ACLU Capital Punishment Project The ACLU’s Capital Punishment Project fights valiantly for those on death row across the United States. They monitor conditions of confinement and are often the last resort for the innocent who sit on death row with no other avenue of recourse. ACLU National Prison Project The ACLU’s National Prison Project is
By William R. Piper
To begin, environmental survival concerns the ability of the prisoner to sustain his wellbeing given the rigors of prevailing prison conditions. Imprisonment entails a form of secondary socialization in which prisoners have to adapt to prison as a way of life. Old modes of living are shattered and they have to adjust themselves to the deprivations of prisons. They might do this in a number of ways. The range of such adjustment entail the pains of imprisonment in which prisoners must come to grips with a new reality, a new concrete situation in which the events in the prison setting fail to corroborate their prior social experiences.
Prison conditions constitute the concrete situation in which prisoners find themselves and which they must not only survive, but which they must transform and from which they struggle to free themselves. Although constituting the prisoners concrete situation, prison conditions should not be perceived as hopeless of unalterable, but merely as limiting and therefore challenging.
By Christopher Zoukis
Over the past several months a nagging inconsistency has presented itself. This is of a generally stated goal of preparing inmates for reintegration back into society through education, training, and rehabilitation, but requiring them to wait until the gates open to actually practice any of the skills we ostentatiously are attempting to facilitate. Is it just me or is this a crazy concept?
When I first started writing…well, I didn’t first start writing. I started by learning the alphabet. Then, after mastering individual letters, I worked on understanding words. From there I progressed to sentences, punctuation, paragraphs, letters, and now, research papers and books. This is at least how the process of learning works for me; concept, specifics, practice, perfection (eventually). Irrespective of my experience, common practice in correctional facilities would have you believe otherwise.
Incarcerated juveniles often see the world through the adult correctional institution. Juveniles respond differently to correctional methods than adults do. From Houston, Texas, comes this positive and innovative art therapy program – Children’s Prison Arts Project. Founded in 1994 by an artist and educator, Birgit Walker, the Children’s Prison Arts Project has become a non-profit
Located outside of Wilsonville, Oregon, lies the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility. Inside this correctional facility is a very special prison education program for women inmates called LIFE (Lifelong Information for Entrepreneurs.) The program has been developed to build business and pro-social skills for incarcerated women. The core of the LIFE program addresses self-employment and micro-enterprise
The sound of violins and cellos fills the room with beautiful string music and this coming from a women’s orchestra where many of the players had no previous musical training, and who also happen to be prisoners incarcerated at Hiland Mountain Women’s Correctional Center outside of Anchorage, Alaska. Founded in 2004 by the nonprofit organization, Arts
Partakers College Behind Bars program provides opportunities for incarcerated inmates in the state of Massachusetts to obtain four-year college degrees while doing time in prison. Their mission statement says that Partakers “works to help advance the rehabilitation of inmates and to bridge the divide that separates those inside and outside prison. Through it’s College Behind
Tattooed prisoners sitting in the Pre-Release Unit in Jessup, Maryland gather together weekly for the knitting class. What? Male prisoners knitting while incarcerated? What a great visual. 67 year old Lynn Zwerling, founder of Knitting Behind Bars, has found that her passion for knitting and the quiet meditative state that it brings to the knitter
It has long been thought that animals and pets can have very therapeutic and rehabilitative benefits for humans. The Prison Pet Partnership Program is accomplishing this on several levels. The Program rescues and trains homeless animals to become service dogs for persons with disabilities. In addition, the Prison Pet Partnership Program operates a boarding and
Being in prison can be a very lonely and isolated experience for prisoners. Many of these prisoners rarely get to be touched and feel love. Puppies Behind Bars is a wonderful organization that trains prison inmates to raise service dogs for wounded war veterans and explosive detection canines for law enforcement. In July of 1997