Speaker Series: Lucius Couloute

Roughly 600,000 people are released from prison each year. Contemporary reentry systems, or webs of post-incarceration services, are typically organized around transforming this population into law-abiding, productive, and responsible citizens. Lucius Couloute’s talk examines how formerly incarcerated people conceptualize reentry services amid severe structural barriers to (re)integration. In particular, Couloute will link narratives of individualism to the various forms of exclusion and “support” described by a sample of formally criminalized people. The cleavages between post-imprisonment needs and available resources begs a critical evaluation of both existing interventions and potential alternatives. As such, Couloute will also explore a somewhat novel (re)integrative support – direct cash transfers – for their capacity to promote post-incarceration success.

To register, contact Sophie Kofman at skofman@abfn.org. 

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lucius Couloute is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Suffolk University. He came to Suffolk University in the summer of 2019. Previously, Couloute worked as a policy analyst with the Prison Policy Initiative where he produced policy reports using Bureau of Justice Statistics data and advocated for criminal justice reform.

Couloute’s primary research interests involve the practices, processes, and impacts of criminalization. His current research investigates the structural barriers and cultural ideas that permeate a northeastern prisoner reentry system. His work also examines how organizations produce, mediate, or experience systems of inequality.