According to the Prison Entrepreneurship Program (PEP) one out of 100 Americans is in jail or prison with a total population of 2.3 million incarcerated people. Wow! Those are huge numbers! Life in prison creates a cycle – commit a crime, go to prison, get released, commit a crime, go back to prison. This cycle
In 1995, a nonprofit organization called the Lionheart Foundation published a book titled “Houses of Healing: A Prisoner’s Guide to Inner Power and Freedom.” The purpose of the book was to help incarcerated men and women a rehabilitative resource to help them end destructive lifelong patterns of violence and addiction. Over 85,000 copies of this
People with disabilities are often helped in life with specially trained dogs, who help them with day-to-day tasks and give these folks unconditional love and support. Prison inmates in the Indiana state prison system are provided life and job skills while incarcerated – having the opportunity to train these special dogs to help people with
From the University of Rockland, Maine comes a prison education program that is seeing prisoners graduate with higher education degrees. Classes that are available through the Maine Prison Education Program offer an Associates of Arts Degree in Liberal Arts as well as academic classes that include basic computer instruction, GED prep, typing, English, horticulture, science,
One may not think that reading a Shakespeare monologue while being incarcerated in prison could eventually lead to obtaining a higher education degree. However, with the Women’s Prison Shakespeare Program, located within the Huron Valley Women’s Correctional Complex in Michigan state, women have achieved these dreams. Reading Shakespeare helps these women build real-world skills, such
Learning valuable skills to gain employment after re-entry for ex-offenders can help create a fulfilling life for returning prisoners. As part of the Lutheran Social Services of Illinois and a statewide program, Reentry Services for Returning Citizens helps ex-prisoners become self-reliant as well as helping improve the local community. Lutheran Social Services of Illinois collaborates
Every year, thousands of prisoners are released from prison. These ex-offenders must face life in the “outside” world, which includes finding employment, housing and educational opportunities. These can be daunting tasks to someone who has been incarcerated. Impact Services Corporation is a Pennsylvania-based program that helps ex-offenders with some of these re-entry concerns. Impact Services
If you have a loved one or friend who is currently incarcerated in a Texas prison, the Inside Books Project is an all volunteer, non-profit organization that sends free books and educational material to prisoners throughout the state of Texas. Literacy rates can be low in the prison system, and the Inside Books Project is
Always stay engaged. Tell your students what you are doing and why you are doing it. Tell them they need to practice at least 21 times if they want to remember a skill. Remind them if they can hook onto something they already know, they are more likely to remember it.
We even get involved in social services. Martin Luther King Day is also the National Day of Community Service. I came up with an idea of having a food drive for a local food bank. They looked at me like I was nuts. But when I finished telling them about my idea, they decided they liked it. They realized there are people worse off than they are. Who would have guessed it, but these prisoners took on this project, and ran with it!
Many inmates that are incarcerated have limited educational exposure. In fact the illiteracy rate among incarcerated prisoners is staggeringly high. At the Valley State Prison for Women (VSPW) located in Chowchilla, Ca Literacy Coordinator Ms. Cindy Greer meets with two dozen inmates to assign work projects. These assigned projects are for literacy tutors. The tutors,