Digital Literacy for Returning Citizens

The COVID-19 pandemic has precipitated an upsurge in reliance on technology, and digital literacy has become even more critical to job-seeking, interpersonal relationship maintenance, healthcare management, and parole compliance. In the United States, where criminal sentencing can last decades, there exists an urgent and ever-increasing need to prepare returning citizens for the unfamiliar technological demands of life outside.

The current crisis represents an opportunity to envision and create sustainable support systems for re-entry. In this project, which is run in conjunction with the Education Justice Project’s Re-entry Guide Initiative, I have explored how post-carceral digital disenfranchisement impacts returning citizens.

Drawing on semi-structured, collaborative interviews with recent returnees and documentary analysis of Department of Corrections publications and non-profit guidance, I will be next assessing which technical skills are of greatest significance for returning citizens.