Andrea Cantora
"Our classrooms are a great mix of traditional students and students who are actively working in the field. We often have current police officers and students who aspire to be police officers sitting in the same room. Having this mix of students engage in dialogue makes classroom discussions incredibly rich.
"Overall, we take a very practical approach to all of our courses. We try to teach our students actual skills that they will use in the field – how to be a good communicator, writer and empathetic public servant. We also tailor our courses to highlight current issues different branches of the system are dealing with today, and the evidence-based strategies to improve the issues."
Andrea Cantora is an assistant professor for the School of Criminal Justice within the University of Baltimore's College of Public Affairs. She serves as director of the University's Second Chance College Program, offered at the medium-security Jessup Correctional Institution. Each spring, she teaches the National Inside-Out Prison Exchange Course there and provides UBalt students with a unique perspective of criminal justice issues as they learn alongside their incarcerated peers.
Cantora's primary research interests are focused on issues related to incarceration, prison re-entry and urban crime prevention. Since 2002, she has conducted research in prisons, jails and community correction settings in New Jersey, New York and Maryland. Her work has been published in the Journal of Offender Rehabilitation, Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice and Criminology, Criminal Justice Studies and American Journal of Criminal Justice.