Mass Incarceration and Inequality in Higher Ed
Dissecting the Impact of Mass Incarceration
By making laws that restrict the rights of formerly incarcerated individuals, their sense of belonging and value in society is diminished, according to Reuben Jonathan Miller, a professor of sociology at the University of Chicago and former chaplain at the Cook County Jail.
“[Citizenship] is not just legal status,” Miller said. “It’s about belonging. It’s about community and being recognized, being a part of a human community. It’s having a role in that community. Citizenship is a practice—it’s something that we do together.”
Most states restore voting rights to individuals after they are released from prison, but citizenship is about much more than voting, Miller said. “Citizenship is also about belonging to a political community. It’s about recognition as someone of value who can fully participate in the political economy and culture—and what we have is an alternate legal reality for people who have made mistakes.”
Miller explained that even after release from prison, full reintegration into society is challenging because there are 44,000 laws across the United States that place restrictions on people with criminal records. “Your parental rights can be revoked, you may not live in public housing, your job application can be denied, you may be fired or evicted on a whim,” Miller said. “And therefore, your relationships look fundamentally different.”
Miller emphasized that people of color are disproportionately affected by mass incarceration. Black people are twice as likely as white people to get arrested and five times more likely to be incarcerated after arrest, according to Miller. “Mass incarceration is an American problem,” he said. “We overwhelmingly punish racial and ethnic minorities. We overwhelmingly punish our poor.”
Miller said that while people are in prison, they are made to feel like they are voiceless and powerless. “More than anything else, it tells them that their voice doesn’t matter, that they’re a group that we shouldn’t care about. It sends a message about their democratic participation being unwanted. It tells me that their voice is unwelcome. There’s no place for them here.”
The prison system goes beyond mere punishment, inflicting lasting harm on vulnerable people, Miller said. “If [mass incarceration] attacks the vulnerable in the ways that I’m suggesting, it is a form of violence itself,” Miller said.
Mass incarceration is closely tied to many other inequalities, including lack of access to mental health treatment and affordable housing—formerly incarcerated individuals are seven times more likely to be homeless, Miller noted. “Mass incarceration is a series of crises,” he said. “It’s a public health crisis. It’s a housing crisis. It’s an employment crisis. It’s a political crisis. It’s a problem of citizenship. It’s about how we prey on our most vulnerable among us.”
According to Miller, formerly incarcerated people are more likely to experience homelessness. In many cities, homelessness can lead to legal consequences or arrest—a policy that perpetuates the cycle of incarceration. “It filters into dynamics of everyday life,” Miller said. “How do we respond? We respond by criminalizing poverty.”
Adapted from The Heights article by Anna Lauinger '28 and Amelia Alexopoulos '28
The Gerson Family Lecture was presented with the Lowell Humanities Series and the PULSE Program
The Reality of Class Divides within Universities
Anthony Jack’s motivation for writing a book came from more than his experience as a former low-income, first-generation college student—it was fueled by his frustration with elite universities’ lack of awareness. “It was almost as if they were finding out they had poor and vulnerable students on their campus for the first time when COVID came and shut the campus down,” Jack said.
Jack shared the inspiration behind his recently published book, Class Dismissed: When Colleges Ignore Inequality and Students Pay the Price. He discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic had an especially negative impact on low-income students who were suddenly left without access to campus resources like dorms and dining halls. “I wanted to show how COVID exacerbated the very inequalities that universities ignored,” Jack explained.
While students from more affluent backgrounds were able to take on unpaid internships and further their careers during lockdown, lower-income students were often forced to find work and help support their families, Jack said. “What actually was the most pernicious was just a level of security and safety that money provided, not all equally, because the racialization of money was real.”
Jack rebuked the misconception that if first-generation students cannot fit in or handle attending a university, it is not the best choice for them. “That’s one of the dumbest approaches to this I have ever seen because you cannot cherry-pick so much that everything will be perfect,” Jack said. “The job of teachers is to educate, to expand the minds, to push through this road to higher depths.”
Jack also examined the successes and struggles of academically successful students from low-income backgrounds, highlighting the results of the Boston Globe’s “The Valedictorians Project,” which evaluated how Boston-area valedictorians fared following high school. “Something like one in five face housing insecurity after college,” Jack said. “They are asking the wrong question. The question was, ‘How many were housing and food secure before?’ ”Universities are admitting more diverse student populations, but their policies and decisions—specifically those affecting financially vulnerable students—have yet to adapt to the needs of this changing student body. You have adopted these expansive programs to recruit lower-income students—what have you done to your campus policies to reflect that?”
Jack highlighted the behind-the-scenes policies surrounding campus closures and resource allocations that can disproportionately impact disadvantaged students. For example, universities shut down their dorms and dining halls for a week during spring break, leaving many low-income students without access to necessities like housing and food. “The ultimate goal of the book is that it’s a mirror that reflects back our unequal policies that make it harder for our most vulnerable students,” Jack said.
In concluding his lecture, Jack offered advice for students to achieve future success. “Never see asking for help as a sign of weakness,” he said. “Asking for help shows you are inspired enough and aware enough that you are approaching a boundary of your own understanding.”
Adapted from The Heights article by Anna Lauinger '28
Presented with the Pine Manor Institute for Student Success