October 2-3 — “Exploring Issues of Crime and Justice from Inside the Walls”
The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program represents an innovative strategy for addressing the many social problems reinforced by cycles of incarceration including providing inmates with access to higher education and engaging university students in a deeper questioning of issues of crime and justice “behind the walls.”
When: Thursday, October 2, 7:30-9:30 PM; Friday October 3, 8:30-5:00
From the program website:
On April 25th 2005, the Justice Policy Institute announced that nearly 1,000 new individuals are now incarcerated each week in the U.S. At any given time, the U.S. has more incarcerated people—now over 2 million—than any other country in the world. At the same time, approximately 700,000 people are released from prisons every year, returning to communities where they lack the requisite skills to find jobs or pursue higher education. This means that many of them will end up returning to prison, establishing a cyclical pattern that enmeshes impoverished communities and penal institutions in an ever-tighter web, reinforcing the exclusion of both from access to meaningful opportunities to improve their lives.
According to Sheila Kennedy, attorney, Indianapolis Star columnist and IUPUI faculty member, approximately 4400 of those people released from prisons return to Indianapolis every year, most of them unable to find honest employment (10-09-06). This means that the majority will end up spending the remainder of their lives cycling in and out of the prison system. The one intervention that has clearly been shown to reduce recidivism is prison education. Despite this evidence, in 1994 Congress passed an act which made inmates ineligible for Pell Grants, thereby severely curtailing opportunities for inmates to pursue further education and training while imprisoned.
The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program represents an innovative strategy for addressing the many social problems reinforced by cycles of incarceration including providing inmates with access to higher education and engaging university students in a deeper questioning of issues of crime and justice “behind the walls.” Developed by Criminal Justice professor Lori Pompa of Temple University, the Inside-Out program was initiated in 1997. Since that time, students from Temple University have traveled regularly to prisons in the greater Philadelphia area to take courses alongside men and women who are incarcerated.
Since 2004, with support from the Open Society Institute of the Soros Foundation and the Phoebus Criminal Justice Initiative, Pompa has offered training sessions for instructors from around the country who are interested in beginning Inside-Out programs in their own communities. In August 2006, IUPUI faculty members Susan B. Hyatt (Anthropology) and G. Roger Jarjoura (SPEA) successfully completed the national training week and during Summer II 2007, they taught the first Inside-Out course in Indiana at the Plainfield Re-Entry Educational Facility (PREF). Seven male IUPUI students and 7 “inside” students from PREF participated in the course. Jarjoura taught a second Inside-Out course at PREF during Spring 2008 and Hyatt and Jarjoura taught a third course during Summer 2008 at the Indiana Women’s Prison (located just east of downtown Indianapolis).
In this conference, Inside-Out instructors from around the Midwest and our students will share our experiences and insights about this transformative pedagogy with you. In addition, you will also have the opportunity to meet Lori Pompa and other founding members of Inside-Out.
If you think this sounds interesting, be sure to check out …
November 7 a former death row inmate who was falsely convicted speaks; November 18 Steve Bright of the Southern Center for Human Rights discusses the continuing impact of race on punishment; December 3 the ACLU hosts a discussion of what police can do about crime.
Know before you go:
- DOC’s Plainfield facility ‘graduates’ 17 — inside and out of prison (4/18/2008)
- Plainfield prisoners garden to help food banks (WTHR 8/13/2008)
- Inside-Out at IWP (flash video–WISH-TV 7/28/2008)
- IUPUI and Indiana Women’s Prison collaborate on Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program (7/24/2008)
- Wee Ones Nursery at IWP (5/10/2008)
And for your listening pleasure …
