Solely relying on recidivism reduction as the goal of correctional success limits what could be achieved through the correctional system. Pursuing correctional success in the form of making people 'not criminal' inherently assumes a starting point where people are 'criminal'. The language we use, the approaches we take, all originate with a goal to change criminals instead of empowering humans. A different measurement of correctional success could be that people are better than their arrival to the correctional system. Whatever they looked like upon entry to the system, broadly defined, their time spent under supervision should make them better in the future. They could be healthier (physically and mentally), with less dependence on illicit substances, more educated, more employable, and with stronger relationships to family, friends, and community.
The purpose of this presentation is to inform and educate audience members on the design, pilot implementation, challenges, and benefits of a framework to measure correctional success as enhancing the well-being of people who are incarcerated. We introduce a well-being framework co-designed by university researchers and incarcerated men. The co-design approach ensures that the work is grounded in both scientific rigor and lived experience wisdom. The orientation, administration, and implementation are entirely peer-led, with the individual empowered to see their assessment and progress directly in front of them. With repeated assessments, individual scores and improvement across well-being can be documented, as can an overall aggregate score and improvement. Better than arrival corrections means enhancing well-being for as many people as possible.
Moderated by Natalie Boal, Executive Director, ICPA, Australia
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Dr Kevin Wright
Associate Professor, Arizona State University, United States
Kevin A. Wright is an associate professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice and director of the Center for Correctional Solutions at Arizona State University. He earned his Ph.D. in criminal justice from Washington State University in 2010. His work focuses on enhancing the lives of people living and working in the correctional system through research, education, and community engagement. Dr. Wright developed and taught the first Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program class in the state of Arizona and is a co-founder of the Arizona Transformation Project—a learning community of faculty, students, and people who are incarcerated. He was awarded the Washington State University Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology Distinguished Alumni Award in 2022, the American Society of Criminology Teaching Award in 2020, and the Arizona State University Faculty Women's Association Outstanding Faculty Mentor in 2019. Dr. Wright is co-author, alongside a man incarcerated for life, of the book Imprisoned Minds: Lost Boys, Trapped Men, and Solutions from Within the Prison (Rutgers University Press, 2025). He is currently the Deputy Chair of the ICPA Research and Development Network.
