The Ripple Effects of College Prison Programs

It is rare to find a resource that is a treasure trove of stories from people who are typically disappeared from view by design of the carceral system. Instead of reinforcing the dehumanization of people on the inside and blaming structural inequities on individual choices, as conventional textbooks on imprisonment and policing typically do, this textbook serves as a powerful substitute, or supplement, to teach about the injustices of the carceral system from those most impacted by it. This book also shows the liberatory potential of education—how people, even in the toughest situations, can use education to survive the dehumanizing and deadly effects of imprisonment. I would eagerly adopt this book for courses I teach in Crime and Justice Studies and Black Studies, including introductory courses on the criminal legal system, the history of criminology, and juvenile justice. The lived realities so powerfully narrated in this book will help students more concretely critique the way racist ideas, policies, and institutions inflict egregious amounts of harm and attempt to destroy entire communities. – Kaden Paulson-Smith, University of Massachusetts, DartmouthThis book is an excellent primary source of narratives of students participating in prison education programs. It would be suitable in all college classrooms touching on topics of education, public policy, criminology, and legal studies. I would certainly be interested in adopting this text in my criminological theory and senior seminar courses. This text would provide an application and way to evaluate the use of theories to explain involvement in the criminal justice system and antisocial behavior and to exemplify some of the issues surrounding prisons, such as the drug use and corruption in prisons and profit-mindset. – Margaret Schmuhl, State University of New York at OswegoThis book is an engaging and compelling story of hope and education that appeals to why we should not give up on people and why we should end the sentencing of life without parole. I will adopt this for my Inmates and Offender Rights class! – Jodi Gill, Penn State University

This book is a testament to the importance of prison education. Education is the manifest harvest of rehabilitation, as self-discovery, hope, resilience, and transformation are inextricable from it. The social and emotional growth one encounters reading each of these stories is paramount to humanizing and de-stigmatizing the lives of those affected by mass incarceration. Most importantly, this text is a powerful reminder that people are better than even the worst decisions they made in their lives.The book’s narratives would be a valuable addition to my Scene Study: Prison Plays and Directing: Staging the Deceptive Terrain of Wrongful Conviction courses, enriching my students’ imagination and understanding of mass incarceration. It would also be beneficial for my Lang Prison Initiative Reading Group.

Taffany Lim, Ed.D., is the Deputy Director of the University of California Los Angeles Prison Education Programs. Lim previously served as the Associate Director for the Pat Brown Institute for Public Affairs, where she developed and managed PBI’s signature Community Policing Training Program. She has spent more than 25 years working with public sector and nonprofit organizations, including United Way, KCET Public Television, the Los Angeles Department of Mental Health, and the City of Pasadena’s Public Health Department. Lim specializes in program development, project management, planning, training, and facilitation.