The program, part of A New Way of Life's SAFE Housing Network, will bring needed resources to formerly incarcerated women in Westchester, NY. I founded The Lilac House project in April of 2022. The organization will address the lack of transitional housing for formerly incarcerated… Read More
Program: Alumni Advocacy
BPI Upstate Reentry Resident Shawn Young ’19 Talks Care, Concern, and Community on Radio Kingston’s Good Work Hour
For formerly incarcerated individuals returning to their communities, “clean, safe, and stable” housing is crucial, says Shawn Young ’19, upstate reentry resident for the Bard Prison Initiative. Speaking to his experience as a Bard alumnus through the Bard Prison Initiative, Young told the Good… Read More
Helping prisoners go to college helps New York
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
Alumni Opinion: The Importance of TAP Restoration
The restoration of access to New York’s need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for college-in-prison is monumental. Receiving an education behind bars permanently changed my life in many ways. A year into receiving my associate degree through the Bard Prison Initiative, there was no doubt… Read More
TAP Fellow Opinion: In Pursuit of Educational Equity & Justice
I have never felt utter despair and failure more than when I began my incarceration. That was the most difficult, seemingly hopeless point of my life—rock bottom, so to speak. I ultimately served a decade in prison. My life took yet another unexpected turn from… Read More
Become a BPI TAP Advocacy Fellow!
BPI TAP Advocacy Fellowship Overview The Bard Prison Initiative seeks four Fellows for a three-month BPI TAP Advocacy Fellowship. The Fellowship will run from Jan 3, 2022 through April 1, 2022, and offer four BPI alumni or other formerly incarcerated alumni of other college-in-prison programs the… Read More
Alumni Opinion: The trouble with the correction union: It’s a cheerleader for mass incarceration
BPI Alumnus Darren Mack ’13 writes about the Correction Officers Benevolent Association and its role in opposing recent efforts to close Rikers Island. His op-ed was first published in the New York Daily News and is reproduced below. For the past few months, the tragedy… Read More
BPI Alumni Weigh in on Significance of Newly Passed Less Is More Act
Yesterday saw a major legislative feat as the Less Is More Act passed out of the Senate 39-24 and then passed out of the Assembly at 89-60. This legislation has been driven by our allies in the field of criminal justice and especially by… Read More
Alumni Reflection Essay: The Fight Beyond the Wall
Alumnus Shawn Young '19 was invited to participate in BPI's Community Engagement in Public Health & Public Education Internship stipend program on March 13, 2020 - the day that COVID shut everything down. His original proposal to run a reentry support group through Citizen Action… Read More
Alumni Opinion: Felony Disenfranchisement Suppresses the Votes of Black and Latinx Americans
BPI government affairs officer, Dyjuan Tatro '18, argues that felony disenfranchisement should be understood as a racist mechanism of voter suppression. This blog post was originally posted by the Vera Institute of Justice and is reproduced below. I was released from New York State prison,… Read More