Last week, the New York State budget included a major victory for educational equity, ending a 26-year-old ban on access to need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants for incarcerated students. Having myself attended college while incarcerated, I can attest to the importance of the… Read More
Press Type: Article
‘Anything is possible.’ [Student] from Middletown won appeal after earning college, paralegal degree behind bars
A Middletown man and former convict is sharing his unconventional story of success in hopes of inspiring others, after earning his college and paralegal degree behind bars - and winning his own appeal. Derek Brown was 18 years old when a prison sentence for burglary… Read More
We Already Have a Tool That Lowers Crime, Saves Money and Shrinks the Prison Population
Dyjuan Tatro grew up in a poor neighborhood in Albany, N.Y., where gunshots were common and education inaccessible. Around 10th grade, Dyjuan dropped out and was selling drugs. A few years later, when he was 20, he was involved in a shooting and sentenced to… Read More
College Behind Bars review – how education can unlock prisoners’ potential
This film following students of the Bard Prison Initiative is a tribute to their ambition and endeavour – and an indictment of the absence of funding for such programmes It should not be strange to hear prisoners talk about The Oresteia or Moby-Dick or eukaryotic cell structure… Read More
Op-Ed – College Programs in Prison Show the Value of Educating Every American
Prisons, one graduate writes, should be institutions of learning, not ‘wastelands’ that willfully overlook human potential. by Rodney-Spivey Jones '17 Opinion Contributor A few weeks ago, I was sitting at a library table with several other tutors, discussing strategies for supporting first-year Bard College students. One colleague… Read More
Dyjuan Tatro of ‘College Behind Bars’ talks education reform for prisons
More often than not, incarcerated persons are viewed negatively in society. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick‘s documentary, College Behind Bars, is striving to change that narrative. “Inside the walls of a classroom, you escape the walls of a cell — and you become an individual again,” says Shawnta Montgomery, speaking at… Read More
How A Liberal Arts Education Helps Felons Become ‘Civic Beings’
By Emily Chamlee-Wright Later this month, professors Chris Surprenant (University of New Orleans) and Jason Brennan (Georgetown University) will release their new book on mass incarceration, Injustice for All: How Financial Incentives Corrupted and Can Fix the U.S. Criminal Justice System. The numbers, Surprenant reminded me in… Read More
Prisoners can read Shakespeare, too
Student Shawnta Montgomery spoke inspiring words at her graduation ceremony: "Inside the walls of a classroom, you escape the walls of a cell — and you become an individual again." Montgomery was graduating from the Bard Prison Initiative program, featured in the new PBS and… Read More
What Happens When Incarcerated People Get a World-Class Education?
One graduate, featured in a new PBS documentary, shares the ups and downs of earning a degree behind bars. In the fall of 2015, a maximum-security prison in New York invited Harvard’s debate team to compete against a squad of three incarcerated men. The men,… Read More
College behind bars: Education’s transformative power for America’s incarcerated men and women
By Lynn Novick Special to The Times In February 2012, my longtime producer and collaborator, Sarah Botstein, and I were invited to give a guest lecture and show scenes from our documentary, “Prohibition,” to college students taking a course on the history of social movements in America.… Read More