Bearing Stigma, Carrying Gifts: What Colleges Can Learn from Students with Incarceration Experience

There is an abundance of social science research confirming the positive outcomes associated with higher education for people who have served time in prison (Chappell in J Correct Educ 55(2): 148–169, 2004 ; Fine et al. in Changing minds: the impact of college in a maximum-security prison, Ronald Ridgeway, New York, 2001 ; Kelso 2000 ). Despite the evidence, institutions of higher education continue to ignore the findings, while reinforcing negative stigma and imposing institutional barriers to admission for students with documented criminal records (Rosenthal et al. in Boxed out: criminal history screening and college application attrition, Center for Community, New York, 2015 ). After analyzing focus groups and interviews from a participatory action research project with college students with documented criminal records, we identified a series of themes, which we have labeled gifts (McKnight and Block in The abundant community: awakening the power of families and neighborhoods, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc., San Francisco, 2010 ; Halkovic et al. in Higher education and reentry: the gifts they bring, John Jay Research, New York, 2013 . http://www.johnjayresearch.org/pri/gifts ) students with criminal histories bring to their academic communities. These gifts include : deconstructing stigma/teaching the university; the desire to do more and give back; intimate knowledge of how systems work on the ground, and bridging relationships between the academy and underserved communities. Our evidence suggests that students with incarceration experience enhance the academic and civic environment of universities, dispelling the spurious suggestion that they are a risk to campus safety (Drysdale et al. in Campus attacks: targeted violence affecting institutions of higher education, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, 2010 . http://www.secretservice.gov/ntac.shtml ). We conclude with specific recommendations institutions of higher education should follow to foster greater inclusion in college communities.