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Thursday, September 4, 2025, 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET
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Join the Urban Institute for a conversation about prison living and working conditions—according to incarcerated people and corrections staff—in five state prisons in Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Missouri, and Vermont. The data were collected by local researchers from the five states that, in partnership with their respective state departments of corrections, conducted three rounds of surveys, including a series of uniform questions across sites to allow for cross-site analysis. These efforts were part of the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative, an initiative to leverage research and evidence to shine a much-needed light on prison conditions and pilot strategies to promote the well-being of people who are confined and work behind bars.
This discussion will explore findings from three rounds of surveys of incarcerated people and corrections staff to understand their perceptions and attitudes on the purpose of prison, prison conditions and environment, safety, correctional policies and practices, COVID-19 responses, job satisfaction, and workplace culture. This discussion will bring together three speakers from the Missouri, Delaware, and Vermont teams to share their reflections on the survey findings.
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Thursday, September 11, 2025, 1:00 p.m. to 2:15 p.m. ET
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Join the Urban Institute for a conversation about what we learned from the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative, which created a consortium of five states (Colorado, Delaware, Iowa, Missouri, and Vermont) working to establish a model of transparency, accountability, and innovation in local state prisons. From 2020 to 2024, local researchers from five states partnered with their respective state departments of corrections to improve data collection and transparency on prison living and working conditions with the goal of making evidence-based improvements to these conditions.
This discussion will explore findings from a process evaluation to understand how prison-based participatory research worked to engage incarcerated people and staff in the research development and changemaking process in each of the five sites under this initiative. The report draws from 112 semistructured interviews with stakeholders, document review, and observations of key activities over the course of the project. This discussion will bring together three speakers from the Colorado, Delaware, and Missouri teams to share their reflections on the project findings.
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PRISON RESEARCH AND INNOVATION INITIATIVE WEBINAR SERIES
The Urban Institute’s Prison Research and Innovation Initiative makes efforts to build evidence and spur innovation to make prisons more humane, safe, and rehabilitative environments. With support from Arnold Ventures, this initiative leverages research and evidence to shine a much-needed light on prison conditions and pilot strategies to promote the well-being of people who are confined and work behind bars. The Urban Institute is delivering a two-part webinar series to explore research findings from the initiative, with the first focusing on quantitative perceptions of prison living and working conditions in five states and the second focusing on results from a process evaluation of the initiative.
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Support for these events is provided by Arnold Ventures. For more on Urban’s funding policies, go to urban.org/about/organizational-principles.
We strive to host inclusive, accessible events that enable all individuals to engage fully. Please email eve...@urban.org if you require any accommodations or have any questions.
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