Mission and History
Goals
BEJI opens educational pathways for those impacted by the criminal justice system and advances carceral studies at Brandeis.
Over two million people are incarcerated in the U.S, at nearly the highest rate in the world. The racial discrepancies in policing, jury selection, and sentencing that plague the carceral system are intolerable in a just society as are the collateral consequences that can turn any sentence into a life sentence.
The BEJI community has a diverse range of experiences, in our own lives, with the criminal justice system and incarceration. Together we learn from a powerful legacy of protest, resistance, and reform against the racial and economic inequities that corrode the criminal justice system. Our initiative takes inspiration from many movements for transformative and restorative justice.
We seek to create spaces of collaboration, learning, and dialogue across our complex institutional divisions. We are committed to continuously improving our cultural proficiency and political accountability in these relationships. We all bear responsibility for addressing persistent, systemic inequities in our society, including the persistent racism of educational and criminal justice institutions. BEJI is a community where we can help hold each other accountable. This initiative is an expression of this effort at Brandeis, and we are committed to diversity and inclusion as a foundation of our strength.
How BEJI Began
Since 2019, BEJI has been an expression of Brandeis’s foundational commitments to social justice and democratic inclusion. This initiative was founded by faculty in Legal Studies and English with commitments to civil rights, community-engaged learning, and critical inquiry into the carceral system. Rosalind Kabrhel, Chair of Legal Studies, has taught Brandeis courses that included incarcerated youth as guest students and collaborators. Her courses about the criminal justice system provide experiences for students to learn first-hand about the collateral consequences of incarceration. John Plotz, faculty in English, has taught literature at MCI Concord and developed new partnerships between Brandeis and many community partners and state agencies. David Sherman, faculty in English, has taught literature and creative writing courses with youth and adults in several carceral settings since 2020. His 2023 course, Literature in the Age of Mass Incarceration, is a recent example.
BEJI is engaged in an intensive process of program development with several community partners, and we coordinate staffing with other Boston-area social justice programs related to carceral education. Our events on campus help raise awareness about the social harms of mass incarceration and inequities in the criminal justice system. In courses, community programs, and campus working groups, BEJI has built a coalition for collaborating on innovative programs of educational and carceral justice.