If we are to honor the dignity of every person and respect the sanctity of human life, we need a more balanced and diversified approach that recognizes confrontation and coercion are not the only, and often not the best, strategies for protecting our communities. Research-informed innovation that builds a more flexible and effective toolbox of responses is needed to move us towards the more peaceful, flourishing, and just society that is the shared objective of conservatives and progressives alike.    – Brookings /American Enterprise Institute, A Better Path Forward.

Evaluating Outcomes

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Open Sky is committed to gathering and quantifying outcomes that will support both the development of the program, and our ability to create a clear, transferable model for other institutions committed to creating similar positive outcomes for their resident communities. 

As part of this effort, Open Sky, Inc. is being evaluated by JSI Research & Training Institute, Inc., an independent, multi-national public health care and health systems consultant and research company, and has submitted an application for evidence-based review by the NH Center for Excellence Service to Science Expert Panel. 

​Participants Outcomes 

Open Sky rewires how participants think of themselves. As stated by Founder Derek Lucci, “In taking part in this process, participants are put into contact with their most earnest self.” According to the Key Informant Interviews conducted by JSI, Open Sky participants experience:

• Increased self-awareness
• An increased sense of self-worth, self-esteem, and self-confidence
• Increased self-control/decrease impulsivity
• Improved speech, increased eye contact and improved communication skills
• Increased empathy and thoughtfulness, ability to think things through and more engagement with others
• The ability to find comfort in an uncomfortable situation 
• An improved way of treating others 

​Prison Culture Outcomes 

Residents who participate in Open Sky take their personal change back to the unit. This outcome in the prison culture, has been described by key stakeholders as:

• “Help the guards do their jobs better.” – JB
• Measurable Improvement in institutional conduct before, during and after the program. -Helen

Community Perceptions of Corrections

Introducing, promoting, and publicizing humanities in prisons can positively impact the prison community in the following ways:

• Increased reintegration with communities in the form of transition to community collaborators
• Humanizing the correctional institution’s environment through performances, exhibitions, readings and diversifying the types of artists and performers providing enrichment in the same way that these creative and constructive activities enhance the quality of life in our communities
• Increasing community awareness of the realities of incarceration and reasons for supporting and mentoring people during/upon reintegration