From left to right, professors Lauren Katz Smith, Clare Strange and Jordan Hyatt of the Drexel Justice Collaborative.

At Drexel University, the study of justice reform is more than an academic exercise. Faculty and students are connecting research and real-world practice to explore what a more humane model of incarceration could look like—from Nordic prisons abroad to experimental housing units in Pennsylvania.

The Drexel Justice Collaborative (DJC) serves as a lab where faculty and students across disciplines learn about and take part in justice-related research and community projects. Funded by the College of Arts and Sciences and the Kline School of Law, the DJC provides a home for applied work that links law, policy and social research.

The DJC is directed by Jordan Hyatt, JD, PhD, professor of criminology and justice studies and affiliated faculty member at Drexel’s Kline School of Law. He works closely with Lauren Katz Smith, JD, assistant professor of law and director of the Andy and Gwen Stern Community Lawyering Clinic, who leads the collaborative’s community engagement efforts, and with Clare Strange, PhD, assistant research professor in the Department of Criminology and Justice Studies, who oversees research coordination.

“The Justice Collaborative brings those perspectives together,” Hyatt explained. “Our goal is to develop policy that’s grounded in both data and human experience, and to give students a role in testing what change looks like.”

Studying More Humane Justice Models

Through the Justice Collaborative, Drexel faculty are studying how Scandinavian prison approaches can inform correctional reform in Pennsylvania. This work is part of the Scandinavian Prison Project, co-led by Hyatt and Synøve N. Andersen, PhD, associate professor of sociology at the University of Oslo. The externally funded initiative by Arnold Ventures examines how Nordic principles such as trust, autonomy and normalcy might translate to American facilities.

At the center of the effort is SCI Chester’s Little Scandinavia, a specialized housing unit established by the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC). Drexel plays a unique role in the collaboration as the only law school involved, connecting research with student-driven legal work.

“Drexel brings research and practice together through its work with SCI Chester and other justice-focused initiatives,” Hyatt said. “This opportunity gives Drexel a distinct position within the partnership.” Researchers from the DJC support the evaluation and training components, while law students from Kline work directly with residents through the Stern Community Lawyering Clinic.

The Scandinavian Prison Project has collaborated with the DOC since 2018 and continues to evolve. Hyatt’s research team serves as a long-term partner, helping evaluate culture change and institutional well-being. The project is now expanding to three additional state prisons, extending Drexel’s engagement for years to come.

“We’re trying to understand how Little Scandinavia is different for the people who live and work there,” Hyatt said. “We measure prison climate through surveys and interviews with staff and residents and look at data on violence and rule violations to see how the environment is changing.”

One of the project’s clearest findings so far is that staff and resident well-being are closely linked.

“What improves life for staff often improves life for residents—and the reverse is also true,” Hyatt reflected. “Improving the climate inside a prison means addressing both sides of that equation.”

Connecting Classroom Learning to Real-world Reform

The Scandinavian Perspectives on Humanity & Justice course, co-led by Hyatt and Katz Smith, connects academic study with direct observation of how justice systems function. Developed by Hyatt in collaboration with Andersen, the course reflects a distinctive partnership between Drexel and Norwegian partners that brings both perspectives to the classroom and the field. Students explore how dignity and rehabilitation shape incarceration, discussing what humane reform could look like in practice.

Before traveling abroad, the class visits SCI Chester, where they tour Little Scandinavia—the housing unit modeled on Nordic principles that students learn about in class. The visit gives them a firsthand view of how ideas such as trust and autonomy are being tested inside a Pennsylvania prison. They meet with staff and residents, see how the unit operates and understand how the environment differs from traditional correctional settings.

“It’s one thing to read about the Nordic model,” Katz Smith noted. “But it’s another to see parts of it operating here. That experience changes what students notice once they go abroad.”

The SCI Chester visit sets the stage for their travel to Norway and Sweden, where students meet with correctional officers, judges and policymakers. They tour prisons built around smaller living units and learn how routine activities—education, recreation, daily work—reflect a commitment to normalcy and preparation for life after release.

“The Scandinavian model gives students an entirely new frame of reference,” Hyatt said. “They realize that every justice system reflects a set of values. Once you see how those values differ, you start asking better questions about what’s possible here.”

After returning to Philadelphia, some students extend their learning by engaging with justice reform through the Stern Community Lawyering Clinic. This yearlong, community-based clinic is one way students can fulfill Kline’s experiential learning requirement. Using a community lawyering approach, the clinic works on a variety of legal matters, including supporting returning citizens facing the collateral consequences of a criminal record. Students learn by collaborating directly with people navigating complex processes and by reflecting on how clients’ legal challenges illuminate broader systemic patterns and failures.

