Prison Engagement Initiative - The Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University

The Prison Engagement Initiative is an interdisciplinary network of faculty, staff, students, and community members based at Duke University committed to engaging prisons, the people affected by prisons, and the politics and pathways surrounding mass incarceration.

The Prison Engagement Initiative offers ways for faculty, staff, and students across Duke to shape relational networks of learning and change with people impacted by prison. It aims to transform perspectives, approaches, and practices surrounding incarceration as well as the relationship between universities and prisons.

In 2022–23, we are convening 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.

Directors

Douglas Campbell is a co-director of the Prison Engagement Initiative. He is a Professor of New Testament at the Divinity School, where he has co-directed the Prison Program since 2009. The Program’s Certificate in Prison Studies educates students into the dynamics of mass incarceration and responsible prison engagement intellectually, emotionally, and practically. It includes participation within in-prison courses, a mentored prison-related internship, and a formational process addressing the burnout and distress that prolonged engagements with carceral facilities often elicit. Campbell is trained in restorative justice practices (RJ) that address harm in an alternative way to the current, predominantly punitive responses. He lectures and publishes on the connections between biblical interpretation, theological paradigms, human affects and emotions, and the advocacy of punishment and incarceration. He has led a retraining program for correctional officers in U.S. Marshals and ICE facilities in Texas and New Mexico. He and his spouse have been personally involved in prison visitation and prisoner support since 2005.

Sarah Jobe is a co-director of the Prison Engagement Initiative. In 2008, she was the founding director of Project TURN, Duke Divinity School’s in-prison education program that offers classes on site at North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women and the Butner Federal Correctional Institution-II. She is the co-director of the Divinity School’s Prison Studies Program and a chaplain at North Carolina Correctional Institution for Women. She serves on the North Carolina Department of Public Safety Commission on Post-Secondary Education, and as a Prisoner Representative for the Duke University Medical Center Institutional Review Board. In both her practical work and in her scholarship, Jobe seeks to open conversational pathways between those living inside and outside America’s prisons in order to fuel more just and liberating practices. Jobe is currently running a nation-wide study of current and former prison chaplains entitled “Theologies and Practices of Current and Former Prison Chaplains.”

Graduate Assistant

Meredith Manchester is the graduate assistant for the Prison Engagement Initiative. She graduated from Wheaton College in 2014 with a BA in International Relations and a Certificate in Urban Studies focusing on racial disparities in the criminal justice system. She attended Temple University’s Beasley School of Law where she gained hands-on experience advocating for those entangled in the system—young males in Philadelphia being targeted as gang members, a man sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile, and individuals reentering society after spending a significant amount of time in federal custody. She worked as an assistant public defender at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, representing indigent Philadelphians in numerous bail motions, violation of probation/detainer hearings, motions to suppress, and trials. In July 2022, she left the Defender Association to attend Duke Divinity School, where she is pursuing a Master of Divinity and is eager to explore the intersection between Christian theology and criminal justice reform.

Members

James Chappel
James Chappel is the Gilhuly Family Associate Professor of History. He studies religion, health, and human rights in 20th century Europe and the United States. This fall, he is teaching in prison for the first time at the Federal Correctional Complex, Butner. The course is entitled “The Politics of Christ.” Chappel received his PhD in History from Columbia University.

Linda Silver Coley
Linda Silver Coley is the Executive Director of the Ormond Center at Duke Divinity School. The Ormond Center’s mission is to foster the imagination, will, and ability of congregations and communities to be agents of thriving. One of the Center’s developing initiatives, “Pathways of Repair,” aims to help rural North Carolina communities and congregations thrive. Creating pathways to repair starts with naming and understanding the factors, at the fundamental level of our economy, that prevent thriving. Several of these factors include incarceration, like the school-to-prison pipeline. Linda believes we can develop models with local, national, and global translation towards eradicating these phenomena and hopes the Ormond Center’s partnership with the Prison Engagement Initiative will spark conversations and ideas geared toward restoration in applicable areas. Linda holds a PhD in business administration (University of Cincinnati), a MS in pharmaceutical chemistry (University of Michigan), an MBA (Xavier University, Cincinnati), an MDiv (Duke University), and a BS in chemistry (Bennett College). She has over 30 years’ experience in corporate brand management and has taught at several universities. Prior to joining the Ormond Center, Linda was a tenured Associate Professor and Chairperson at the Deese College of Business at North Carolina, Agricultural & Technical State University.

Kenneth Dodge
Kenneth A. Dodge is the William McDougall Distinguished Professor of Public Policy and Psychology and Neuroscience at Duke University. Dodge studies early childhood development, the prevention of violent behavior in children and the family, and public policy to improve population outcomes for communities. His work provides a framework for intervening early to prevent the costly consequences of violence for children and their communities. Dodge has created Family Connects, an evidence-based population approach to improve children’s health and well-being in the first year of life through brief home visits.

