Students get inside look at justice system

A criminal justice course that brings inmates and typical UD students together in the classroom at a work-release center has received an award from the University Continuing Education Association.

The undergraduate course “Drugs and the Criminal Justice System: An Inside/Outside Perspective” was originated by Lana Harrison, professor of sociology. The award, from the association’s Mid-Atlantic region, recognizes the course in the “Special Populations” category.

The course enables “inside students” at Baylor Women’s Correctional Institution in New Castle, Del., and “outside students” from UD to participate in a unique learning experience by attending class together. It meets at the Women’s Work-Release and Treatment Center, adjacent to the prison.

The course is a cooperative effort of the Delaware Department of Correction and several UD partners—the Division of Professional and Continuing Studies, the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and the Office of Service Learning.

“Our course has offered rich opportunities for participants on both sides to think about drug and criminal justice issues in deep and meaningful ways,” Harrison says. “It took a tremendous amount of cooperation among all the involved partners.”

Jim Broomall, assistant provost for professional and continuing studies, notes that the class has many innovative features.

“But most importantly, it enables ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ students to interact in a neutral, academic setting to explore the relationship between alcohol and drug abuse and deviant behavior from both the practical and theoretical perspective, and it gave all enrolled students the chance to earn University credit,” Broomall says.

Participating in the program was beneficial to students for a variety of reasons, Harrison says, including offering inmates the chance to earn college credits.

“The fact that they really could earn UD credits made it a very real academic experience for them,” she says. “Several of the inside students, upon release, have already begun taking college classes.”
She calls the experience extremely valuable for the “regular” UD students as well, especially those planning for careers in law, law enforcement or human services.

“Through this course, they are getting the opportunity to really understand the struggles in other people’s lives, on an individual level,” Harrison says. “They get a grounding in the reality of how drugs and crime affect people’s lives.”

Michael Fox, AS ’08, who took the class last academic year, calls it an experience that “is almost impossible to obtain in a traditional learning environment.”

“The inside students and guest speakers transformed my view of the criminal justice system from mere facts and figures to genuine human experiences,” Fox says. “The exposure to inside students who were able to share their unique personal experiences was what made this class so special. What better way to learn about drugs and the criminal justice system than to get in the midst of the people and programs that compose it?”

Harrison began teaching the class at UD in 2005 after attending a training seminar with Lori Pompa, a Temple University professor who developed the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program about 10 years ago.