Prison Engagement Initiative
The Prison Engagement Initiative (PEI) is a hub for prison engagement efforts at Duke University. It aims to transform perspectives, approaches, and practices surrounding incarceration as well as the relationship between universities and prisons.
What We Do
CERTIFICATE IN CARCERAL STUDIES
The Prison Engagement Initiative offers a Carceral Studies Certificate that provides students with an interdisciplinary approach to the study of mass incarceration. For more information, visit the certificate page.
Contacts:
James Chappel
Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History
james.chappel@duke.edu
Christopher Wildeman
Professor of Sociology
christopher.wildeman@duke.edu
JUSTICE LAB
How can Duke students provide services to incarcerated or recently incarcerated people? The goal of the Justice Lab is to centralize, systematize, and improve Duke’s volunteer offerings for undergraduate students. This project was developed in tandem with the Duke Justice Project, a student group.
Its initial focus is on the following areas:
– Tutoring of incarcerated students (for GED/HiSET exams)
– Support for the reentry population in Durham, including childcare for reentering parents taking evening classes
– Participation in reentry and support circles through the Religious Coalition for a Nonviolent Durham
– Establishing a Petey Greene tutoring program to expand tutoring offerings for Duke and other Triangle-area students
The applications for Justice Lab Fellows, tasked with organizing and setting up these partnerships, have closed. However, if you would like to participate as an “Affiliate” of the Lab, involved with volunteering, you can still fill out an application here.
Our Justice Lab Fellows for 2025–26 are Tess Bierly, Mia Duran, Eva Jarvis, Anya Milberg, and Sofia White.
The Justice Lab is co-sponsored by the Duke Human Rights Center at the Franklin Humanities Institute.
Contact:
James Chappel
Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History
james.chappel@duke.edu
DUKE PRISON TEACHING
Duke Prison Teaching is a group of Duke faculty and graduate students committed to offering Arts & Sciences courses to incarcerated students as part of a degree program. While this effort is in progress, Duke Prison Teaching offers other kinds of educational enrichment in correctional facilities in the interim.
Our primary activity now is a monthly lecture series at FCI Butner. Upcoming and prior lectures in the Butner Lecture Series are listed on this page.
Visit the Duke Prison Teaching Page
We also maintain a listserv for faculty and graduate students who are interested in prison teaching opportunities.
Contact:
Jac Arnade-Colwill
Graduate Assistant
jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu
REENTRY
The Prison Engagement Initiative has developed relationships with numerous community groups that provide reentry services in the Durham area. The PEI hosts regular dinners at StepUp Durham, a local nonprofit focused on these issues.
In May 2025, in collaboration with StepUp and the National Science Foundation, PEI held a storytelling event featuring members of the Durham community who spoke about their experiences of incarceration and reentry. MFA|EDA students Allison Dean and Sarah Soucek worked with participants to memorialize some of these stories in a video (accessible to Duke-affiliated accounts).
Contact:
Jennifer Jordan
Duke University Libraries
jennifer.a.jordan@duke.edu
PEI is also committed to making Duke’s hiring practices for people-with-records more streamlined, accessible, and effective.
Contact:
Douglas Campbell
Duke Divinity School
dcampbell@div.duke.edu
RESTORATIVE JUSTICE
Our effort on restorative justice is dedicated to the promotion of a restorative culture at Duke at every level—among faculty, staff, students, and community partners. A restorative culture is a response to the infliction of harm that does no further harm; rather, it invites both those harming and those harmed to restore, to heal, and to transform, their damaged relationships through the practice of restorative justice. (The dominant current response to harm—”retributive” or “punitive”—proceeds by inflicting further harm.) The promotion of a restorative culture takes place through education into and the adoption of the principles, programs, and practices of restorative justice.
People
Cross-Duke PEI Network
In 2022–23, we convened a Strategic Listening Team to map Duke’s existing engagement in prisons, to learn about each other’s work, to meet community partners in the Triangle area, and to envision the shape and orientation of an ongoing cross-disciplinary prison initiative at Duke University.
