SCC-PG - Prisons Evolving as Connected Communities

美国的监狱存在于地理上有界限、技术上没有联系的社区。 对服务的限制和与外界的隔离，包括在监狱中无法使用数字设备和互联网，限制了囚犯接受教育和医疗保健的机会，限制了他们未来的工作和职业前景，并加剧了被监禁者与社区之间的分裂。最近的立法以及许多志愿者和组织的工作使惩教机构有可能大大改善囚犯的教育、交流和未来福祉的选择和机会。尽管如此，无论交付模式如何，获得强大的技术基础设施并进行相关培训对于这些机会成为现实至关重要。 该项目旨在支持技术获取和受监禁影响的人，最终目标是促进他们对未来的展望。通过这一规划奖，项目团队正在通过有目的的社区参与来应对技术获取和使用的挑战，并利用基于社区的系统动力学研究作为建设性地处理系统变革的实用和经验工具。从战略上选定的重点小组将确保项目小组根据囚犯和专家的各种观点和经验处理系统性因素及其相互关系。 一个工作组正在将这些发现应用于制定一项计划，这将是确定基础设施建议的核心，该基础设施将破坏当前非人性化的系统，支持成功重返，并解决有关安全和管理的挑战性对话。领导团队将最终开发完整的项目来开发和测试该基础设施。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

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.