Ben Finholt
Ben Finholt is the director of the Just Sentencing Project (JSP) at the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law. Ben founded the JSP as a staff attorney at North Carolina Prisoner Legal Services, where he spent nine years litigating civil conditions of confinement and criminal post-conviction cases. The project seeks to increase awareness of extreme sentencing and collaborate with stakeholders through data, advocacy, and strategic litigation to reduce long-term incarceration and promote fair outcomes for individuals convicted of crimes. In a prior life, he was a high school math teacher.

Angie Weis Gammell
Angie Weis Gammell is a nationally recognized criminal justice policy expert and currently serves as the Policy Director for the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law. In that role, she leads the Center’s efforts to translate its research and expertise into impact and reform across its three focus areas: accuracy in evidence, equity in criminal outcomes, and behavioral health. Angie graduated with honors from Duke Law in 2010 and relocated back to North Carolina in 2021 after spending 11 years in Chicago. Most recently, she was the Senior Advisor for Public Safety Policy and Operations in the Chicago Mayor's Office. Prior to that role, she was the General Counsel and Chief of Staff for the Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority. She started her career as a litigation associate at Sidley Austin LLP, where she maintained an active pro bono criminal appellate practice.

Alexandra Gibbons
Alexandra Gibbons is an Associate in Research with the Sociology Department at Duke University. She conducts research with Dr. Christopher Wildeman on the familial consequences of criminal legal system contact. Alexandra is also a volunteer with the Parole Preparation Project. She received her B.A. in Sociology at Cornell University, where she worked as a teaching assistant with the Cornell Prison Education Program.

Evan Glasner
Evan Glasner is the Clinical Fellow at the Duke Center for Criminal Justice and Professional Responsibility. He represents incarcerated people asserting claims of innocence in state and federal courts in North Carolina. Prior to returning to Duke, he was a litigation associate at two law firms in New York City where he maintained a robust post-conviction pro bono practice, including working on amicus briefs related to junk science and representing an individual convicted by a non-unanimous jury in Louisiana. Evan received his B.A. and J.D. from Duke.

Jennifer Green-Lee
Jennifer is a 1994 graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill and a 1997 graduate of Campbell University School of Law. She practiced law for almost 20 years until an unfortunate series of events led to her incarceration. While residing with the State, she received a Certificate of Achievement in Theological Education through the Prison Studies Program at Duke University Divinity School. She brings knowledge of the intricacies of being justice-involved from the very unique perspective of having been effectively held captive by the very law that she once freely practiced. Currently, Jennifer is serving as a Board Member with the non-profit Interfaith Prison Ministry for Women (now becoming the Arise Collective) and hopes to someday ensure that all incarcerated women have the benefit of legal counsel while incarcerated for things other than the crime they are serving time for, thereby ensuring they reenter society with as many functioning skills and assets as possible.

Ada Gregory
Ada Gregory is the Associate Director for Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics (KIE). She has also served as the university ombuds for students and faculty at Duke using restorative practices to provide alternatives to other conflict resolution options. At KIE, Ada develops a variety of KIE programs related to student life and community engagement, runs the DukeEngage New York programs, leads the restorative justice initiative on campus, and facilitates faculty involvement in projects across the Institute’s portfolio. Ada graduated from Duke (BA/MA) and went on to work at the state and local levels for 20 years influencing policy and practice related to victims’ rights, violence against women, and criminal justice reform. She returned to Duke in 2006 and worked in several capacities, including as Director of the Duke Women’s Center and Chief Administrator for the university’s signature institutes and initiatives, before joining the Kenan Institute for Ethics in 2018.

Katherine Jo
Katherine Jo is the director of Program Development and Design for The Purpose Project at Duke University. As the director, she creates and leads programs and classes that help students and faculty explore what it means to live a good, meaningful, and purposeful life. Katherine’s interest in prison-based higher education has grown out of her commitments as an educator and philosopher of education. These commitments are fueled by the belief that liberal education can play a vital role in human flourishing, both individually and collectively, and, therefore, should be accessible to all. Through her teaching and in her work with current and future faculty, she seeks to develop effective practices for building learning communities that enable diverse learners to consider and experience together the good life through liberal education. She holds a BA in Sociology from Harvard University, an MA in Philosophy of Education from Teachers College, Columbia University, and a PhD in Philosophy of Education at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Margaret Krause
Margaret Krause is the Development Officer for the Kenan Institute for Ethics. She is particularly interested in programs focused on helping individuals reenter life post-incarceration, drawing on her experience participating in this work on an individual level. Margaret graduated from Duke with a B.A. in English and History. She is excited about what this Initiative will accomplish.

