The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

Join us on Zoom for a conversation this Thursday at 4PM with Inside-Out Instructor and Coach John Pace! https://lnkd.in/eA4bdDxC John Pace is a Philadelphia-based educator and reentry specialist who works with young people and their families and advocates for higher education in prison. He currently serves as the Senior Reentry Coordinator at the Youth Sentencing & Reentry Project (YSRP) and a Program Associate for The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at Temple University. He is a 2023 Represent Justice Ambassador. During his ambassadorship, he had the opportunity to reflect on his experiences as someone impacted by the justice system and received training to share his story. This journey inspired him to create a documentary with a powerful message: Disrupted: Injustice, Trauma & Healing. The documentary delves into systemic inequality in marginalized communities in Philadelphia and inner cities across the country, connecting these issues to mass incarceration. Through the lens of race, class, and incarceration, it examines the enduring legacy of slavery while highlighting community building and policy reform as pathways to healing for those impacted by injustice and their loved ones.

** JOIN US TODAY ON ZOOM AT 3 PM EST!! ** Zoom Link: https://lnkd.in/eUfHSSMC Jennifer E. Cobbina-Dungy is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her primary research focuses on public response to police use of force. Her second research area focuses on prisoner reentry and the understanding of recidivism and desistance among recently released female offenders. Finally, she examines how the intersection of race, gender, and neighborhood context shape victimization risks among minority youth. In Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, Jennifer Cobbina draws on nearly 200 in-depth interviews with residents of Ferguson and Baltimore, conducted within two months of the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. She examines how protesters in both cities understood their experiences with the police, how these experiences influenced their perceptions of police, what galvanized Black Lives Matter as a social movement, and how policing tactics during demonstrations influenced subsequent mobilization decisions among protesters. #insideoutprisonexchangeprogram #insideout

Join us on Zoom for a conversation with Inside-Out Instructor Jennifer Cobbina-Dungy! When: Thursday, March 13th, from 3:00 to 4:15 PM EST Zoom Link: https://lnkd.in/eUfHSSMC Jennifer Cobbina-Dungy is a Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. Her primary research focuses on public response to police use of force. Her second research area focuses on prisoner reentry and the understanding of recidivism and desistance among recently released female offenders. Finally, she examines how the intersection of race, gender, and neighborhood context shape victimization risks among minority youth. In Hands Up, Don’t Shoot, Cobbina-Dungy draws on nearly 200 in-depth interviews with residents of Ferguson and Baltimore, conducted within two months of the deaths of Michael Brown and Freddie Gray. She examines how protesters in both cities understood their experiences with the police, how these experiences influenced their perceptions of police, what galvanized Black Lives Matter as a social movement, and how policing tactics during demonstrations influenced subsequent mobilization decisions among protesters. #insideoutprisonexchangeprogram #insideout #education

Join us on Zoom for a conversation with Inside-Out Instructor Tessa Hicks Peterson today at 2:30 PM EST! Tessa Hicks Peterson is a scholar activist, teacher, facilitator, mother, dancer, and community-builder. She is the Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement and Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Pitzer College. Over the last six months, she has published the following 3 books: - Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education - Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing & Systems Change - Practicing Liberation Workbook: Radical Tools for Grassroots Activists, Community Leaders, Teachers, and Caretakers Working Toward Social Justice In Liberating the Classroom, Tessa Hicks Peterson shows how universities can transform into places that directly disrupt injustice and work toward personal and collective liberation. Instead of reproducing social inequity, higher education institutions could become engines of healing. Join us this afternoon using this Zoom Link: https://lnkd.in/eQX3VfK2 #insideoutprisonexchangeprogram #insideout #education

The list of dos and don’ts to enter the classroom where University of Delaware instructor Tanya Whittle teaches “Drugs in the Criminal Justice System” is long and inflexible, but also understandable, given that this innovative class doesn’t take place on campus, but rather behind bars.? Half of the students are men who are incarcerated, and the other half are UD undergraduates. Whittle teaches the class at Howard R. Young Correctional Institute in Wilmington as part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program?, an international program hosted at UD by the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice. Classes also are taught at Baylor Correctional Institute, a women’s facility. “The class was nothing short of transformational,” said Olivia Ferrier, a senior double majoring in political science and public policy, who took the class last year and was a teaching assistant to Whittle last semester. “I had a really specific view of incarcerated people before I went into this class,” said Ferrier, who plans to go to law school. “Now I don't think ‘good’ or ‘bad’ are able to fully encompass and represent all of the nuances that should be afforded to every single person.” Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/ecuakZWK #insideoutprisonexchangeprogram #insideout

