Steve McGuinn

Associate Professor of Criminal Justice and Criminal Justice Program Director

We construct meaning in our lives.  Meaning is not given.  But we do not live, all of us, the same life.  We are not all provided equal access to the benefits of this country.  We see different educations, different neighborhoods.  But we also live as different people with different families and different languages.  We may live similar lives but we do not live the same life.  Individual and collective realities shape our lives.  But the telling of our lives is only really done by us.

I received my BA in Philosophy from the University of Chicago in 2002.  I worked at the Sue Duncan Children’s center on the South Side during my time in Hyde Park.  Sue’s son, Arne, is the U.S. Secretary of Education.  Sue ran the children’s center for her entire life.  She is the most dedicated and kind woman I have ever met.  But context generates complexity.  I tutored nine and ten year old children who had never seen Lake Michigan – about ten blocks from the center.  I could barely fathom that reality not to mention all else that must have been, has been, and is denied to those children.  Many of them have since run into conflict with the justice system.

After college, I moved to San Francisco and worked with homeless youth.  Most of the youth were running from some place, running to some place.  Physical abuse, neglect, drug addiction, prostitution.  Eighteen, nineteen years old.  People are making decisions – but choice is contextual.  It is not possible to make a choice outside of context.  Severe unhappiness, chronic mental illness, unbearable relationships.

In 2004, I returned to school for my Masters of Science in Social Work at Columbia University.  During my time at Columbia and after graduation, I worked on Rikers Island in New York City.  Rikers Island is New York City’s jail.  There are those we are afraid of in jail and there are those we are mad at in jail.  Those we are mad at should not be in jail.  Case by case, we may rationalize our justice system, rationalize our own fear.  But collectively, our urban jails target poor black boys and men.  I do not believe we can ignore this aggregation of past and future disadvantage. Impossible context.

Rikers Island is an unhealthy place to live, to work, to be.  Years on the island generate unfortunate insensitivity and chronic health complications.  I left when I began to feel the weight of the island compromise my compassion.  But I did not abandon what I had witnessed.  I believe that we carry all of our experiences with us; they shape us and inform us; allow us to challenge ourselves and our neighbors.  We do not shed the environments we have seen; we do not shed the individuals we have known.  But it is always their story to tell.  It is always their life that is lived.

In 2013, I received my PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice from the University of Maryland, College Park.  I am primarily interested in imprisonment practices and in prisoner re-entry.  Prisons must be safe and humane institutions for prison workers and for prisoners.  Re-entry must work for those who re-enter.  Choices are made and actors should be held accountable to those choices.  But context – structural disadvantage – situates those choices.  I am very interested in student involvement in this re-entry work. Please come see me if you’d like to know more.