Tasseli McKay
Tasseli McKay is a postdoctoral fellow at Duke and author of Stolen Wealth, Hidden Power: The Case for Reparations for Mass Incarceration (University of California Press, 2022) and of Holding On: Family and Fatherhood During Incarceration and Reentry (University of California Press, 2019) with Megan Comfort, Christine Lindquist, and Anupa Bir. She holds a doctorate in social policy from the London School of Economics and Political Science, an M.P.H. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and a B.A. in American Studies from Yale University.

Yvette Garcia Missri
Yvette Garcia Missri is the Executive Director of the Wilson Center for Science and Justice at Duke Law. Through research, education, and policy, the Wilson Center works across three issue areas: accuracy of evidence, equity in criminal outcomes, and behavioral health. Prior to joining the Wilson Center, Yvette served as the Litigation Counsel for the Center for Responsible Lending, an administrator for the Orange County Department on Aging, and as a gender-based violence legal services attorney. Yvette received her JD from Boston College Law School, her MPH in Health Behavior from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, and her BA in Philosophy from George Washington University.

Leela Prasad
Leela Prasad, professor and director of undergraduate studies, is an anthropologist in the Department of Religious Studies and holds a secondary appointment in Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies. Her first book, Poetics of Conduct: Narrative and Moral Being in a South Indian Town (Columbia University Press, 2007) was awarded the American Academy of Religion’s “Best First Book in the History of Religions” prize in 2007. Her latest book is The Audacious Raconteur: Sovereignty and Storytelling in Colonial India (Cornell University Press, 2020), and she is co-directing a film called “Moved by Gandhi.” Leela's transformational experiences teaching Gandhi in prisons in North Carolina are at the foundation of her commitment to work in prison and post-prison settings. She is working on a book provisionally titled Being Human at the Margins: Gandhian Resonances in Prison & After based on her Fulbright-supported ethnographic work among individuals who have engaged Gandhi’s writings while in prison in India. She has discovered that the figure of Gandhi, imagined variously in carceral spaces, is deployed in powerful ways to activate self-transformation and other-care. Collaborating with individuals who have experienced prison to tell their stories and explore their visions for social change, Leela asks, how does the figuration of Gandhi seem to create a daily praxis of non-violence, secular inclusivity, and public service?

Jahdziah St. Julien
Jahdziah St. Julien is a second-year master's student at Duke's Sanford School of Public Policy. Her policy interests lie at the intersection of criminal legal reform and social policy. For her master's project, Jahdziah is working with the Prison Engagement Initiative to research funding mechanisms for higher education programs in prisons. Jahdziah has previously interned with the Rights and Justice Department at the Center for American Progress. Prior to her graduate studies, she was a research associate at New America's Better Life Lab, where she wrote about family and worker-supportive policies, as well as intersectional gender equity.

Patrick T. Smith
Patrick T. Smith is Associate Research Professor of Theological Ethics and Bioethics at Duke University Divinity School; the Director of the Program in Bioethics for the Trent Center for Bioethics, Humanities and History of Medicine; and Associate Professor of Population Health Sciences in the Department of Health Sciences at Duke University Medical School. He is a Senior Fellow and serves on the Advisory Council for the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Patrick works at the intersection of social ethics, moral philosophy, and theological bioethics. His work in bioethics and social ethics has spanned academic, professional, and community spaces. Before coming to Duke, he held an academic appointment at Harvard Medical School through the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine. He was core faculty for the Master of Science in Bioethics degree program offered through Harvard’s Center for Bioethics. Some of his work in bioethics is thinking about and seeking to address the impact of the U.S. carceral system on overall public health.

Christopher Wildeman
Christopher Wildeman is a Professor of Sociology at Duke University and a Professor at the ROCKWOOL Foundation Research Unit. His work focuses on the prevalence, causes, and consequences of contact with the criminal legal system for individuals and families, with emphasis on the United States and Denmark. He received his PhD in Sociology and Demography from Princeton University in 2008 and completed postdoctoral training from 2008 to 2010 as a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholar at the University of Michigan.

Join Us

In October 2022, the Prison Engagement Initiative is gathering Duke faculty, staff, and graduate students with practical experience or academic interest in prisons for a Strategic Listening Team that will meet four times a semester from October 2022 – November 2023. This team will map Duke’s existing engagement with prisons, learn about the work of each member, meet community partners in the Triangle area, and envision the shape and orientation of an ongoing cross-disciplinary prison initiative at Duke University. If you are interested in becoming a part of this team and can commit to the lunchtime meetings listed below, please email meredith.manchester@duke.edu introducing yourself and your connection to these issues.

