| Title | Poor Not Guilty: An Experiential Street Law Education on the Criminalization of Poverty through Perspective-Taking |
| Presenter(s) | Lien Tran, Tamar Ezer, Lily Fontenot and David Stuzin |
| Session | Gaming for Society 1 |
| Time | Thursday, October 13, 1:00p-2:00p |
| Location | MSU Room |
| Format | Paper Presentation |
| Description | Cities and states throughout the United States impose fines for minor offenses at every stage of the criminal justice system. Without any means of escape from a system designed to punish poverty, millions of Americans lose their jobs, homes, and even their children. Two of the major roadblocks to change when addressing the criminalization of poverty are a lack of awareness and a lack of empathy. In order to educate audiences who are less likely to be exposed to or directly impacted by such unfair practices, a team of game designers and legal experts collaborated on the Poor Not Guilty Challenges, a set of experiences in which players perspective-take as someone impacted by the criminalization of such petty offenses. These challenges were used in a pilot classroom as part of a secondary education Street Law lesson plan and have additional use cases in other advocacy and learning settings. |
| Top Paper Award | This paper was selected by the program committee as a Meaningful Play 2022 Top Paper. |
