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
BPI Blog
Category: Alumni Advocacy
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 Opinion: The education prisoners deserve
BPI Alumna Stacy Burnett ’20 describes the value her BPI college education has had on her life and her career, and why it's important that New York State reinstate tuition assistance for incarcerated students in this op-ed that was first published in the New… 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
BPI and College Behind Bars in The Appeal
The Appeal featured several segments about BPI in two Justice in America podcast episodes, as well as an op-ed. Check out more details below:
4/22/2019
Justice in America Episode 29: Schools in Prison
Josie Duffy Rice and co-host Derecka Purnell are joined by Dyjuan Tatro ’18 and Wesley Caines ’09 along with filmmakers Lynn Novick and Sarah Botstein to talk about education in prisons, the Bard Prison Initiative, and the documentary College Behind Bars.
4/29/2019
Justice in America Episode 30: A Conversation with Rodney Spivey-Jones and Max Kenner
In this episode, Josie Duffy Rice and her producer, Florence Barrau-Adams, travel to Fishkill Correctional Facility in Beacon, New York, to interview Rodney Spivey-Jones ’17 and Max Kenner ’01 about the Bard Prison Initiative and Bard College.
4/29/2019
Op-Ed – College Programs in Prison Show the Value of Educating Every American
Prisons, BPI graduate Rodney-Spivey Jones ’17 writes, should be institutions of learning, not ‘wastelands’ that willfully overlook human potential.
Alumni Chronicles: Vanessa Fields ’17
As we close out the end of our academic and fiscal year, we are sharing short films of Bard Prison Initiative Public Health Fellows, each of whom have come to the fore as voices of experience and leadership in public health across New York… Read More