Center Events

Ripple Effects Cause Tidal Waves: Community Impacts of Prisons in Appalachia

Half of all U.S. families will experience the incarceration of an immediate family member. While incarcerated, people continue their membership in family systems as fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, children, etc. Indeed, when one person is locked up, everyone who loves them is locked up too. Research shows that maintaining familial connections is paramount to the well-being of families, particularly the person incarcerated. People who are incarcerated who feel supported by families are less likely to become “prisonized” and are, therefore, more likely to successfully reenter society. With nearly 60,000 Virginians incarcerated at any given time, there are thousands of families across the state whose lives revolve around a loved one isolated in a remote mountain facility, often hundreds of miles from home. Ripple Effects highlights the strength of familial ties and the power of love. The panelists share the consequences of incarceration on family systems and how they navigate the criminal legal system. Hearing their lived experiences demonstrates the profound challenges and complexity of having a loved one behind bars.

Ripple Effects centered on local voices and perspectives, which are featured in the following three panel discussions. The panels are comprised of parents, partners, and children of people behind bars, along with researchers and leading advocates working to address the collateral consequences on community members.

 Panel 1: Staying Connected, Staying Community focuses on the importance, challenges, and costs of staying connected with family. This panel includes family members who are featured in the documentary Calls from Home, a radio program that airs messages from family members to their incarcerated loved ones. 

Panel 2: What Is It Like to Love Someone Behind Bars explores the joys, value, impacts, challenges, and costs of incarceration on loved ones’ lives. This panel Includes parents, partners, and children of formerly incarcerated individuals.

Panel 3: What is the visitation room really like and why does it matter? This panel focuses on the benefits of prison visitation. Panelists share their experiences of being there, as both visitors and incarcerated individuals, in the visitation spaces. They also discuss recent changes to visitation and the recent degradation of VA visitation policies, opportunities, and treatment. They argue for improvements to visitation to keep families connected and discuss upcoming legislative efforts to do just that!

Outreach and Special Events:

This past year we partnered with local and regional organizations to help promote dialogue on peace, violence, and human rights issues.

1)   Co-sponsor Dr. Tania Pérez-Bustos, Material Stories of Healing, Survival, and Dignity in Colombia’s Struggle for Peace;

2)    Co-sponsored a lecture by Dr. Aaron Ansell on “The Responsible Exercise of Academic Freedom in an Age of Polarization”;

3)   Sponsored a public lecture by Dr. Vjeran Pavlakovic on “The Muralization of var: A Comparative Approach to Graffiti, Murals, and Memory Politics”;

4) Co-sponsored with the Coalition for Justice “Singing through it All: Songs and stories about the lived experiences of parents and their children while in prison and beyond”;

5) Co-sponsored a public panel discussion Ripple Effects Cause Tidal Waves: Community Impacts of Prisons in Appalachia;

6) Supported “This is not a scam!!” Workshop series to raise awareness of online and telephone scams against older individuals;

7) Worked with various university offices to offer a three-day workshop on Foundations of Restorative Justice

Educational Mission

We continue to support both graduate and undergraduate students. We granted four graduate thesis/dissertation research and travel awards in the 2017-18 academic year. Topics included:

1)    a biophysiological approach to studying PTSD in victims of sexual assault;

2)    the role of community cohesion in fighting extremism;

3)    U.S. federal policies and structural racism; and post-traumatic emotional and social growth in survivors of violence.

4)    indigenous resistance to land theft.

Faculty Research

The Center awarded several Peacebuilding Research Grants to faculty exploring violence and violence prevention. All of the projects were designed to integrate our three missions of research, education, and outreach in the area of violence prevention. Topics include:

1)    gun safety awareness;

2)    examination of online groupthink rhetoric in resisting covid-19 health mandates and practices;

3)   community-based approach to developing a brief couples intervention for co-occurring alcohol use disorder and intimate partner violence.;

4)   community-led community capacity building and violence prevention in a Rio de Janeiro favela;

5) forced migration and/in mass incarceration