This dissertation in practice was a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) of Model School Policy 506, Student Discipline (MSBA, 2019), as it relates to the school-to-prison pipeline across the nation as well as in Minnesota. Model Policy 506, co-authored by the Minnesota School Board Association and the Minnesota Association of School Administrators, is offered to school districts that subscribe to MSBA’s policy services. The homogeneity in school discipline policy across Minnesota provided an opportunity for this study. The purpose of this CDA was two-fold: to assess the discourses instantiated in Model School Policy 506, and to determine, through the figured world tool of inquiry, what the seven building tasks are accomplishing in Model Policy 506 for the reader to assume as social truth regarding student behavior and schooling. Data was collected through an iterative process and examined for themes. The CDA included multiple reviews of Model Policy 506 through the figured world tool of inquiry (Gee 2014), discerning and charting of the activities of the seven building tasks (Gee, 2014), assessing text complexity of policy discourse through a Lexile review, and capturing word repetition via computerized software as well as noting infrequent use of terms or absence of ideas. Major findings include that Model Policy 506, Student Discipline, acted to reinscribe teacher implicit bias, and that policy language was invested and embedded in racial structures. A Call to Action was written to be shared with the executive directors of the Minnesota School Board Association and the Minnesota Association of School administrators as an actionable response to the complex issue of social justice in discipline policy.

One hundred ninety-four inmates responded to a measure that taps Erikson's fifth stage of psychosocial development, dealing with the issues of identity. Information concerning previous and current criminal activity, along with basic demographic information, was also collected. Cross-checks conducted on selected information within the Utah State Department of Correction's computer system suggest validity for inmate self-reports. The criminal behavior questions were addressed in two main sections: previous and current criminal behavior. Results illustrate consistent relationships that exist between criminal behavior and cognitive identity style (the corollary to Marcia's identity statuses). The identity styles represent the process involved with personal decision making and problem solving. Individuals with the style labeled "Information orientation" thoroughly consider relevant information before decisions and commitments are made; those with a "Normative orientation" are primarily concerned with the expectations of significant others; and those with a "Diffuse/Avoidant orientation" procrastinate and fail to resolve confronting problems. Findings suggest that previous criminal behavior was related to cognitive identity style; current criminal behavior was not. Specifically, Diffuse/Avoidant individuals are more likely to engage in substance use at a younger age than their criminal peers, get arrested younger, be involved in multiple arrests and convictions, have spent a longer time in prison and/or jail, and to have previous and current property convictions. Inmates with a Normative style tend to use substances at an older age than their criminal cohorts, are about four years older at first arrest, have fewer arrests and convictions, spend less time incarcerated, and are more likely to have had a previous and current drug offense. Information-oriented individuals tend to straddle these extremes on most variables and show no profound trends in the data. Discrimination between Diffuse/Avoidant and Normative individuals has been found previously in substance use research.

Correctional practices in New York State largely support a punishment paradigm, a framework in which men and women are incarcerated to suffer punition, with little consideration given to understanding the causes of criminality or means to rehabilitate the offender. The growing awareness of correctional failures have necessitated efforts to re-evaluate the justice system, with no consensus regarding which rehabilitative methods work. Correctional philosophy and practice provides few substantive opportunities for transformative rehabilitation; therapeutic peer programming to address deficiencies in pro-normative socialization and provide peer support are virtually nonexistent. For many formerly incarcerated men who build successful lives for themselves within supportive communities, a common thread winds through their institutional experience: peer mentoring by fellow incarcerated men through informal and peer-created programming. This study examined the role that social support by incarcerated peer mentor groups within New York State prisons played in resocializing fellow inmates towards normative behavior and character development. Through interviews with formerly incarcerated violent offenders, this study explored the interpersonal mechanisms that encouraged and nurtured rehabilitation. Focusing on the specific organizations to which they belonged, a more thorough understanding was provided of both how peer mentor groups work, and also why they work independently of other socializing influences, such as family. Through transcendental phenomenological analysis, this research revealed several themes within peer-mentorship experience, and examined the value of these programs for correctional programming.

A punishment is a self-protection of a society against a violation. It also serves as an exemplary warning. An imprisoned person is associated to the unfree spaces of jail. The environment of prison takes away an individual freedom of the imprisoned person and also his contact with outer society. When the punishment ends the separated people are very often unable to come back to the rutine of everydays life. The space division of a freedom and places with absence of freedom is just a wall. Releasing from jail is as fast as the imprisoning. Usually the prisoner is not ready to go back to the real world and the society does not help them to integrate. The result of this social phenomenon is a recidivism. Former prisoners are very often stigmatized for their whole life. The proposal solves a moment of releasing to freedom. The architectural intervation is located in the border between the freedom and jail - in the wall. A variation of different spaces tries to fulfill the huge mental gap and creates a dialog between to different worlds.

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