Growing up in Harrisburg, I dreamt about going to college in Hawaii, sitting on the beach studying.
I was sure that’s what I wanted to do. Instead, I got accepted at Penn State Harrisburg and pursued a computer science major for a few years. This semester, I took a course outside my major. Called “The Sociology of Deviance,” it instantly caught my attention in an unexpected way because the course introduced me to the work of the Capital Region Ex-Offenders Support Coalition.The CRESC is a coalition group based in Harrisburg that aims “to coordinate services that assist ex-offenders with successful re-entry which promotes public safety.”
I have witnessed many of my friends in Harrisburg encounter difficulties reintegrating back into society after a conviction. Many people who get incarcerated and later released seem to get their name replaced with the label “criminal.” The people assigning this label associate it with no other qualities or traits, only those relating to the crime they previously committed. This labeling contributes to the recidivism rate.
The United States has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world, with an average of 67 percent of released offenders returning to prison within three years. Recidivism is more likely to occur among those who remain with the same lifestyle they had before incarceration. Many prisoners are released in the same, if not worse, financial position they were in before they got incarcerated. This limits the housing options for released offenders, which leads to their migration back to the same neighborhood as before with the concentrated lack of opportunities and abundance of illegal temptations that increased their criminality in the first place.
And what about a career? With limited skills to obtain a well-paid job, many newly released offenders have one of two options: go back to school or acquire a blue-collar job. Over half the time, the school option hits a dead end because financial aid and college acceptance can be denied based solely on whether or not the student has a felony on their record. That being said, many turn to the low standards of the factory or restaurant industry. Along any application process, they come across the dreaded question, “Have you ever been convicted of a felony?” Although it has been said time and time again that this question only serves the purpose of informing the employer, it results in discrimination. Coalition groups like the CRESC have come to realize that, instead of blaming the released prisoner for returning to a life of crime, society must come together to reduce the need to turn back to crime.
Staying to finish school at Penn State Harrisburg has allowed me to discover this coalition group and come to fall in love with its vision. I did not feel that way at first, because I didn’t think I was capable of making a change. I knew I needed to help people like this, but I never knew where or how to get started. But as I took my “Sociology of Deviance” course, I knew this was the reason I had stayed at Penn State Harrisburg. I’ve always wanted to “change” the world, and here I discovered the major that would allow me to first and foremost study the diverse people that make up the world I intend on changing. I soon remembered my true passion.
The Sociology and Criminology Department at Penn State Harrisburg has given me the support and mentors I need in order to gain confidence in my dream and myself. The type of support and influence one receives from their environment undeniably influences the outcome of dreams and goals, and I am glad I found an environment that, instead of doubting me, guided me. I knew how passionate and reputable my professor was, when I heard him say to me, “My legacy is not in the articles or papers I publish, but in the students that I can guide in the right direction to be able to go out and change the world.”
Leslie Avila is a double major in sociology and criminology at Penn State Harrisburg.
