An Insider’s Look at a Prison’s Imprint

On the last day of Assistant Professor Robert Stewart’s “Courts and Sentencing” class, he reveals a familiarity with the topic that’s more than academic: He has a felony record and once served two years in prison.

“It’s easy to sensationalize because of TV shows, so it’s important to put a real human face on the experiences,” he says.

Today, the criminologist studies the social, political and economic effects of criminal legal involvement, from the pitfalls of background checks, which can hinder people from getting jobs and housing, to parenting consequences, such as being banned from volunteering at school.

Stewart shares what landed him in prison, why he discloses his own criminal record and why policymakers should rethink taking away voting rights.

How did you become incarcerated?
I grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota. Although I did well in school early on, I got involved with drinking and using drugs—and later selling drugs—in high school. In my 20s, I was arrested a few times for possession and eventually sentenced to serve 25 months in prison plus parole.

How did you go from being convicted to studying the consequences of criminal records?
In prison, I had the opportunity to earn a few credits through an in-prison college program, and enrolled at a community college after my release. I then started the application to transfer to the University of Minnesota, but when, on the last page of the application, it asked if I had ever been convicted of a crime, I was stunned and surprised.

Although I eventually submitted it (and jumped through several hoops before I was accepted), that experience stuck with me. This inspired my dissertation project, in which I fielded an audit experiment to test whether criminal records can be a barrier to college. I found that applicants with records were three times as likely to be rejected.

Why are you relatively open about your felony, and how does that connect to your research?
Representation is important. Our criminology department includes former Justice Department officials, federal prosecutors and police chiefs, which is great. But there is also a lot to learn from the experiences of people who have been subjected to these systems.

I don’t believe my expertise comes from my lived experiences, but rather my doctoral training. However, my experiences do inform my research questions and interpretations, just like my colleagues’ experiences inform theirs.

As the presidential election nears, what do you want people to know about felons and voting rights?
The last decade has featured the largest expansion of voting rights, likely since Reconstruction. I joined the Sentencing Project in 2022, and we’ve estimated the total number of Americans who couldn’t vote because of a felony record has decreased by 25% since 2016 to 4.4 million in 2022.

I urge people to consider what value there is in stripping someone of their right to vote on top of their criminal sentences. People vote because they care about their communities, and I believe we should encourage that.