Welcome back for the 2019-2020 academic year! Georgetown University’s Prisons and Justice Initiative was founded in 2016 in order to respond to the dual crisis of incarceration and recidivism. It brings together leading scholars, practitioners, and students to tackle the problem of mass incarceration—one of the most crucial moral and political issues of our time. Through public events, research seminars, and programs at local prisons/jails and for returning citizens in the Washington DC area, PJI works to better understand the causes and consequences of the mass incarceration crisis and to contribute to bipartisan solutions for effective reform.
Currently, we are underway with our Spring semester of the Georgetown Prison Scholars Program at the DC Jail. This semester includes 3 credit-bearing courses, Biology, Intro to Gender, Masculinity, and Sexuality Studies, and The Forgotten Humanity of Prisoners, in addition to six non-credit courses and a weekly lecture series for 60 male and female scholars currently residing at the Jail. Since our transition to a credit-bearing program just over one year ago, we’ve had a total of over 50 students in our credit-bearing cohorts and over 100 students in our non-credit-bearing cohorts.
A year ago, we launched the Georgetown Pivot Program. Offered in partnership with the McDonough School of Business and the D.C. Department of Employment Services, The Pivot Program is a 10-month reentry program focused on providing business and entrepreneurship training, meaningful experiences with employment, and executive functioning skills to returning citizens in the District. In June, our inaugural cohort of Pivot Fellows graduated from the program and many have either secured full-time employment, or chosen to pursue their business ventures full time. While we continue to support the endeavors of our inaugural Fellows, our team is excited to announce the launch of our second cohort with 18 new Pivot Fellows! For updates on our new cohort and their progression through the program, follow The Pivot Program on Twitter.
We are thrilled to share the fourth PJI Annual Report, which highlights the Initiative’s activities in 2018-2019. The report includes photos and images from the many events and programs that we hosted last year, as well as a description of our mission and continuing plans for the future. Download the full report here.
If you’re interesting in getting involved with the Prisons and Justice Initiative, please check out our available opportunities!
Subscribe to our mailing list, like us on Facebook, and follow us on Twitter, for more exciting developments from the Prisons and Justice Initiative—including new events, programs, and resources—in the weeks and months to come. To help us in our mission by contributing a gift to the Initiative, please do so here.