Projects

To realize the Center’s mission, we work with diverse individuals and groups through our many projects. Whether we’re working with youth, community organizations, or formerly incarcerated women; or working in the area of policy, education, or research, we strive to ensure our projects are created and led by those they intend to serve.

Check out a full list of our projects below:

 


Beyond the Bars

The Beyond the Bars Conference is an annual student-driven interdisciplinary conference on mass incarceration held at Columbia University.  Each year the conference brings together students, faculty, activists, advocates, practitioners, those who have experienced and/or been impacted by incarceration, community members and more to connect, galvanize, and deepen the work of building justice and equity and ending mass incarceration.

Learn more about Beyond the Bars


Collaborative Change for Justice

Under the Collaborative Change for Justice initiative, programs facilitate structured, meaningful, and novel engagement between different stakeholders, with special focus on students and city officials, to spark dialogue, better understand community challenges, and explore possible solutions together. With Columbia University’s extensive network of support, Collaborative Change of Justice programs can engage the university’s many disciplines and further collaborate with community partners to reduce the national reliance on mass incarceration and to support new approaches to justice and safety through education, research, and policy change.

Learn more about Collaborative Change for Justice


Justice Beyond the Punishment Paradigm

Justice Beyond the Punishment Paradigm (JBPP) is an initiative at the Center that seeks to end punishment and incarceration as the dominant response to violent offenses. We aim to promote prevention, safety, accountability, healing and repair, focusing on survivors and those who commit violence (often one in the same), and their communities. Persistent punishment does little to prevent violence, denies the capacity for transformation, and furthers policies of racist criminalization and exclusion. Communities most impacted experience substantial disinvestment as resources are used to criminalize and incarcerate, not prevent and intervene. We are in a remarkable moment of change and justice reform but addressing violence remains at the margins.

Learn more about Justice Beyond the Punishment Paradigm


Justice-in-Education

The Justice-in-Education (JIE) Initiative is dedicated to bringing credit-bearing college courses, workshops, and creative projects to campus, local prisons, and at the Rikers Island jail complex. Our programs open channels of communication and collaboration between Columbia faculty and students, communities affected by incarceration, and the public at large for a more just and socially conscious system of higher education.

Learn more about Justice-in-Education


Justice Through Code

Justice Through Code is a free coding intensive that provides opportunities for formerly incarcerated individuals to begin to grow and develop into the technology leaders of tomorrow. It is jointly ​offered by Columbia University’s Center for Justice, and the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise at Columbia Business School. Justice Through Code  (JTC) seeks to tackle mass incarceration by addressing two of the most significant contributors to recidivism: a lack of job training and the subsequently high rates of unemployment for the formerly incarcerated. In response to these challenges, JTC aims to equip participants with the requisite skills to embark on a sustainable career in the tech industry through a semester-long coding intensive that includes interpersonal skills training and networking opportunities​. 

Learn more about Justice Through Code


Women Transcending

Women Transcending (WT) focuses on the impact of the mass incarceration system on women and girls and the roles that women are playing in changing those systems. WT is committed to making a unique and necessary contribution through three interrelated projects focusing on women and incarceration and the growth of women’s leadership in the movement to end mass incarceration.

Learn more about Women Transcending