Changing the Future of Prisons in America

The U.S. prison system wasn’t built to fail, but right now, it’s struggling. With 1.8 million people behind bars and a $50 billion-a-year industry, mass incarceration has become a system that profits from punishment. It disproportionately targets certain communities, with Black men making up nearly 40% of the prison population despite being only 5.7% of the U.S. population. The school-to-prison pipeline is so entrenched that failing third-grade math scores in inner cities are used to predict how many prison cells are built. Even for those who make it out, the system is designed to continue fueling cycles of recidivism.

Andre Norman himself was never supposed to get out of prison. By the time he was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison, he was known as a hardened gang leader who eventually landed himself two years in solitary confinement. But it was in spending 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, locked in a cell that he realized his life didn’t have to end this way. Then and there, he made a decision: not only would he change his life, but he would go to Harvard.

When he won his appeal and walked out of prison after a total of 14 years behind bars, he was a completely different man. He went straight to work – within 90 minutes of his release, he was standing in front of a room full of young men at a juvenile center, showing them what was possible beyond a life in prison.

That moment was the beginning of Andre’s mission. He founded Second Chance University to help people transition from incarceration to opportunity. To date, he has touched the lives of over a million prisoners and works with organizations like the Department of Corrections, using his intimate knowledge of the prison system to help bridge the gap between staff and inmates. And, in 2016, Andre achieved his dream: he received a fellowship to Harvard Law School.

This session will serve as a wake-up call for public leaders, policymakers, and anyone who has the power to change the American prison system from the inside out. Andre will lay out practical solutions for rethinking rehabilitation, creating career pathways for returning citizens, and dismantling the barriers that keep millions locked in cycles of incarceration.