Ways To Get Involved
The Prison Engagement Initiative gathers Duke faculty, staff, and graduate students with practical experience or academic interest in prisons to be part of monthly brownbag lunchtime meetings throughout the academic year.
PEI will meet on Wednesdays from 12:30 – 2:00pm on the following dates in the Academic Year 2025–26:
– September 9
– October 8
– November 12
– December 10
Contact:
Nicole Schramm-Sapyta
Associate Professor of the Practice, Duke Institute for Brain Sciences
nicole.schrammsapyta@duke.edu
The Prison Engagement Initiative hosts a newsletter that shares events and programming related to prisons and incarceration at Duke and in Durham. If you would like to have an event featured, please let us know as far in advance as possible.
To sign up for the newsletter or make submissions, contact:
Jac Arnade-Colwill
Graduate Assistant
jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu
Volunteer-Based Groups
Seeks to repair harm caused by wrongful, though not determinative, actions. Primarily used as an alternative to the local criminal legal system but intersects other harms as well. Volunteers accepted on a rolling basis. Training required.
Email if interested: restorativejusticedurham@gmail.com
These teams are organized through Religious Coalition for a Non-Violent Durham, but they do not require any religious affiliation. They simply require a commitment to provide community to an individual coming out of incarceration. Teams consist of 4-5 people and a participant. The goal is to hang out every other week and provide intermittent communication as needed. Training required. 1-2 year commitment suggested.
Email if interested: meredith.manchester@duke.edu
Again, despite the name, this does not require any religious affiliation. Connect with individuals in Durham County Jail who have requested relational support. Right now, volunteers are only permitted to partake in video calls, which are scheduled at the volunteer’s convenience. No training required. No time commitment requested, but keep in mind this is supposed to be relational. Organized by St. Philip’s Episcopal.
Email if interested: msistrom@gmail.com
This organization receives and fills requests from incarcerated persons for specific reading material. One-time volunteers are welcome. However, Prison Books is also seeking a volunteer who is able to commit 2-4 hours per week printing and sending zines to incarcerated persons across the United States, as their current volunteer hopes to retire this fall.
Email if interested: prisonbooks@gmail.com
An organization that sends newsletters to incarcerated persons and advocates for their basic needs on an individual basis.
Email if interested: nccure247@gmail.com
NCCIW Christian Worship
There is a religious component to this opportunity, as it is facilitating Christian worship at NCCIW. Involves regular participation in a Sunday service or restricted housing (i.e. solitary confinement) ministry every fourth Friday of the month.
Email if interested: meredith.manchester@duke.edu
Straight Talk Support Group Transitional House Resource Center
STSG is rooted at transitional house for people going through reentry. There is a wide range of ways to volunteer, including helping to facilitate support group meetings, recruiting new members, finding sponsors, being a sponsor, or teaching a new skill, craft or trade.
Email if interested: shakimov@straighttalksupportgroup.org
Local and Statewide Campaigns
“This year, we will be exploring the possibility of adding up to $1,000,000 to Durham’s Guaranteed Income (GI) pilot program. The pilot ran from February 2023 thru February 2024 and provided $600 per month to 109 formerly incarcerated Durhamites. Participants saw significant improvements in their quality of life, and none of the 109 participants reoffended during their year of receiving GI.”
A campaign of Disability Rights North Carolina. “The End Solitary NC campaign, which started as a part of a reform effort to increase racial equity and fairness in NC’s criminal justice system under DRNC’s unique and critical focus on disability advocacy, remains united and committed to ending solitary confinement in NC prisons.”
NC Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty
“The North Carolina Coalition for Alternatives to the Death Penalty is a statewide coalition of member organizations and individuals committed to ending the death penalty and creating a new vision of justice. We are dedicated to broad criminal legal reform rooted in restorative justice. We work with and educate lawmakers, communities, and the public about the racist, unjust and ineffectual death penalty system.”
“Through community education, narrative shift, and litigation, Emancipate NC supports North Carolina’s people as they free themselves from mass incarceration and structural racism.”
*Did we miss your organization or campaign? Please email us at meredith.manchester@duke.edu and jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu and let us know.*
If you have questions about the Prison Engagement Initiative, please contact Jac Arnade-Colwill at jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu.