This podcast episode of Shades of Freedom with Dr. Douglas E. Wood, Director of the Criminal Justice Reform Initiative was published on September 7, 2021.
Prisons in the U.S. are, by design and operation, focused on punishment. But does punishment have to be traumatizing? Could prisons and jails be places of healing? While healing-centered and restorative approaches are being looked at in pre- and post-incarceration programs, less focus has been on trauma and harm reduction for those currently incarcerated.
In this episode of Shades of Freedom, our guest Nneka Jones Tapia, Managing Director for Justice Initiatives at Chicago Beyond and a former Warden of the Cook County Jail, joins us to discuss the new Square One Project report, Harm Reduction at the Center of Corrections, which begins: “The American correctional system is not a system of accountability that rehabilitates people as it purports to do. Instead, it is a system of pain and punishment with reverberating impact on the people confined there, the people who work there, and the families and communities of both.”
