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Hello everyone! My name is Marlee. I graduated from Whitman College in May of 2016. During my four years in college, I developed an intense passion for exploring the topics of incarceration and criminal justice. Every summer of my college career included an internship or research dedicated to these topics, and I finagled my way into discussing incarceration in most of my college essays. I also organized events helping other students and community members to learn more about prisons, and I even planned a weeklong service trip for my peers, taking a group of students to Olympia where we explored the Washington state corrections system. I note all of this to establish that I am a prison nut—I have dedicated an immense amount of energy and time to understanding criminal justice systems, and they continue to fascinate me. It is with this passion that I am hoping to take the next step in my exploration.
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I am proposing a project that would allow me to spend a year of focused learning on the topic of prisons and incarceration internationally. I will enter into a global enquiry on how different societies address transgression. I am interested in both the people who end up in penal systems and those who operate and create these systems. I also desire to understand the perspectives of everyday people not directly involved in punitive systems: what are their perceptions of the system and philosophies on punishment?
I hope that you will all take the time to read my Personal Essay and Project Proposal; this began as a proposal for the Watson fellowship, which I applied to in late 2015 and did not receive (you can only apply once), and these are the two essays that I submitted. I put a lot of time and energy into the two essays and they are what really capture what my project is and why I want to do it. |
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