Welcome to ViRSE

ViRSE (Virtual Reentry Simulation Experience) is an interactive game that simulates the real-world challenges people face after leaving incarceration, helping players understand, practice, and prepare for successful reentry.

ViRSE is designed for multiple audiences, including people who are currently incarcerated, individuals recently released, the general public, and organizations or agencies that use it for training, education, and policy analysis. The prototype we've developed is the version for those who are currently incarcerated.

Players navigate housing, employment, supervision requirements, healthcare access, and other common reentry challenges. The game helps users explore consequences, identify barriers, and learn strategies in a safe, virtual environment.

ViRSE incorporates state-specific laws, policies, and real-world reentry constraints, with input from legal experts, data analysts, and people with lived experience of incarceration.

Protecting user data is a top priority for ViRSE. All data used for research, analysis, and reporting is anonymized and aggregated, meaning it cannot be used to identify individual players. Personal identifiers are never included in analytical datasets, and individual gameplay data is not shared in a way that could trace activity back to a specific person. ViRSE uses strong cybersecurity practices, secure data storage, and responsible data governance to ensure that sensitive information is protected at every stage, from gameplay to analysis.

To help us maximize the proper use of this anonymized and aggregated data, we are partnering with the Friday Institute for Educational Innovation at NC State University, a leading data research center that "conduct[s] systematic evaluations to understand and improve the impact of promising practices, programs and policies." Their professionals have been with us since the very first day of product development.

No! ViRSE will never be behind a paywall. No payments, subscriptions, or fees will be required from incarcerated players or their loved ones to access or play the game

OurJourney, a North Carolina reentry nonprofit organization, created ViRSE in collaboration with technologists, researchers, legal experts, and people with lived experience of incarceration, including Jesse Crosson of Second Chancer Foundation, who serves our Project Director.

OurJourney partnered with Slalom for the design and development of the ViRSE prototype with funding and guidance provided by CoreCivic and AWS.

Slalom hosted Stakeholder Sessions with over two dozen individuals in several categories: reentry nonprofit organizations, prison telecommunications, legal experts, family members of the formerly incarcerated, researchers and data analysts, policy experts, and people with lived experience of incarceration.

In addition, we took ViRSE inside a CoreCivic Reentry Center in Raleigh, NC, and asked seven house residents (six men and one woman) to interact with the prototype and provide feedback. The participants represented a range of ages, and all had arrived at the Reentry Center from federal prisons within the last 6 months, including one who had just arrived the day before.

All seven were compensated for their time and all agreed to allow us to share their responses and photos from their sessions.

The projected launch date for ViRSE is the fourth quarter of 2026. However, that date is subject to change (earlier or later) depending on funding.

Yes, that is our ultimate goal, for ViRSE to be available for every single incarcerated person in the USA, male and female, whether they are incarcerated in a state prison, federal prison, private prison, juvenile center, county detention center, or any other facility.

We know we won't achieve this goal overnight, but we are already having meaningful conversations to ensure that ViRSE addresses the unique needs of everyone, regardless of gender and age.

Yes! While the prototype isn't available for individual users to interact with on their own, we would be happy to set up a time to demonstrate it for you virtually. Please fill out the Contact Us form with all of the required information and someone from our team will reach out to you to make the necessary arrangements.