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Pathways Home works to mobilize the array of resources formerly incarcerated people need to rebuild their lives. We encourage and develop partnerships among service providers, the business community, law enforcement, grassroots organizers, faith-based leaders, academic institutions, training/employment programs and other appropriate allies.
The current judicial and punishment system is failing individuals, communities and the nation. Over 2.2 million people are now locked behind bars, a crisis of mass incarceration that disproportionately affects communities of color. The financial cost, estimated at over 60 billion dollars a year, and the incalculable human cost of our revolving law enforcement system are staggering. They represent two defining features of a penal crisis unprecedented in world history.
Each year, more than 700,000 people return to their neighborhoods from jail or prison. Within three years only about one third of these men and women do not return to jail or prison. Education is key to their becoming full and successful community members.
In the fall of 2008, Professor of Sociology Bruce Western and Kaia Stern, then Director of Pathways Home, began the Prison Studies Project [http://scholar.harvard.edu/prisonstudiesproject/]. They forged a partnership with Boston University's longstanding Prison Education Program and the Massachusetts Department of Correction to create opportunities for Harvard students to take college courses inside the state prisons, alongside incarcerated students. As part of our collective goal to move public policy in the direction of making increased educational opportunity for people with criminal records a priority, the Prison Studies Project, in partnership with the Houston Institute, is working to release a national directory of post-secondary programs in prison called, Bar None: Unlocking Prison Education. |