The Beyond the Bars Fellowship offers students and community members an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of mass incarceration and social change; and to collaborate with the Center for Justice and the Criminal Justice Caucus to organize the annual Beyond the Bars Conference. This interdisciplinary leadership program aims to bring together a diverse group of Fellows to further develop their leadership skills. Fellows gain a theoretical and practical understanding of mass incarceration, including its origins and its widespread personal and societal consequences. Fellows are introduced to various models of social change while having an opportunity to interact with and learn from community activists, organizers and academics.
We aim to bring together Columbia University students with the larger NYC community to create a diverse and rich learning environment that can be mutually beneficial to all Fellows. We encourage people impacted (directly and indirectly) by mass criminalization and incarceration to apply.
