yazadjal.com

George Bernard Shaw once famously said “Those who can, do; and those who can’t, teach.” And some who have done it, got caught, paid the price, are teaching about it. They’re the Professors With a Past [NYT link, requires free registration]

Mr. Richards is a self-described “convict criminologist,” one of a small, tightly knit group of ex-convict professors who are shaking up the criminal justice field by challenging some of the academic establishment’s assumptions about prisons and inmates. With convictions ranging from selling heroin to armed robbery and even murder, they have tenure-track positions at public universities, attend academic conferences and act as mentors to current convicts who hope some day to join their ranks.
. . .
The movement has sparked controversy, not so much because of its members’ backgrounds as because of their ideas, which were set forth in a manifesto of sorts published this year, “Convict Criminology,” which Mr. Richards edited along with Jeffrey Ian Ross, a professor of criminology at the University of Baltimore (Thomson Wadsworth). The book’s thesis is that having spent time in jail, convict criminologists have a better understanding of the criminal justice system than professors who have studied prison from the comfort of their offices. The former inmates engage in research to support their argument that incarceration is overused in the United States — which has a prison population of 2.2 million — and that prison is needlessly dehumanizing.

Reminds me of the movie Catch Me If You Can. This kind of rehabilitation is an encouraging sign. Hope we could have it in India, where ex-convicts generally land up in Parliament, not University.