Prison Survey

The Cradle-to-Prison Pipeline Research Team at Northeastern University conducted an expansive survey, led by Law Professor and Principal Investigator Stephanie Roberts Hartung and Erin Stewart ‘21, a Skadden Fellow at Citizens for Juvenile Justice, of incarcerated people in Massachusetts. The survey addresses critical gaps in data relating to childhood experiences and systems involvement along the pipeline. It was designed to test the hypothesis that children of color are disproportionately impacted by an array of systems—child welfare, public education, mental health, school discipline, and juvenile justice—which operate to increase the likelihood of adult incarceration. The collection of data through this survey is intended to support advocacy efforts and inform policy decisions to help dismantle the cradle-to-prison pipeline and address mass incarceration in meaningful ways.

Read the report on Phase I of the Jail and Prison Survey, Criminalizing a “Rough Life”: A Study of Systems Involvement Among Incarcerated People in Massachusetts.

The authors of the Phase I report extend their sincere gratitude to the team of Northeastern Law students who supported this project: Maya Brown, Lindsey Gill, and Kalyn Zaman for their excellent research in support of this report, as well as the hard-working data entry team: Andrew Baldizon, Adison Brown, Maya Brown, Gabriella Capocelli, Lindsey Gill, Jamie Goldman, Marissa Grenon, Huda Khwaja, Elaine Marshall, Isabelle Oviedo, Alexis Pellechio, and Erica Tracewell.

This project clearly would not have been possible without the invaluable input of currently incarcerated people who completed the survey, along with Armand Coleman of Everyday Boston, and recently returned citizens who provided feedback on a pilot survey. We express our deepest gratitude to them for their insights and collaboration. We hope that this study will help inform efforts to meaningfully disrupt the cradle-to-prison pipeline in Massachusetts and beyond for years to come.