Interview with Ashley Anderson: Reflection

Biggest Takeaways from Ashley Anderson

Ashley Anderson is the Co-Director of Behavior Analytic Services at the Alabama Department of Youth Services. Her insights spotlight processes inside the justice and legal system as well as what life looks like after release.

Most people expect that incarcerated youth get very little say over aspects of their lives. As Ms. Anderson said: they can’t wear their hair the way they want or wear the clothes they want. Their daily lives down to the small details are determined by judges and officials inside the system. 

Yet, she extended this to an area of life I hadn’t considered much: they have little say in reentry as well. This goes against common belief (once they are released, their lives are entirely their say, no?), but their lives are dictated by parole officers.

Loss of agency is one of the most quiet yet damaging aspects of incarceration. Expecting youth to instantly master autonomy the second they step out the door, while still under parole mandates, ignores how much personal agency they lost inside.

After rewatching this interview, I think I agree most with a specific statement she said: it is naive to throw people back out into the same community they were before without resources and support to help them thrive. Because, other than that time within a correctional facility, what changed?

Think of it this way: at a young age, children are easily influenced. The acts committed by a child are often reflective of the environment and the conditions around them, not by any innate quality in the child. How, then, is it logical to put that child right back into that community without a stabilization system?

As a society, we must work to reshape and strengthen our reentry process. We must ensure that every person is offered adequate support and help when reentering their community. I admire Ms. Anderson’s ability to think of this topic from a variety of different angles, and I believe everyone should take some time to reflect on each of these angles and questions.

These children’s lives have been completely uprooted. Do they have access to jobs or transportation? Do they have a standing support system? How does that entire support system come together to support them? How does the family and the caregivers transition? How do they navigate this and offer support to their loved one?

We need to offer incarcerated youth a stabilization process for when they go back into society.

This interview has added a new layer and insight to the way I view our juvenile justice system and incarcerated youth. I’ve realized that we often think that once a child finishes their sentence, the slate is wiped clean. It is unfair to expect a child to navigate their old environment independently and resist the conditions that led them into the legal system in the first place. There is no clean slate.

We often isolate the youth as the "problem to be fixed," forgetting that they belong to a family and a community that was also affected by their absence and trauma.

This interview challenged me to look beyond the immediate walls of correctional facilities and examine what happens when the doors open. I now realize how easy it is to overlook the hidden structural barriers these young people face when trying to rebuild their lives in the exact environment that shaped their struggles in the first place.

I encourage everyone to listen to or read this interview with an open mind, and to reflect on how we view reentry. Ultimately, if we want these kids to thrive, we have to stop treating rehabilitation as an isolated task for the child and start seeing it as a collective duty, where each one of us steps up to support our community.