May 21, 2015, New York, NY – The Prisoner Reentry Institute (PRI) at John Jay College of Criminal Justice announced today that New York City non-profit organization College Initiative will become a project of its Educational Initiatives department.

The announcement was made at the final session of the 2014-2015 Occasional Series on Reentry Research, a special half-day event titled Education on Both Sides of the Wall, featuring research on access to higher education for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals.

“We know that education is transformational.  This merger creates an important opportunity to dramatically increase the number of people who are able to move beyond having a criminal record, come to college and succeed here,” said PRI Director Ann Jacobs during her announcement of the merger. 

Since 2007, PRI has worked to spur innovation and improve practice in the field of reentry through a combination of research, direct service delivery, and capacity-building across disciplines. For the past four years, PRI’s Educational Initiatives department has operated the Prison-to-College Pipeline (P2CP) program, bringing accredited undergraduate courses to men at Otisville Correctional Facility as well as developmental and remedial education to men preparing for release from Queensboro Correctional Facility.

On July 1st, 2015, College Initiative (CI), a non-profit organization that has been creating pathways from criminal justice involvement to college and beyond since 2002, will become part of PRI’s Educational Initiatives department. College Initiative’s experience providing college enrollment, retention, and mentoring support to men and women with criminal justice histories will complete PRI’s continuum of services for incarcerated students and increase the City University of New York’s overall capacity to serve this vulnerable population in the community.

“John Jay College is committed to justice in all its forms,” said John Jay College President Jeremy Travis of the merger. “As part of that commitment, we must include educational justice for students who have been directly impacted by the criminal justice system.”

Michael Carey, Executive Director of College Initiative since 2009, remarked, “Joining PRI is a natural progression in the extensive collaboration, and shared missions, or our two organizations.”

Jacobs and Carey made the announcement after the morning’s first panel, which examined the recent report Degrees of Freedom: Expanding College Opportunities for Currently and Formerly Incarcerated Californians, presented by two of the reports co-authors, PRI Founding Director Debbie Mukamal, now of Stanford Law School, and Rebecca Silbert of Berkeley Law. Mukamal and Silbert were joined on the panel by Rob Scott, Executive Director of the Prison Education Program at Cornell University, Program Officer Doug Wood of the Ford Foundation, and Associate Professor Anthony Marcus from John Jay College.

The second panel featured Alan Rosenthal and Emily NaPier of the Center for Community Alternatives presenting their recent groundbreaking research report, Boxed Out: Criminal History Screening and College Application Attrition, joined by panelists Lettisha Boyd of College and Community Fellowship and Associate Professor Bret Benjamin from SUNY Albany. Carey also unveiled the College Initiative Toolkit, a web-based platform for organizations seeking to support students transitioning to college after criminal justice involvement.

The event was moderated by PRI’s Educational Initiatives Director Bianca van Heydoorn, who remarked, “In order to create welcoming spaces for learning, we must transform our institutions into places that encourage higher education, regardless of criminal justice status.”

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The Prisoner Reentry Institute, one of twelve institutes in John Jay College’s Research Consortium, works to spur innovation and improve practice in the field of reentry by advancing knowledge, translating research into effective policy and service delivery, and fostering effective partnerships between criminal justice and non-criminal justice disciplines.

About John Jay College of Criminal Justice: An international leader in educating for justice, John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York offers a rich liberal arts and professional studies curriculum to upwards of 15,000 undergraduate and graduate students from more than 135 nations.  In teaching, scholarship and research, the College approaches justice as an applied art and science in service to society and as an ongoing conversation about fundamental human desires for fairness, equality and the rule of law. For more information, visit www.jjay.cuny.edu.