Bryant students work with RI Department of Corrections to create a brochure for the families of inmates at the ACI.

All students in Associate Professor of History and Social Sciences Sandra Enos’ sociology classes have the opportunity to take part in service learning projects. They apply their classroom knowledge to research an issue affecting the community and devise ways to create real systematic change.

Last spring two students, Micaela Maynard ’08 (North Yarmouth, ME) and Eric Goncalo ’08 (North Dartmouth, MA), in Enos’ Contemporary Social Problems class, collaborated with the Rhode Island Department of Corrections (RIDOC) to develop a guide for families and friends of inmates at the Intake Service Center of the Adult Correctional Institute in Cranston.

After discussing issues that affect the prison systems, the pair determined that there was a lack of information available to those who keep in contact with inmates.

“We realized the importance of family and healthy relationships for inmates while they are incarcerated,” says Maynard, a sociology and service learning major. Though as Goncalo, points out, “We also learned about the complexity of the issues that family members face while their loved ones are in prison.”

Facilitating contact between inmates and their families is critical because research shows that inmates who receive regular visits from family members and friends have lower recidivism rates once they are released. One landmark 1972 study on the California prison system determined that prisoners with no visitors were six times more likely to reenter prison during the first year of parole compared to those with three or more regular visitors.    

After poring over RIDOC policy manuals, the pair created a guide that answers frequently asked questions about mail procedures, visiting information, medical treatment, inmate accounts, and telephone use and important phone numbers.

The RIDOC printed the brochures in English and Spanish and began giving them to family and friends last month.

Maynard describes a service learning project “as a hands-on approach to learning course material. It is beneficial in that once we learn about an idea or concept in the classroom, we are then able to apply it to a prevalent issue in society.”

Goncalo says the project was a “unique opportunity to learn about a particular issue outside of the classroom that gives you hands-on experience and a chance to work towards a solution.”

Through these projects, students are able to explore a social problem and take steps to make change. “Most importantly I learned the value and importance placed upon family and visitors by the inmates and how crucial they are for the inmates’ rehabilitation,” says Maynard.

Enos says that in addition to gaining awareness about issues affecting the community, the students learn more about themselves. At the end of the semester, her students reflect on their work as part of an assignment titled “Where I Stand.”

“The students have a better idea of social problems and their power to make change,” says Enos. “Problems could seem overwhelming but there is always something that can be done.”

Says Maynard, one of the first students to change her major to Sociology when it was unveiled in 2006, “There is a sense of pride and accomplishment knowing that you are actually impacting real-life situations.”