Prison Education Program Research Lab Oral Histories on Debt and Incarceration
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Abstract
Founded in 2018, the Prison Education Program (PEP) Research Lab is a collaboration between faculty and formerly incarcerated students at New York University conducting research on the financial and human costs of mass incarceration in New York State. Students with lived experiences of incarceration are hired by the Lab, and trained by faculty members in the methods and ethics of social research. Formerly incarcerated researchers take part in all aspects of the research, from identifying research questions to design, data collection, and dissemination. By drawing on researchers from New York communities most affected by incarceration, the PEP Research Lab aims to amplify their voices and concerns, and to generate grounded policy recommendations and advocacy initiatives around responsible decarceration in the city and the state. NYU professors Julie Livingston (Social and Cultural Analysis and History), Thuy Linh Tu (Social and Cultural Analysis) and Andrew Ross (Social and Cultural Analysis) started the Debt and Incarceration oral history project in the fall of 2018. Working with PEP students Joshua Barreto, José Diaz, Derick McCarthy, and Vincent Thompson, Livingston, Tu and Ross began conducting in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated New Yorkers about the financial challenges they faced after release. In particular, those conversations focused on narrators' experiences with financial debt and on how their, often significant, debt burden was connected with incarceration. The Prison Education Program Research Lab Oral Histories on Debt and Incarceration (dated 2019-2021) consists of pdf oral history transcripts created by the PEP Research Lab. The majority of the anonymized interview transcripts in this collection were conducted as part of a PEP study on the commissary system in New York State prisons led by Tommaso Bardelli, Thuy Linh Tu, and Zachary Gillespie. The interviews document the multiple financial costs people face to cover basic needs during their incarceration. In an additional effort Bardelli, Tu, and Gillespie interviewed over 60 formerly incarcerated New Yorkers who had been released from male prison facilities in New York State within the past four years about their experiences with the commissary system and other forms of consumer spending in prison. These interviews document how decades of fiscal austerity, and the privatization of basic services within the prison system progressively shifted the economic costs of incarceration onto prisoners and their families. They also shed light on the pervasive impact of austerity policies on the realities of carceral punishment, the extension of the carceral state into the lives of individuals and families, sites of incarceration as sites of financial extraction, and the everyday lives of incarcerated individuals.
Historical Note
Founded in 2018, the Prison Education Program (PEP) Research Lab is a collaboration between faculty and formerly incarcerated students at NYU conducting research on the financial and human costs of mass incarceration in New York State. Students with lived experiences of incarceration are hired by the Lab, and trained by faculty members in the methods and ethics of social research. Formerly incarcerated researchers take part in all aspects of the research, from identifying research questions to design, data collection, and dissemination. By drawing on researchers from New York communities most affected by incarceration, the PEP Research Lab aims to amplify their voices and concerns, and to generate grounded policy recommendations and advocacy initiatives around responsible decarceration in the city and the state.
NYU professors Julie Livingston (Social and Cultural Analysis and History), Thuy Linh Tu (Social and Cultural Analysis) and Andrew Ross (Social and Cultural Analysis) started the Debt and Incarceration oral history project in the fall of 2018. Working with PEP students Joshua Barreto, José Diaz, Derick McCarthy, and Vincent Thompson, Livingston, Tu and Ross began conducting in-depth interviews with formerly incarcerated New Yorkers about the financial challenges they faced after release. In particular, those conversations focused on narrators' experiences with financial debt and on how their, often significant, debt burden was connected with incarceration. After conducting those initial interviews, the Lab's researchers launched a series of studies on the relationship between debt and incarceration in New York City, documenting different forms of carceral debt – from prison commissary and telecommunication costs to traffic fines and predatory auto loans.
Most of the interviews included in the present collection were conducted as part of a study on the commissary system in New York State prisons. The study was led by Tommaso Bardelli, who had joined the Lab as a postdoctoral fellow in September 2019, Thuy Linh Tu, and Zach Gillespie, an NYU PEP student majoring in American Studies. By focusing on the prison commissary system, their goal was to shed light on the multiple financial costs people face just to cover basic needs during their incarceration. Between October 2019 and September 2020, Bardelli, Tu, and Gillespie interviewed over 60 formerly incarcerated New Yorkers about their experiences with commissary and other forms of consumer spending in prison.
The collection includes a total of 25 transcripts of interviews conducted by Lab's researchers. Transcripts 001, 002, 003, 004, 006, 007, 010 are from the first series of exploratory interviews about the commissary system, which Bardelli and Tu collected with PEP students and alumni during the fall of 2019. Those interviews were conducted in person on NYU Washington Square campus. Transcripts numbered from 106 to 134, as well as 223 and 232, are part of the second series of commissary interviews with formerly incarcerated New Yorkers and their families (223, 232), collected between January and October 2020. Bardelli and Gillespie were the lead interviewers for this series, and all conversations were conducted remotely (via phone or video calling) due the COVID-19 pandemic.
Arrangement
Interviews are arranged numerically by anonymized narrator number.
Scope and Contents
The Prison Education Program Research Lab Oral Histories on Debt and Incarceration (dated 2019-2021) consists of pdf oral history transcripts created by the New York University Prison Education Program (PEP) Research Lab. The majority of the anonymized interview transcripts in this collection were conducted as part of a PEP study on the commissary system in New York State prisons led by Tommaso Bardelli, Thuy Linh Tu, and Zachary Gillespie. The interviews document the multiple financial costs people face to cover basic needs during their incarceration. In an additional effort Bardelli, Tu, and Gillespie interviewed over 60 formerly incarcerated New Yorkers who had been released from male prison facilities in New York State within the past four years about their experiences with the commissary system and other forms of consumer spending in prison. These interviews document how decades of fiscal austerity, and the privatization of basic services within the prison system progressively shifted the economic costs of incarceration onto prisoners and their families. They also shed light on the pervasive impact of austerity policies on the realities of carceral punishment, the extension of the carceral state into the lives of individuals and families, sites of incarceration as sites of financial extraction, and the everyday lives of incarcerated individuals. The collection also includes transcripts of three conversations reflecting on the research process and project.
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Conditions Governing Access
Donor permission is required for access. Those wishing to consult the collection, either within the reading room or remotely, must complete a brief survey prior to accessing the collection. Requests to view or use collection material outside of the reading room-- inclusive of downloadable PDFs files or printed copies-- must be approved by the PEP Research Lab. Please contact the Tamiment Library and Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, special.collections@nyu.edu, 212-998-2596.
Conditions Governing Use
This collection is protected by copyright and/or related rights. You are free to use materials in the collection in any way that is permitted by the copyright and related rights legislation that applies to your use. For other uses you need to obtain permission from the rights-holder(s).
Preferred Citation
Identification of item, date; Prison Education Program Research Lab Oral Histories on Debt and Incarceration; TAM 816; box number; folder number or item identifier; Tamiment Library/Robert F. Wagner Labor Archives, New York University.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Donated in October 2022 by Tommasso Bardelli on behalf of the Prison Education Program Research Lab; the accession number associated with this gift is 2022.084.
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About this Guide
Processing Information
At the time of accessioning, electronic files were transferred from an external flash drive to network storage. Materials were described on the collection-level with an interview-level inventory. Biographical notes and Scope and Contents notes for individual interviews were written by the interviewers and repurposed in this description. A historical description of the Prison Education Program Research Lab, as well as advice concerning descriptive choices and subject headings, was also provided by the donor.
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