lack of access to digital devices and the internet in prisons, has restricted prisoners’ opportunities for education and healthcare, has limited their future work and career prospects, and has reinforced divisions between incarcerated people and their communities. Recent legislation and the work of many volunteers and organizations is making it possible for correctional institutions to dramatically improve prisoner’s options and opportunities for education, communication, and future well-being. Nonetheless, regardless of delivery model, access to, and training in, a robust technology infrastructure is essential for these opportunities to become a reality. This project seeks to support technology access and the people impacted by incarceration, with the ultimate goal of fostering their prospects for the future.With this planning award, the project team is tackling challenges to technology access and use through purposeful community engagement and is drawing on community-based systems dynamics research as a practical and empirical tool to constructively approach system change. Strategically selected focus groups will ensure the project team is addressing systemic factors and their interrelationships based on a variety of prisoners’ and experts’ perspectives and experiences. A working group is applying these findings in the development of a plan, which will be central to determining the recommendations for an infrastructure that disrupts current dehumanizing systems, supports successful re-entry, and addresses challenging conversations about security and administration. The leadership team will ultimately develop full project to develop and test this infrastructure.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.