Liberating Minds
The Case for College in Prison
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
An authoritative and thought-provoking argument for offering free college in prisons—from the former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education.
Anthony Cardenales was a stickup artist in the Bronx before spending seventeen years in prison. Today he is a senior manager at a recycling plant in Westchester, New York. He attributes his ability to turn his life around to the college degree he earned in prison. Many college-in-prison graduates achieve similar success and the positive ripple effects for their families and communities, and for the country as a whole, are dramatic. College-in-prison programs have been shown to greatly reduce recidivism. They increase post-prison employment, allowing the formerly incarcerated to better support their families and to reintegrate successfully into their communities. College programs also decrease violence within prisons, improving conditions for both correction officers and the incarcerated.
Liberating Minds eloquently makes the case for these benefits and also illustrates them through the stories of formerly incarcerated college students. As the country confronts its legacy of over-incarceration, college-in-prison provides a corrective on the path back to a more democratic and humane society.
“Lagemann includes intensive research, but her most powerful supporting evidence comes from the anecdotes of former prisoners who have become published poets, social workers, and nonprofit leaders.”—Publishers Weekly
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Lagemann, a former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Distinguished Fellow of the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College in N.Y., argues that providing prisoners with a college education is good for both prisoners and society. College education helps the formerly incarcerated cope with the shame of having been imprisoned, communicate with their families, and increase opportunities for employment, and such programs also help society by lowering recidivism, incarceration costs, and the crime rate. In response to conflicting research about recidivism, Lagemann argues, persuasively, that these studies were either flawed or based on older, coercive models of prison education. She claims that self-directed programs in which prisoners have control over when and what they learn are effective. There is a particular focus on the Bard Prison Iniative, but other programs are mentioned too, including the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound at the Washington Correctional Facility for Women and the Prison University Project at San Quentin in California. Lagemann includes intensive research, but her most powerful supporting evidence comes from the anecdotes of former prisoners who have become published poets, social workers, and nonprofit leaders.