Join us on Zoom for a conversation next Wednesday with Inside-Out Instructor Tessa Hicks Peterson! When: Wednesday, February 26th, from 2:30 to 3:45 PM EST Zoom Link: https://lnkd.in/eQX3VfK2 Tessa Hicks Peterson is a scholar activist, teacher, facilitator, mother, dancer, and community-builder. She is the Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement and Associate Professor of Urban Studies at Pitzer College. Over the last six months, she has published the following 3 books: - Liberating the Classroom: Healing and Justice in Higher Education - Practicing Liberation: Transformative Strategies for Collective Healing & Systems Change - Practicing Liberation Workbook: Radical Tools for Grassroots Activists, Community Leaders, Teachers, and Caretakers Working Toward Social Justice In Liberating the Classroom, Tessa Hicks Peterson shows how universities can transform into places that directly disrupt injustice and work toward personal and collective liberation. Instead of reproducing social inequity, higher education institutions could become engines of healing. This transformation, however, requires a major conscience shift at the level of the individual (student, educator, leader), the classroom (teaching and learning), administration (culture and policy), and the institution (structures and systems). Peterson examines innovative models, practices, and theories that students, teachers, and administrators can apply to implement both personal and systemic change. This book represents a major contribution in placing the claims of social justice, personal and social healing, and holistic pedagogy in a dialogue that is at once passionate and deeply considered. Peterson presents a vision of teaching and learning in which these three claims are mutually transformative. This guide offers a cadre of thinkers and practitioners who provide distinct but connected resources for realizing that vision and explores what changes in pedagogical practice, campus culture, academic-community relationships, and institutional structures would be needed to create spaces in higher education that could fully braid these values together. #insideout #insideoutprisonexchangeprogram #education #liberatingtheclassroom

?? Join us in congratulating Marietta Martinovic on being awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia for her outstanding contributions to breaking cycles of incarceration through education and inclusion! As the Director of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, Marietta brings together RMIT University students and people in custody to study #criminology as peers, fostering understanding, connection, and hope. Her work doesn’t stop at the prison gates—ongoing engagement supports people after release, creating meaningful and lasting change. Humbled by the recognition, Marietta shares this honour with those she works alongside. We are proud to see this incredible work celebrated on such a national stage. ?? Read the full story here - https://lnkd.in/g4wNjWkP. #OrderOfAustralia #InsideOutProgram #Inclusion #CriminalJustice

University of North Texas students are participating in the national?Inside Out Prison Exchange?program. In its third year at the college, the program gives students the opportunity to?take a class?inside a correctional facility alongside incarcerated people. Haley Zettler, associate professor of criminal justice at the university, said students must be a junior or senior and go through an interview to participate. "One of the things that I make sure that they know during the interview process is that we're not going in to try to study or psychoanalyze people who are incarcerated and ask them about their life history," Zettler explained. "We're going in there for them to take the class alongside them." She noted for students to participate, their majors must be related to working with people in prison such as criminal justice, psychology or political science. The Inside Out Prison Exchange Program was started at Temple University and is replicated at more than 100 colleges and correctional facilities worldwide. Zettler pointed out it gives the incarcerated person a chance to see a different future for themselves. "They put in a lot more effort on average than my outside students, in their assignments and reading and participation," Zettler observed. "So a number of them have expressed, 'Now I'm thinking about what I can do on the outside in terms of furthering my education.'" For incarcerated people to participate, they must have a high school diploma or GED. Zettler added the course teaches them other skills, which will be beneficial once they are released. "They may have spent many years and the only interactions they've had are with correctional officers," Zettler emphasized. "So to have just what they call normal people from the outside coming in once a week and speaking to them on a human level have helped them with just their overall communications skills, their confidence."

"Coaching From Within: The Journey” is the work of 2024 Social Connectedness Fellow Joe Schwartz. As part of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, formerly incarcerated people are trained as “coaches” to co-facilitate workshops for community leaders, criminal justice practitioners and other professionals. Joe’s research explores the impact of becoming a coach. Here are some of Joe’s findings. If you’d like to the entire report, it’s available on our website. ??: https://buff.ly/4cnCZ2J Congratulations to Joe, and thank you to The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program for your partnership!

Shianne is an "outside" student. She was enrolled in the fall 2024 Inside-Out Prison Exchange program, which is offered by the University of North Texas. She traveled to Bridgeport weekly for a night class at Bridgeport Correctional Center with other "outside" UNT students. The other half of the class is made up of men incarcerated at the correctional facility. They're known as the "inside" students. “Anytime you tell someone you’re taking a class in a prison they’re like, ‘Are you scared?’” Shianne said with a smile. “The people in this class are some of the most kind and compassionate people I know.” During a closing ceremony to commemorate a successful semester, Shianne shared she’s been observing the justice system her whole life. Her father has been incarcerated since before she was born. “I’ve felt a lot of pain from my father’s incarceration,” Shianne said. The UNT senior is channeling that pain into motivation as she pursues her bachelor’s degree and, eventually, a law degree. “The UNT students are getting a firsthand experience in seeing what our criminal system actually looks like,” Inside-Out Instructor Haley Zettler said. Zettler became interested in the Inside-Out program when she was a student after reading an article about it. She later led the program at the University of Memphis before lobbying to bring it to UNT. Read more: https://lnkd.in/eh5MdNjs #highereducation #higheredleadership #education