| ABOUT
THE AFTERLIVES OF CONVICTION PROJECT IS A RESEARCH-EDUCATION-ACTION INITIATIVE THAT DOCUMENTS THE HUMAN IMPACT OF A CRIMINAL CONVICTION.
Through the lens of employment, the project aims to deepen understanding of the lived experience of criminalization and challenge common sense about the meaning of criminal records. In collaboration with organizations and individuals working to end discrimination, it identifies pivot points between academia and on-the-ground work and strives to make scholarly data and concepts available to organizers, educators, and policymakers in engaging and useful ways.
PROJECT BACKGROUND
The Afterlives of Conviction Project is rooted in ethnographic investigation conducted by anthropologist Melissa Burch in southern California’s Inland Empire region. Beginning in 2014, the initial study engaged local business owners, hiring managers and HR professionals, as well as job seekers with recent felony convictions and their advocates, to examine how criminal records are considered and navigated in the hiring process. The Afterlives of Conviction Project features core insights generated by this study, as well as new data from ongoing research and community participation.
PEOPLE
RESEARCH AND DESIGN
Assistant Professor of Anthropology,
University of Michigan
Director, Afterlives of Conviction Project
Multidisciplinary designer and researcher passionate about using participatory design to increase accessibility and equity. Graduate of The New School in Integrated Design & Global Studies.
Political Science Ph.D. Student at the University of Michigan whose research focuses on state sanctioned and fostered structural and physical violence.
Illustrator, comic artist and arts educator from the Rio Grande Valley, Texas. Currently studying Art & Design at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
COMMUNITY COLLABORATORS
Reentry and criminal records litigator, National Director of Litigation for Economic Opportunity at Root & Rebound Reentry Advocates
![Susan - 2021 (March [2]).jpg](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bd5e09_20188ca52a4c492e9619c0b997e26b3b~mv2.jpg/v1/crop/x_1349,y_100,w_1981,h_2020/fill/w_245,h_250,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/Susan%20-%202021%20(March%20%5B2%5D).jpg)
Founder and President,
A New Way of Life Reentry Project.
Reentry employment advocate, Deputy Executive Director, California at Center for Employment Opportunities (CEO).