Dear Friends, Today, after 26 years – at last – New York State has repealed its ban on incarcerated people receiving TAP grants. In our field – since the evisceration of education in prison in the mid-1990s – the fundamental goal has been the restoration… Read More
BPI Blog
Tag: Criminal Justice Reform
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
Announcing the Bard Microcollege for Just Community Leadership
Bard College Launches the Nation’s First Tuition-Free College Dedicated to Advocacy, Arts, and Sciences HARLEM, N.Y. — The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) has announced the launch of its third tuition-free microcollege, which will open in Harlem this fall. The Bard Microcollege for Just Community Leadership will… 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
Alumni Resources: Voting Rights For New Yorkers With Felony Convictions
Learn the facts from the myths and check your eligibility In New York, the general rule is that you can vote after incarceration for a felony conviction while you are on probation, or once you have completed parole. In these cases, your voting rights are… Read More
A Call to Action: Merit Board Eligibility
To the BPI community, Since early this year, BPI has been working with New York lawmakers to change Merit Board eligibility criteria so that incarcerated students with convictions classified as non-violent can be eligible for early release based on earning college credits. I am… Read More
Remembering David Kaiser
After a prolonged battle with glioblastoma multiforme, an aggressive brain cancer, we lost our friend David Kaiser last week. Only fifty years old, David leaves behind his wife, two daughters and a challenge to all of us. At BPI, we are proud that David counted… Read More
COVID Community Forums
Throughout the COVID-19 crisis, BPI has hosted a series of virtual forum conversations for the alumni community with leading public health and social justice experts. Below is the roster of experts and scholars who have joined BPI in these conversations to date. June 8th The Role… Read More
