As Prison Professors continues to grow, I want to offer some guidance on how to use the site effectively.
We’re in a continuous state of building this platform. We’ve been building and breaking and rebuilding for many years. Today our site includes more than 1,000 pages of lessons, courses, tools, and stories. We add new content daily. That growth reflects the diversity of our community—but it also means that not every page will be relevant to every visitor.
The key is intention.
We encourage everyone to use our AI chatbot, available with the pulsing icon at the bottom right of the page on the desktop version of our site. Visitors should also use the navigation menus, appearing at the top of each page on the desktop version. We designed those menus to help members of our community quickly find information that applies to their specific stage of the journey, or to get information that may serve them best.
Start with the main menu. On desktop, the main menu includes six primary tabs:
Programs
About
Impact
Get Involved
Profiles
Blog
Each tab serves a distinct purpose, designed to provide an ongoing stream of information that will serve different segments of our community.
The Programs Tab
For example, the Programs tab is the best place to start if you’re looking for practical guidance.
Under this tab, you’ll find curated hubs that align with different stages of the justice journey. We’re doing a lot of work to develop our site and the lessons we offer. We want to provide insight for anyone facing a charge in federal court, or going through a sentencing hearing, or preparing for a journey through federal prison. But not everyone needs the same information.
For example, someone preparing for a Presentence Investigation or sentencing does not need to sift through articles about prison reform or long-term advocacy. That person needs resources that will help him prepare for the best outcome, and he needs to begin acting fast in building a comprehensive mitigation strategy.
We’re always adding more lessons that, we hope, people can use to advance themselves as candidates for the highest level of liberty at the soonest possible time. No one can change the past, but we all can sow seeds that will position us for better outcomes later.
We’ve built those hubs intentionally—so people can access free lessons that apply directly to where they are right now. And we’ll keep adding lessons. For that reason, we encourage people to check back routinely.
Resources for Correctional Staff
Members of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and other agencies also use our site. They have different needs. Over the past week, I’ve communicated with several staff members in the BOP, because I am soon to resume my travel schedule of visiting federal prisons. In February, I am scheduled to visit the federal prison in Fort Dix, New Jersey, Fairton, New Jersey, and Petersburg, Virginia. I’ll also present at a conference for directors and wardens, giving them a live demonstration of our website.
Those members of our community are not looking for information about federal investigations or sentencing guidelines. Instead, they want resources that support positive culture, preparation, and rehabilitation inside their institutions.
For that reason, we’ve created dedicated hubs that introduce staff members to the courses and tools designed to support their work. We’ve got dashboards that show the impact we’re making. People who work in the Bureau of Prisons, or other agencies, need to see our validity. Our dashboards help them see that people who participate in the programming that Prison Professors offers are more likely to prepare for success upon release. They are less likely to engage in substance abuse or disruptive behavior.
We’re hoping that our dashboards will give them insight into who is worthy of moving toward a higher level of liberty, including transfers to lower security, or participation in work-release programs, or eligible for furloughs as a result of their efforts to prepare for success upon release.
As Zig Ziglar wrote, if we can help other people get what they want, we can get everything we want. We promote reforms that will incentivize the pursuit of excellence. We want to introduce policy and legislative changes that encourage people to work toward earning freedom through merit. To succeed in building such pathways, we have to show how we’re improving the culture of confinement, making institutions and communities safer. We’re designing our website to serve as a persuasive argument for reform.
Information for Employers, Funders, and Partners
Another important segment of our audience includes prospective employers, funders, and corporate partners.
These visitors don’t need content about navigating incarceration. They want to understand our impact, our stewardship of resources, and whether our work is contributing to long-term improvements in the criminal justice system.
We encourage them to explore our Impact dashboards, corporate partner pages, and blog. There, they’ll see how we operate as a non-revenue-generating organization that offers everything free of charge, with one commitment: improving outcomes for people at every stage of the criminal justice journey.
A Shared Framework
No matter where someone enters the site, a common theme runs through everything we do.
We teach people how to think strategically, take responsibility, document effort, and live as if they are the CEO of their own life. That framework applies whether someone is preparing for sentencing, working inside a prison, hiring talent, or supporting reform.
We designed our platform to meet people where they are—and help them move forward with clarity. If you ever feel overwhelmed by the amount of content, return to the menus. Start with what applies to you. Use our AI chatbot, and the many tools we create to serve you now.
We’ll keep building. You focus on preparing for the highest level of liberty, at the soonest possible time.