Bahiyyah M. Muhammad, Ph.D.

Dr. MuhammedBahiyyah M. Muhammad, Ph.D.

Dr. Bahiyyah Muhammad is a professor of criminology at Howard University in Washington, DC. For more than a decade, Dr. Muhammad has been conducting groundbreaking research on the children of incarcerated parents and the consequences of parental incarceration on children. Dr. Muhammad has done hundreds of interviews with affected children and parents in the United States, Uganda, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates. She has published research on the impact of parental incarceration – from witnessing a parent’s arrest by police to the physical and emotional separation resulting from actual incarceration – on children, their parents, and familial bonds, as well as children’s success stories, children of incarcerated parents’ attitudes toward police, and the ways in which the strengthening of parent-child bonds through communication and prison programming can reduce recidivism among incarcerated parents.

Dr. Muhammad has spoken on panels nationwide – most recently, on a panel hosted by The Atlantic expanding on Ta-Nehisi Coates’ conversation in his latest cover story The Black Family in the Age of Mass Incarceration – as well as at the White House and in countries in Africa, Europe, and Asia. She has worked with the US Federal Bureau of Prisons and the US Virgin Islands Bureau of Corrections and Police Department on ways to develop recidivism-reducing programming for incarcerated parents and police guidelines for conducting arrests when children are present, as well as the state corrections system in New Jersey.

Lastly, Dr. Muhammad has developed a first–of–its kind educational model – dubbed the Dr. Muhammad Experience – through which she brings university students and inmates together to study criminal justice in a prison facility. In the spring of this year, after holding class with the students/inmates via telephone for the duration of the semester, Dr. Muhammad brought her students to spend their spring break in a women’s prison facility in West Virginia – working and engaging with the women and their children during a week-long “Mom Camp.” Dr. Muhammad is the first teacher anywhere in the world to have students sleep in a prison as a required part of their course curriculum.

Workshop:

Rethinking Justice in America:  Truth and Service From the Inside Out “Rethinking Justice in America”
Description: This interactive workshop will engage youth participants in a critical discussion about the extremely punitive nature of the criminal justice system in America.  Youth will receive first hand “truths” from those directly affected by the criminal justice system and hear from HU students who lived in a prison as part of their Inside Out course curriculum.  Young leaders will brainstorm about how to use truth to be of service to the justice involved, which ultimately leads to a more just society.

Links:

Television

ABC 7 News

Howard University Criminology Class in DC Jail

Howard University Criminology Class in DC Jail.

Posted by Sam Ford7 on Thursday, December 3, 2015

Rock Newman Show

Dr. Bahiyyah Muhammad

Video

Howard University Inside Out Class

What Happens When Parents Go To Prison?/Race and Justice in America

The First Inside Out Program in the Nations Capital

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YRx7FGLtuo

The Dr. Muhammad Experience

Newspaper

Frontline News. DC Department of Corrections Newsletter. September 2015 (Volume 3, Issue 3).

Reentry Program Partners with Howard University for College Course

http://doc.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/doc/release_content/attachments/September%202015%20DOC%20Newsletter.pdf

CBS DC News.

DC Inmate Program Teaches Job Life Skills
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2015/12/15/dc-inmate-program-teaches-job-life-skills/
The Criminalization of Black Youth In the Classroom. New America. May 7, 2015.
http://www.newamerica.org/new-america/the-criminalization-of-black-youth-in-the-classroom-2/

Preschool to High School: Criminalization of Black Students. Epotch Times. May 11, 2015. By Gary Feuerberg.
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/1351666-preschool-to-high-school-criminalization-of-black-students/

The Washington Informer. May 27, 2015. By Stacy M. Brown.
Howard University Students Take Course Inside Prison: “Muhammad Experience” Encourages Stronger Relationships.

http://washingtoninformer.com/news/2015/may/27/howard-u-students-take-course-inside-prison/

http://washingtoninformer.com/photos/2015/may/27/141865/
Course Takes Howard Students Inside Prison: The Dr. Muhammad Experience Brings Learning Inside the Wall (Front Page Story). Volume 99, Issue 43. April 16, 2015. The Hilltop. The Student Voice of Howard University. By Brandon Patterson.
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/course-takes-howard-students-inside-prison/
Inside-Out: Department of Sociology To Teach Howard Students Inside A Prison. Volume 99, Issue 19. November 3, 2014. The Hilltop. The Student Voice of Howard University. By Devin Barnwell.
http://www.thehilltoponline.com/classrooms-in-prisons/
In Decline of Prison Populations, Convict Moms May Be Key Beneficiary. February 3, 2014. The Christian Science Monitor. By Claire Abbadi.
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2014/0203/In-decline-of-prison-populations-convict-moms-may-be-a-key-beneficiary

Magazine

Howard University Graduate School (HUGS) Research Magazine. Issue 003.
Experiences of Children of Incarcerated Parents: An Interview with Professor Bahiyyah Muhammad

http://hugsresearch.org/issues/003/children-of-incarcerated-parents.html

Drew Today. Drew University Magazine
Classrooms Behind Bars

http://www.drew.edu/news/2012/03/08/classrooms-behind-bars

Drew Today. Drew University Magazine
Prisons and P.R.E.P. Unite University

https://www.drew.edu/alumni/2012/02/prisons-and-p-r-e-p-unite-university

Rutgers Magazine. Rutgers University
The Just Cause

http://urwebsrv.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/fall-2010/a-two-way-street-sibling-story-1
Podcasts

HBCU Digest
Podcasts Series to Discuss the HU ‘Inside/Out’ Academic Program

http://hbcudigest.com/post/127638477676/howard-university-professor-bahiyyah-muhammad

Web

Project Iron Kids: Website
http://projectironkids.com

http://projectironkids.com/meet-the-founder/

Rate My Professor
http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=1838252

College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard University
http://www.coas.howard.edu/sociologyanthropology/news-and-events.html

Library of Congress News Release
http://www.loc.gov/today/pr/2015/15-102.html