The Center for Justice at Columbia University is committed to reducing the nation’s reliance on incarceration and advancing alternative approaches to safety and justice through education, research and policy. Its mission is to help transform a criminal justice system from one that is driven by punishment and retribution to one that is centered on prevention and healing. The Center is interdisciplinary and built around community collaboration. It works in partnership with schools, departments, centers and institutes across Columbia, other universities, government agencies, community organizations, advocates and those directly affected by the criminal justice system.

http://centerforjustice.columbia.edu

The Society of Fellows and Heyman Center for the Humanities provides the intellectual and physical space for interdisciplinary discussions among members of the Columbia community and the New York City public. It brings together faculty and students from across the university—from the humanities, social and natural sciences, law, medicine, journalism, and the arts—to share thinking, debate ideas, and collectively consider methodological, conceptual, and ethical issues of common interest and concern. It sponsors public lectures, readings, conferences, and performances, fosters scholarly and artistic collaborations, and offers meeting spaces for its various affiliated members. Its Public Humanities programs serve people in neighboring communities who have limited access to, or who might uniquely benefit from, focused humanities programming—including incarcerated and formerly incarcerated individuals, veterans, and those who are economically disadvantaged.

http://sofheyman.org/

The New York Consortium for Higher Education in Prison (NYCHEP) is a coalition of administrators, educators, and alumni from more than two dozen higher education institutions and organizations that offer college programming to over 1400 students in over 30 prisons and jails in New York State. NYCHEP embodies the shared knowledge of these institutions and provides a platform for programs to help each other grow, share best practices, and advocate for students.

NYCHEP’s mission is to educate students who enroll in college programs during incarceration, and to support their college enrollment, degree completion, and re-entry when they return to the community.

The Justice-in-Education initiative is proud to be a founding member of NYCHEP.

Learn more at nychep.org.

Since 2022, the Center for the Core Curriculum has partnered with Justice-in-Education to bring Columbia’s Core Curriculum to students on Rikers Island. The Core is the heart of a Columbia undergraduate education and was the first general education program in the United States, launched in 1919 to prepare students to grapple with what its founders called “the insistent problems of the present.” Contemporary Civilization and Music Humanities have been taught at the women’s, young men’s, and adult men’s facilities on Rikers, with the aim of replicating the on-campus Core experience as closely as possible. Columbia faculty lead the seminars, supported by undergraduate and graduate student volunteers who serve as teaching assistants. Music Humanities also features live performance, as it does on campus: with the support of Dr. Magdalena Stern-Baczewska, director of Columbia’s Music Performance Program, MPP musicians have performed on Rikers to great acclaim from students.

https://www.college.columbia.edu/core-curriculum