Prisoner demands directly produced successful college programs behind bars
Evidence
After the Attica Rebellion, more than five hundred prisoners were transferred to Greenhaven, including some of the leaders who continued to press for educational programs. As a direct result of their demands, Marist College, a New York state college near Greenhaven, began to offer college-level courses in 1973 and eventually established the infrastructure for an on-site four-year college program. The program thrived for twenty-two years. Some of the many prisoners who earned their degrees at Greenhaven pursued postgraduate studies after their release. As the documentary powerfully demonstrates, the program produced dedicated men who left prison and offered their newly acquired knowledge and skills to their communities on the outside. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 152
Categorization
- XREF: Demonstrates the reverse-causality arc—prisoners driving reform—which complicates the standard story of top-down prison management. — connects to: The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 153; Opponents of prison college funding frame incarcerated students as undeserving outsiders. — James D. Kirylo (ed.), Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed:…, 398