Robyn Newcomb

Viewpoints Editor

For many individuals coming out of jail or prison in the United States, the country with the highest levels of incarceration on the globe, the burden of incarceration doesn’t end with coming home. The stigma and the legal barriers of a criminal record are often a severe roadblock, preventing those who have been incarcerated from smoothly reintegrating into their communities — especially in terms of finding employment.

This past summer, Emma Cotter ’20 and Halen Gifford ’21 worked with  the College’s Applied Methods and Research Experience (AMRE) to study these challenges and potential means of alleviating them in our own community of Wayne County.

“We were tasked with researching workforce reentry in Wayne County, so we were looking at job opportunities for individuals who are coming out of incarceration,” said Gifford.

“A big chunk of our work is we cold-called … 435 businesses in Wayne County and asked them what their specific policies are regarding people coming out of jail or prison. We also looked at the different social services in the community and what they were doing for reentry, and we also looked at the jail to see how it was formatted and what programs were there, and what resources were available,” Gifford further explained.

In addition, the two students interviewed individuals coming out of incarceration to learn about the struggles they faced reentering society, completed case studies on other counties in Ohio to compare the efficacy of other programs and policies and sought out supportive employment models — businesses with programs specifically for people who’ve been out of the workforce for some time.

Cotter explained that the two hadn’t specifically sought out their research topic, but were rather assigned to it based on their experience and skill sets. Nevertheless, they became immediately invested in the project once it began. “We were both super interested in the work once we started it,” she said.

“I think that one of the most impactful experiences for me was sitting through reentry court,” said Cotter, describing the experience of listening to a judge review cases and also  the emotional accounts of previously incarcerated citizens. “That’s not something that we would have otherwise been able to have the opportunity to hear and experience.”

Gifford agreed, saying she felt a similar sense of impact after sitting in on drug court. “The day we went, they were having graduation. The way that drug court works is you’re there for about a year and then you get to graduate,” she said. “Getting to hear their stories, hearing them coming out of this and getting their life back on track — it was really powerful.”

Both agreed that meeting and getting to hear the stories of individuals in the community with whom college students don’t typically cross paths was a unique and irreplaceable experience.

“Meeting people in the community in general was a big takeaway — I met a lot of people I never would have met otherwise. I learned so much about Wayne County, about the community I live in,” said Gifford.

Cotter and Gifford both encouraged Wooster students to educate themselves and to take initiative to get involved.  

“A couple years ago someone from Wooster did her I.S. interviewing a lot of people in the support group called Behind Bars and Beyond — they all still remembered her,” said Cotter. “Communicating with the College is something they really value, and, if students want to be involved, I think there’s lots of ways they could be.”

The pair described Behind Bars and Beyond as one way to become involved, but also stressed, as reentry is a deeply interconnected issue, the importance of working to support other organizations in the community like the NAACP or OneEighty that support ex-offenders in a broader, more holistic sense.

“The time and effort Emma and Halen put into this project is vital to our better understanding the atmosphere of the business world in Wayne County,” said Tammy Jackson, their supervisor at Anazao Community Partners, a non-profit in Wooster, Oh. “I genuinely appreciate their work. I believe this is the first step of many in helping us discover ways we might move forward.”

Students interested in getting involved or learning more about incarceration in our community can apply for the annual “Inside, Outside” course, attend the College-sponsored panel on the potential new Wooster jail on Oct. 2 from 7 to 9 p.m. or reach out to   community organization Behind Bars and Beyond.