Dismantling Barriers in Professional Psychology: Supporting Formerly Justice-Involved Students and Trainees

In the United States, approximately 1.9 million adults are incarcerated, 5.5 million individuals are under some form of correctional supervision, and nearly 80 million people live with the collateral consequences of having a legal record. Given the continued popularity of psychology as an undergraduate major, it is conceivable that formerly justice-involved people are and will continue to be our students, trainees, and colleagues. Meanwhile, colleges, universities, academic disciplines, and professional organizations are increasingly engaging in discussions around inclusion of people with lived experience, and in 2022 the American Psychological Association took a concrete step to foster more inclusion for formerly justice-involved psychologists by removing the felony history question on its membership application. However, to our knowledge, there are no resources that explicitly detail the experiences of formerly justice-involved people in professional psychology. This paper - written by formerly justice-involved psychologists and our allies - detail our own experiences in health service psychology training programs. By sharing these experiences, we identify discriminatory policies that restrict access, impede advancement, and create unique and hidden difficulties for justice-impacted people in health service psychology. We also describe strategies to improve practices in training programs and offer suggestions to psychology leaders invested in fostering inclusion and belonging for formerly justice-involved people.