Shaun McKnight

During the 14 years and 11 months that Shaun McKnight spent in prison, he could only watch from a distance as his family members aged and experienced life without him by their side. Locked in a cold, dark, and dim facility with “power-hungry officers,” Shaun constantly experienced a feeling of anxious dread while incarcerated. One of the only spaces where Shaun felt comfortable letting down his guard in was in prison education programs.

Shaun acknowledges that change is a personal choice, but he also asserts that “there must be structure or a program to assist with this change.” For Shaun, that program was Bard College, from which he received his associate’s degree. Describing the education he received behind bars as “priceless,” Shaun says he leveraged his studies to “rehabilitate himself.”

While Shaun made some of his closest friends in prison, he was unable to benefit from frequent interaction with the friends and family he left behind in Washington D.C., since visiting Shaun in prison entailed a 6 to 7 hour road trip to New York. Upon his release, Shaun developed the idea for Traveling Bridges, a small business that will allow family members to visit their loved ones who are imprisoned out of state. This would provide incarcerated people with access to the vital human connections that Shaun so often lacked himself. As he puts it, “people need visits for rehabilitation purposes.”

In 2020, Shaun joined the Douglass Project as a Fellow, where he openly shares his story to ensure that others can learn from his mistakes. “We need the cycle to stop,” he says of the pattern of incarceration that sweeps through families, neighborhoods, and entire communities. By using his own story to advocate for change, Shaun is taking much-needed and brave steps to end this pattern and create new success stories.