A New Chapter for Justice Education

After more than a decade of pioneering prison education work at the California Rehabilitation Center (CRC) in Norco, Pitzer College’s Justice Education Center is entering a new chapter.

For the past 12 years, the College has provided educational opportunities to incarcerated students through courses and partnerships developed by faculty across The Claremont Colleges. Central to that effort has been the Inside-Out program, which brings together incarcerated (“inside”) students and undergraduates (“outside”) to learn alongside one another in the same classroom.

With the planned closure of CRC by this fall, the initiative is now preparing for a transition—one that will involve identifying new locations and exploring new ways to continue its work.

Helping guide that transition is longtime Pitzer faculty member Tessa Hicks Peterson, who has been appointed interim director of the Justice Education Center (JEC). The consortium-wide center serves as the central hub overseeing prison education initiatives—including Inside-Out—for The Claremont Colleges.

For Hicks Peterson, the work has always extended far beyond the classroom.

“Engaging in education with incarcerated students has a powerful impact on everyone involved—faculty, students, staff, and the broader community,” she said. “It transforms how people think about justice, opportunity, and the role of education in people’s lives.”

Hicks Peterson currently serves as assistant vice president for community engagement and director of CASA Pitzer, and she has played a key role in shaping the College’s justice education work. In 2014, she was asked by emeritus faculty member Nigel Boyle—who first envisioned teaching undergraduate courses at CRC-Norco—to pilot Pitzer’s first Inside-Out course at CRC-Norco. Later she would continue to help build the robust five-college Inside-Out program while serving as director of the Office for Consortial Academic Collaboration.

Joining her in leading the transition is Kenneth Butler ’22, who has been appointed program assistant for JEC. Butler brings a unique perspective to the role: he was part of the first cohort of incarcerated students to earn a bachelor’s degree in organizational studies through Pitzer’s Inside Out Pathway to BA program.

After graduating, Butler went on to earn a Fulbright research fellowship in Uganda, where he studied recidivism in that country’s prison system. He has also worked with the Prison Education Project at Cal Poly Pomona and trained faculty in Inside-Out pedagogy at Temple University.

“Looking back on my journey, from being an incarcerated student to now supporting the very program that helped reshape my life; the feeling is truly indescribable,” Butler said about his new role. “To stand on the other side and give back to a community that once lifted me is something words can barely capture.”

A Long Commitment to Justice Education

While the CRC program marks its 12th year, Hicks Peterson notes that Pitzer’s engagement with justice education stretches back much further. Faculty members including Laura Harris, Barry Sanders, Dipa Basu, and others helped lay the groundwork in the 1990s and early 2000s with a number of efforts to work with community organizations.

“We are really standing on the shoulders of giants here,” Hicks Peterson said, noting that the current work builds on those decades of commitment from faculty, students, and community partners.

Although the closure of CRC had long been anticipated, it still marks the end of an important chapter. At the same time, Hicks Peterson and Butler see the transition as an opportunity to reimagine what justice education can look like—and where it can take place.

Both see the closure as an opening to expand the program’s reach and explore new ways of connecting education with communities both inside and beyond carceral settings. The main thing, both agree, is to ensure that access to education continues for these communities.

“Access to education for those who are incarcerated is essential because it disrupts cycles of hopelessness and opens doors to real transformation,” Butler said. “As Nigel [Boyle] says, education is one of the most subversive things you can do, it challenge the status quo, reshapes mindsets, and equips people with the power to reclaim their futures.”

Looking Toward New Possibilities

The past decade at CRC has seen the program evolve in significant ways. Early efforts involved Pitzer and Cal Poly Pomona faculty entering the prison to provide tutoring and mentoring to incarcerated students. Former Pitzer faculty member Boyle later expanded the initiative by offering a full academic course.

In 2014, Boyle invited Hicks Peterson to help launch a new phase: the Inside-Out model developed by Temple University’s Lori Pompa. Under this approach, Pitzer students do not enter the prison as volunteers or tutors. Instead, they enroll in the same course as incarcerated students, learning together as peers.

The structure of the classroom is intentionally collaborative.

“It’s a deeply transformative pedagogy,” Hicks Peterson said. “You sit in a circle. It’s dialogue-based rather than lecture-based, with small group discussions and shared projects. Because people are learning across so many lines of difference—race, class, gender, politics, religion, life experiences—that kind of learning can be incredibly powerful.”

Over the years, the program has grown to include multiple cohorts of incarcerated students pursuing degrees through the consortium. The fifth—and final—cohort at CRC-Norco will graduate this May during Pitzer’s 61st Commencement.

Looking ahead, Hicks Peterson and Butler are exploring how the Justice Education Center can expand its reach beyond the traditional prison setting. Potential partnerships could include transitional housing and reentry programs, community-based organizations, and educational programs serving men, women, and youth impacted by the justice system.

Over the next year and a half, they plan to work closely with longtime community partners to shape the program’s next phase as it continues to demonstrate that an education is the best response to incarceration.

“We know that education is a big driver of success, and it prevents crime and recidivism after release,” she said. “But it’s not just about our incarcerated students but about everyone else involved with them. Programs like ours teach our students and many others to understand the problems and dysfunction of the justice system and to become allies and advocates who will fight for justice.”

For Hicks Peterson, the goal remains clear: ensuring that the transformative power of education continues to reach those who have historically had the least access to it.