UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — For incarcerated individuals, serving the completion of their sentence is just one obstacle they must overcome for a better future. Re-entering society after incarceration is an entirely different challenge and can be heightened by a lack of financial security and education.
To support individuals in their re-entry, the Smeal College of Business Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility has partnered with the Penn State Restorative Justice Initiative to develop and teach business skills at local prisons.
“By teaching individuals more about concepts that many people struggle with — such as budgeting and understanding how credit works — we are helping individuals to become more empowered in, and through, their financial decision making,” Michelle Darnell, director of the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, said.
Two sets of workshops, focusing on financial literacy — which was developed by three Smeal MBA students — and entrepreneurship, will meet weekly throughout April at local prisons to help incarcerated individuals navigate life after re-entering society.
Darnell was inspired to connect with Efrain Marimon, director of the Restorative Justice Initiative, after hearing about the success of the Prison Entrepreneurship Program, a national program that connects the nation’s top executives, entrepreneurs, and MBA students with convicted felons for education and mentoring.
Given the number of individuals within Smeal that have the subject matter expertise to support this type of work — as well as high demand for business education in local prisons — Darnell said she realized there was great potential to pursue a similar initiative for the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics to positively transform lives.
“Business can be an opportunity to improve lives at both individual and societal levels,” she said. “Developing skills that enable success in business and growing one’s knowledge base about how businesses operate helps to empower individuals to transform their lives.”
The work is currently volunteer based, but Darnell hopes that there will be financial support to further develop this initiative in the future.
The workshop on entrepreneurship is currently being taught by Jamey Darnell, assistant clinical professor of management at Smeal, who previously taught a similar course to incarcerated individuals at the University of South Florida. Jamey said he knew he wanted to participate in this initiative due to his belief that “business education can empower individuals and transform lives no matter the situation.”
The course will focus on channeling the participants’ skills, experiences, and passions into creating their own businesses since gaining employment with a criminal record can be difficult after re-entry. An excellent solution to this problem, he emphasized, is self-employment.
“It is my hope that the students will be empowered though this knowledge so that they can be positively contributing members of their communities,” said Jamey, who is also the assistant director for the Penn State entrepreneurship and innovation minor.
Lex Shawbaker, project leader, is among the three Smeal MBA students who developed the financial literacy course. She used to work as a financial literacy associate at Penn State’s Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center, and said she built off those experiences to develop the curriculum.
She said she hopes the course will communicate a narrative of what success looks like with the participants in their workshop and emphasize how they can cultivate their capabilities to make sound financial decisions upon re-entry.
“Being financially informed on how to make a budget, what credit scores measure, and how to save for ones' future has an exponential positive impact across society by empowering people to live their best lives,” Shawbaker said. “By the end of the series, I hope each student's financial confidence, knowledge, and budget are elevated to where they believe in their dreams and themselves.”
She said the effort is reflective of Smeal’s greater mission of empowering students to use their knowledge and experiences to serve their community, which she emphasized includes the often-forgotten population inside prison walls.
“This initiative embodies the Smeal College of Business's values by giving business students the chance to ethically leverage our knowledge to support others' integrity, show respect for others' lived experiences as sites of knowledge, and responsibly foster diverse, empowered communities,” Shawbaker said.
To learn more about the Tarriff Center for Business Ethics and Social Responsibility, visit the center’s website.