The Strategic Listening Team will meet for Wednesday lunchtime meetings from 12:30 – 2:30pm on the following dates in the Academic Year 2022–23:

October 26
November 9
December 7
January 25
February 22
March 22
April 26
May 10

Select Publications by PEI Members

Anker, A. S. T., and C. Wildeman. “Family Visitation Patterns during Incarceration in Denmark.” Journal of Family Issues 42, no. 12 (December 1, 2021): 2811–34. https://doi.org/10.1177/0192513X21991187.

Brew, B., F. Alani, A. Li, and C. Wildeman. “Sticky Stigma: The Impact of Incarceration on Perceptions of Personality Traits and Deservingness.” Social Forces 100, no. 4 (June 1, 2022): 1910–34. https://doi.org/10.1093/sf/soab091.

Campbell, D. A. “Mass incarceration: Pauline problems and pauline solutions.” Interpretation (United Kingdom) 72, no. 3 (July 1, 2018): 282–92. https://doi.org/10.1177/0020964318766297.

Carda-Auten, Jessica, Elena A. Dirosa, Catherine Grodensky, Kathryn M. Nowotny, Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein, Debbie Travers, Mersedes Brown, Steve Bradley-Bull, Colleen Blue, and David L. Rosen. “Jail Health Care in the Southeastern United States From Entry to Release.” The Milbank Quarterly, May 3, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-0009.12569.

Grodensky, Catherine A., David L. Rosen, Colleen M. Blue, Anna R. Miller, Steve Bradley-Bull, Wizdom A. Powell, Marisa E. Domino, Carol E. Golin, and David A. Wohl. “Medicaid Enrollment among Prison Inmates in a Non-expansion State: Exploring Predisposing, Enabling, and Need Factors Related to Enrollment Pre-incarceration and Post-Release.” Journal of Urban Health : Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 95, no. 4 (August 2018): 454–66. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11524-018-0275-1.

Jobe, Sarah C. “Rethinking Responsibility: Moral Injury from War to Prison.” Political Theology23, no. 4 (May 19, 2022): 335–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317x.2022.2064095.

Jobe, Sarah, Nathaniel Grimes, Vincent Lloyd, Jason S. Sexton, Kathryn Getek Soltis, and Mary Beth Yount. “Ten Tips to De-Carcerate Your Theology, Ethics, or Religion Classroom.” Political Theology 23, no. 4 (May 19, 2022): 397–405. https://doi.org/10.1080/1462317x.2022.2079238.

Jobe, Sarah. “Carceral Hermeneutics: Discovering the Bible in Prison and Prison in the Bible.” Religions 10, no. 2 (February 10, 2019): 101–101. https://doi.org/10.3390/rel10020101.

Jobe, Sarah C. “How programs in prisons are challenging the who, where, how, and what of theological education.” Teaching Theology &Amp; Religion 22, no. 1 (January 2019): 16–29. https://doi.org/10.1111/teth.12466.

Wildeman, C., and H. Lee. Women’s Health in the Era of Mass Incarceration. Vol. 47, 2021. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-soc-081320-113303.

Wildeman, C., M. D. Fitzpatrick, and A. W. Goldman. Conditions of confinement in American prisons and jails. Vol. 14, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-lawsocsci-101317-031025.

Events of Interest

FRI APRIL 14

Re-entry simulation

10:00am – 1:00pm

Brodie Gym, Duke East Campus

Rebuilding a life after incarceration is difficult. How difficult? Join us on Friday, April 14th at Brodie Gym on Duke’s East Campus to experience it for yourself at our Reentry Simulation. We’ll be doing much more than listen to speakers: everyone will play a role, and try for themselves to navigate the challenging world of the formerly incarcerated (click here to read about a similar event). This should interest anyone who is interested in public policy, mass incarceration, or the American legal system. We will also have the chance to hear from the formerly incarcerated about their challenges in navigating re-entry.

The simulation will take place from 10-1. Sponsored by Duke University’s Human Rights Center, the Wilson Center at Duke Law, the Durham County Reentry Council, the Prison Engagement Initiative at the Kenan Institute for Ethics, and OurJourney, with Assistant U.S. Attorney Rob Lang as our host, this event promises to be both enlightening and unforgettable. Attendance is absolutely free, but you must register because space is limited. Click on this link to register. If you have any questions, you can reach out to James Chappel (jgc23@duke.edu).

If you have questions about the Prison Engagement Initiative, or would like to sign up for its newsletter, please contact Jac Arnade-Colwill at jac.arnade-colwill@duke.edu.