America’s prisons are packed. The United States has the lowest violent crime rate, yet it has the world’s highest rate of incarceration, and it jails criminal offenders for longer periods than any other industrialized country. That has led to a national epidemic of overcrowding. Alabama’s prison system, in particular, has been on the verge of a federal takeover due to overcrowding and issues related to it—including the sexual abuse of inmates.

Martha Earwood’s Community Corrections course explores innovative solutions that can help the criminal justice system reduce these problems. But our attitudes are the first and most important thing that must change, she says. The average person gives prison overcrowding and its effects on inmates little thought and less sympathy. “We are stuck in our stereotypes of ‘you did the crime, now do the time,’” explains Earwood, assistant professor in the UAB College of Arts and Sciences Department of Justice Sciences.