Incarcerated Scholars Advocacy

NAIScholars Overview

About NAIScholars

The National Association of Incarcerated Scholars (NAIScholars) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to giving voice to incarcerated and formerly incarcerated scholars. The NAIScholars works to improve educational access, academic success, and post-release opportunities through advocacy, peer networks, and resource coordination. The NAIScholars is led by individuals with lived experience and is designed to serve as a national organizing body for incarcerated scholars — an emerging but underserved population at the nexus of higher education and criminal justice reform.

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At National Association of Incarcerated Scholars, we believe that every student has the potential to succeed. We strive to create an inclusive and supportive learning environment that empowers students to reach their full potential and achieve their goals.

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NAIScholars Membership

At National Association of Incarcerated Scholars, we are passionate about facilitating high-quality education to all individuals. Our story began with a desire to make education accessible to everyone, regardless of their background or location. We believe that education is a powerful tool that can transform lives and create positive change in the world.

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NAIScholars Involvement

We invite people of different careers and levels of engagement with incarceration to get involved. We strive to not only educate currently and formerly incarcerated people, but to also convey the importance of such education with everyone. Fill out this form to sign up for the general mailing list!

Click here to learn more about how you can get involved at every level of knowledge.

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I was inspired to create the NAIScholars while conducting research in preparation to give a presentation for the Incarcerated Scholars Conference (ISC) in October 2025, hosted by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison (AHEP). The theme of the conference was Pathways to Possibilities. I chose to present on the Education as Resistance track, and titled my presentation, "Resistance is Not Futile." My thesis included advocating for the need to provide incarcerated students higher education, not just because of the empirical evidence of reduction in recidivism, but for the need to provide a critical education under the Freirian critical pedagogical framework. In my view, providing incarcerated people such an education will not only result in reduction of recidivism rates, but also raise our consciousness enabling us to clearly understand the systemic issues at work that perpetuates poverty, violence, and other traumas in our lives, the lives of our families and community members. Being equipped with this knowledge would motivate many of my incarcerated peers to return to our communities and work as advocates for systemic change while repairing the harm we've personally caused in our communities. We would return as restorers rather than destroyers, as socially conscious advocates rather than apathetic cogs in a machine.

Utilizing my education, knowledge, skills, and passion for education and advocacy, coupled with my lived experience, the NAIScholars will serve as both a voice and vehicle for transformative change by providing higher education opportunities for incarceration students and scholars. While higher education opportunities for incarcerated people have expanded in recent years, there is no unified, national organization led by incarcerated scholars themselves to advocate for our needs, connect us to opportunities, and elevate our perspectives. Now there is. As leader of the NAIScholars, I intend to address these unmet needs by creating a scholar-led infrastructure that centers dignity, critical education, and leadership. Because we are a national organization, we will reach incarcerated people throughout the nation, with plans to expand our reach globally.

A crucial aspect of my vision for the NAIScholars, is to create curricula based on the Freirian problem-posing educational model. It is my belief that the current model of education prevalent in our society has resulted in many incarcerated people being shuttled onto the school-to-prison pipeline due to the inability of this educational model to critically educate and produce problem-solvers. The problem-posing curricula envisioned will be taught by trained, like-minded professors, paid incarcerated learning assistants, and incarcerated adjunct professors, who see the importance of providing a critically conscious education for their peers. With the achievement of these goals, I envision a future where the NAIScholars plays an important role in eliminating the school-to-prison pipeline, eventually abolishing society's reliance on prisons by starving the carceral state of the bodies that feed it.

If this story resonates with you, join in solidarity with us to build something that will benefit society in ways we have yet to imagine.

In solidarity,

Jamel Idris Walker

Founder & Executive Director

National Association of Incarcerated Scholars

National Association of Incarcerated Scholars (NAIScholars)

NAIScholars Overview

About NAIScholars

Team

NAIScholars Membership

NAIScholars Involvement

NAIScholars Founder Jamel Walker

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