Ola Abdelrahman’s (she/her) family is from Long Beach, CA and is a diaspora child of Sudanese ethnicity. Abdelrahman is a senior in the SFS studying International Politics and originally based in the SFS-Q campus, but will be spending her fall semester here at the hilltop! She has been interested in the justice system, its rectification and reforms since the beginning of her Undergraduate journey, especially concerning its impact on and discrimination against Black people, and hopes to continue researching and pursuing this topic further through her Master’s degree and career.
Research Project: Gender and Racial Disparities in Post-Prison Reintegration: Challenges Faced by Black Women
In this research project, I will be exploring the gendered and racial disparities that are faced by Black women with post-prison integration- especially within the Washington D.C. area. I will be focusing particularly on the struggles unique to Black women or to the challenges and issues that they encounter specifically as a result of their intersecting identities; this varies from challenges in securing employment and housing to disparities in healthcare. While a considerable amount of data can be found regarding the experience of majority groups with reincarceration and post-prison integration, there is not much data that can be found regarding the experience of such struggles by Black women. Hence, I hope to bridge this gap between Black women’s experiences versus what we know about them and what we can be doing to create reforms and encourage discourse about such a topic. Findings from this research will contribute to academic discourse on intersectionality and prison reentry while offering practical policy recommendations to improve support services for Black women reentering society. The research will utilize a mixed-methods approach, combining a literature review with qualitative interviews of formerly incarcerated Black women and program evaluations to assess the effectiveness of support systems.