Criminal Injustice

In 2016 I began teaching courses, mostly for college credit, at Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) in Jessup, MD and, two years later, also at the DC Jail in Washington, DC. Teaching in prison was something I had wanted to do for a long time, although I couldn’t have explained exactly why. Coming to know and become friends with incarcerated students, and my increasing understanding of the injustice and horrors of the criminal justice system, have given me new goals for my post-academic life. My main focus these days is on prison work and criminal legal reform.

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At Jessup, I’ve taught and tutored in the University of Baltimore’s Second Chance College Program, which began in 2015; at the D.C. Jail, in Georgetown University’s Prison Scholars Program, which began in 2018., and at Patuxent Institution (a state prison down the road from JCI), in a college program run by Georgetown University.

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I’m on the advisory board of Georgetown’s Prisons and Justice Initiative, the executive committee of the Maryland Alliance for Justice Reform (MAJR), and the board of PREPARE (Prepare for Parole and Reentry). I also serve on the Education Subcommittee and the Parole and Decarceration Subcommittee of the Maryland Equitable Justice Collaborative's (MEJC) Prisons, Jails, and Detention Centers Workgroup.

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