How to Start an Inside-Out Prison Course

• In Event: The International Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Abstract

Education through which we are able to encounter each other, especially across profound social barriers, is transformative and allows problems to be approached in new and different ways. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program brings college students together with incarcerated men and women to study as peers in a seminar behind prison walls. This course increases opportunities for men and women, inside and outside of prison, to have transformative learning experiences that emphasize collaboration and dialogue, inviting participants to take leadership in addressing crime, justice, and other issues of social concern. This presentation will address how to get an Inside-Out course started from the perspective of a professor who has facilitated this course for three years. Specifically, the presentation will discuss how to obtain approval from both the university and the correctional institution to facilitate such a unique course, how to recruit students, and what the process entails for selecting both inside and outside students. After this presentation, interested instructors should be well-equipped to start such a transformative course and form a partnership between their own academic institution and correctional facility.

Author

• Jennifer E. Cobbina, Michigan State University