Addressing the Impacts of Criminal Legal System Involvement and Reducing Stigma Through Digital Storytelling

Disparities in the criminal legal system are exacerbated by combined effects of racial oppression and criminal stigma. These effects often persist through interpersonal and structural mechanisms among justice-involved people of color. Psychologist Terrill Taylor and higher education scholar Royel Johnson will conduct a pilot study to develop and test JusticeReFramed, a digital storytelling intervention aimed to counteract these effects by fostering narrative-driven empathy and challenging negative stereotypes among employers. The investigators will employ a small-scale Randomized Controlled Trial (RCT) to assess the effectiveness of the intervention by randomly assigning participants to treatment and control groups and conducting pre- and post-assessments in two phases. The first phase analyzes how crafting personal narratives impacts Black justice-involved men’s intersectional stigma, resilience, and perceptions of employment barriers. The second phase assesses how exposure to these narratives affects employers’ empathy, stigma reduction, and hiring decisions.