Getting a B.A. behind bars

by Jamie L Manson on Jul. 29, 2011

This week, the PBS News Hour offered a moving, two-part series profiling the Bard Prison Initiative. The program was started in 1999 by Max Kenner a student at Bard College in New York State. Kenner sought to restore a college education program for men and women incarcerated in New York State prisons.

Fifteen years ago, state and federal governments stopped supporting college education in prison. Kenner and his team believe that liberal arts education, rather than technical training, has the potential offer a prisoner not only marketable skills, but, more importantly, an opportunity for self-reflection.

Since 1999, 157 degrees have been awarded and there is only a stunning 2 percent recidivism rate among graduates.

Many students credit their philosophy classes as having the deepest impact on their transformation.

You can read more about the Bard Prison Initiative and watch both segments from the PBS News Hour.

sounds like what a prison

Submitted by charles j. scanlon (not verified) on Jul. 29, 2011.

sounds like what a prison ought to be, in a civilized land.

yesterday in the local Mexican newspaper we saw the kind of accommodations given the guy in Norway.

kind of a college dorm or even hotel.

meanwhile because of the three strikes and your out law in California which has stacked bunk beds so closely in prison gyms that the feds are saying clear people out, that has so overcrowded our prisons with nonviolent people, including immigration, that it a concentration camp, not a correctional institution such as this Bard program provided, we have a major crime against humanity going on in our name and on our dime, of which we remain blissfully and eagerly unaware.

see also Presunto Culpable

Fabulous program!

Submitted by Ann Onymous (not verified) on Jul. 29, 2011.

Fabulous program!

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