On February 27th, Springbrook Justice Law & Society students attended a field trip to UDC David A. Clarke School Of Law. Students were given a chance to get a tour of the law school, which included visiting different classrooms and an understanding of how the law school functioned such as requiring fourteen hours of clinic cases in order to graduate from the school.
These field trips give students a chance to further understand the law and justice environment in which they attended several seminars including a Panel Discussion: Breaking Barriers and Building Bridges, A Roundtable Discussion: The Realities of Reentry and many more that informed them on topics such as life after prison and the system regarding adolescent offenders. These panels primarily discussed rebuilding bonds once you get out of prison and adjusting back to society after spending a long time in prison.
A Roundtable Discussion: The Realities of Reentry
“Breaking Barriers” and “Building Bridges” goes further into depth on living life after prison and how it can positively and negatively impact personal relationships with loved ones by causing rifts between one another and causing difficulty in reconnecting with loved ones. Guest speakers spoke about their experience with having to reenter society including having to adjust themselves to modern technology and having to readjust to the changing norms of society. One particular topic was the burden of having a criminal record and how it caused issues such as trouble in searching for a job, finances, housing, etc. One experience mentioned by one of the speakers was that he needed his little cousin’s help in using a phone since he’d been in prison for so long, he had no idea how advanced technology had become.
“Building Bridges” also went into depth about four speakers making friends with each other while they were in prison and remaining friends once they got out. It has been wonderful to get to experience these seminars and I hope that underclassmen will get to experience the same field trip in the future.
