College Behind Bars Screens at the Congressional Black Caucus

On September 13, Congressman Bobby Rush hosted a screening at the annual Congressional Black Caucus Conference to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the Crime Bill. Ken Burns and Deanna Hoskins of JustLeadershipUSA joined director Lynn Novick, Max Kenner, and BPI alumnus Wes Caines ’09 for a discussion.

If you’ll be at #CBCFALC19 next month, check out this powerful film, #CollegeBehindBarsPBS, by @KenBurns and @LynnNovick about incarcerated men and women trying to earn college degrees. @RepBobbyRush @BPIBard @PBS @TheBlackCaucus #PellYes #cjreform https://t.co/sHCKe7brkg

— Donna Brazile (@donnabrazile) August 28, 2019

Another thing that stood out about that session was that @RepBobbyRush, the host for the session, apologized for his vote on the 1994 Crime Bill. He said that a combination of fear mongering and frustration went into that decision and he understands how wrong he was. #CBCFALC19

— Denise Clay (@denisethewriter) September 14, 2019

Check out this coverage here:

“Burns moderated a conversation following the preview among Congressman Bobby L. Rush; Novick; Max Kenner, executive director of the Bard Prison Initiative; DeAnna Hoskins, president of advocacy group JustLeadershipUSA; and Wesley Caines, an alum of the initiative and chief of staff at the Bronx Defenders.

The conversation ranged from how the film was made, to current criminal justice reform efforts like the REAL Act, to broader issues like prison privatization and forgiveness.

“As a society, if we’re going to choose to remove certain people and place them in cages, we really need to ask ourselves how do we want them to exit those cages?” Caines said.”