“At its core, the clinic is about engaging alongside people as they navigate the law’s impact on their lives,” Katz Smith explained. “The clinic invites students to see law not as a tool used on behalf of others, but as a shared practice rooted in listening, collaboration and collective problem-solving.”

Among the clinic’s projects is its ongoing partnership with SCI Chester, where students assist residents of Little Scandinavia in assembling parole materials, planning for reentry and preparing for their parole hearing. The work emphasizes collaboration and shared respect. Students visit the housing unit, where they share meals with residents, learn from them and provide direct legal support.

“I hope that by the end of the experience, both students and clients see the lawyer-client relationship in a new light,” Katz Smith said. “Students come to understand that stories are complex, and that trust takes time to build, and clients experience what it means to be genuinely heard. Those interactions redefine how students think about advocacy.”

The course and the clinic’s projects share a philosophy of experiential learning but operate independently.

Students can take either one or, as in the case of Madi Leventhal, JD ’26, and Caroline Albert, JD ’26, participate in both. For some, the connection feels natural, linking classroom reflection with practical work inside SCI Chester.

Leventhal said the course and the pro bono work deepened her thinking about reform.

“You can have a correctional facility and still have people working there who are genuinely committed to compassion, empathy and humanity.”

The experience, she said, was motivating—especially seeing people invested in compassionate, reform-minded work.

Leventhal reflected on the class’s discussions about avoiding a “grass is greener” mindset and said that in Norway, prison is still prison, and every system has limits, even as the intentionality behind the work stood out.

Albert said being inside Little Scandinavia gave her a clearer sense of how the environment shaped daily life.

“We were actually in the unit, seeing open doors, lighter colors and people spending time together,” she said. She added that the environment felt far less divided than a typical prison setting.

She said the parole-preparation work made the system’s practical barriers especially visible.

Albert noted that the parole-prep work highlighted how basic tasks that are routine on the outside become long, complicated processes inside the facility.

For many students, that sense of connection extends beyond a single semester. Working with residents, community advocates and faculty mentors helps them understand how small exchanges can influence how justice feels in practice. Some bring those lessons into other clinics or co-op placements, where they continue exploring questions of fairness and accountability from new angles.

Katz Smith said the clinic experience is designed to give students room to think, ask questions and sit with uncertainty. The process, she explained, is about learning to listen and to recognize where their role begins and ends.

“In community work, you have to learn how to be responsive without taking over,” she said.

That approach mirrors what they will face as lawyers. It teaches them that lawyering requires flexibility and humility as much as preparation and hard work.

“You can’t help someone if you don’t understand what matters to them,” she added. “The work inside SCI Chester makes that clear in a way no textbook can.”

For Katz Smith, the goal is not just awareness, but imagination. “When students see the depth of people’s capacity for change,” she said, “they begin to picture a society that chooses to believe in and nurture that capacity too. That’s how systems change.”

Evaluating Progress and Shaping Policy

Hyatt’s team continues to analyze data from SCI Chester and new partner prisons to understand how staff culture and resident experiences evolve. The goal is to identify which Nordic-inspired practices are feasible and sustainable in U.S. correctional settings.

“Research like this is about creating a foundation for informed policy,” Hyatt explained. “It’s not about importing ideas; it’s about testing them, measuring their impact and understanding what adaptation looks like.”

For the DOC, those findings can help shape decisions about staff training, facility design and future programming. For Drexel, they demonstrate how academic research can inform policy while giving students a firsthand look at reform in motion.

“We’re not observing this from afar,” Hyatt noted. “We’re in the field, working with officers, leaders and residents to understand what reform looks like day to day.”

Redefining Justice Through Collaboration

The work at SCI Chester reflects Drexel’s approach to experiential learning, where education, research and community engagement overlap. It also shows how partnerships between universities and state agencies can responsibly test new ideas, using evidence to guide each step.

For Hyatt, the project reinforces the value of international learning and applied research. “These aren’t just study trips,” he said. “They have a meaningful impact on how students, correctional professionals and policymakers think about their work.”

Beyond SCI Chester, the Drexel Justice Collaborative supports additional projects on sentencing reform, autism and the justice system and community-based policy research, all grounded in the same goal of connecting evidence to practice.

While the research continues to evolve, its focus remains simple. It’s about collaborating, listening to the people closest to change and testing what’s possible.

“We’re still asking questions,” Hyatt said. “But that’s how change starts, by staying curious and learning from the people closest to it.”