Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom
Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom

Author: Anna Plemons

Publisher:

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780814134658

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Anna Plemons argues that, when viewed as a microcosm of the broader enterprise, the prison classroom highlights the way that composition and rhetoric as a discipline continues to make use of colonial ways of knowing and of being that work against the decolonial intentions of the field. Through a mix of history, theory, and story, Anna Plemons explores the fate of the Arts in Corrections (AIC) program at New Folsom Prison in California in order to study prison education in general as well as the disciplinary goals of rhetoric and composition classrooms. When viewed as a microcosm of the broader enterprise, the prison classroom highlights the way that composition and rhetoric as a discipline continues to make use of colonial ways of knowing and being that work against the decolonial intentions of the field. Plemons suggests that a truly decolonial turn in composition cannot be achieved as long as economic logics and rhetorics of individual transformation continue to be the default currency for ascribing value in prison writing programs specifically and in out-of-school writing communities more generally. Indigenous scholarship provides the theoretical basis for Plemons's proposed intervention in the ways it both pushes back against individualized, economic assessments of value and describes design principles for research and pedagogy that are respectful, reciprocal, and relational. Beyond Progress in the Prison Classroom includes narrative selections from the author and current and former AIC participants, inviting readers into the lives of incarcerated authors and demonstrating the effects of relationality on prison-scholars, ultimately upending the misconception that these writers and their teachers exist apart from the web of relations beyond the prison walls. With contributions from incarcerated prison-scholars Ken Blackburn, Bryson L. Cole, Harry B. Grant Jr., Adam Hinds, Hung-Linh "Ronnie" Hoang, Andrew Molino, Michael L. Owens, Wayne Vaka, and Martin Williams.

Progress Report
Progress Report

Author: United States. Prison industries reorganization administration

Publisher:

Published: 1937

Total Pages: 74

ISBN-13:

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Invisible Men
Invisible Men

Author: Becky Pettit

Publisher: Russell Sage Foundation

Published: 2012-06-01

Total Pages: 156

ISBN-13: 1610447786

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For African American men without a high school diploma, being in prison or jail is more common than being employed—a sobering reality that calls into question post-Civil Rights era social gains. Nearly 70 percent of young black men will be imprisoned at some point in their lives, and poor black men with low levels of education make up a disproportionate share of incarcerated Americans. In Invisible Men, sociologist Becky Pettit demonstrates another vexing fact of mass incarceration: most national surveys do not account for prison inmates, a fact that results in a misrepresentation of U.S. political, economic, and social conditions in general and black progress in particular. Invisible Men provides an eye-opening examination of how mass incarceration has concealed decades of racial inequality. Pettit marshals a wealth of evidence correlating the explosion in prison growth with the disappearance of millions of black men into the American penal system. She shows that, because prison inmates are not included in most survey data, statistics that seemed to indicate a narrowing black-white racial gap—on educational attainment, work force participation, and earnings—instead fail to capture persistent racial, economic, and social disadvantage among African Americans. Federal statistical agencies, including the U.S. Census Bureau, collect surprisingly little information about the incarcerated, and inmates are not included in household samples in national surveys. As a result, these men are invisible to most mainstream social institutions, lawmakers, and nearly all social science research that isn't directly related to crime or criminal justice. Since merely being counted poses such a challenge, inmates' lives—including their family background, the communities they come from, or what happens to them after incarceration—are even more rarely examined. And since correctional budgets provide primarily for housing and monitoring inmates, with little left over for job training or rehabilitation, a large population of young men are not only invisible to society while in prison but also ill-equipped to participate upon release. Invisible Men provides a vital reality check for social researchers, lawmakers, and anyone who cares about racial equality. The book shows that more than a half century after the first civil rights legislation, the dismal fact of mass incarceration inflicts widespread and enduring damage by undermining the fair allocation of public resources and political representation, by depriving the children of inmates of their parents' economic and emotional participation, and, ultimately, by concealing African American disadvantage from public view.

Prison Transformations
Prison Transformations

Author: Stephen Chinlund

Publisher: Xlibris Corporation

Published: 2009-09-30

Total Pages: 252

ISBN-13: 1462817009

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Prison Transformation is the story of the changes in the New York State prison system from 1962 to 2009. Interwoven with that history is the biography of Stephen Chinlund, who lived through those big developments as an active participant in various capacities. In 1962, fourteen years before the Attica uprising, there were only twenty-two prisons in the state system. Then there were seventy-two, now sixty-six. Discipline was maintained by force, often capricious and brutal. There was only minimal education and vocational training. After growing up in New York City, going to good schools, and being ordained as an Episcopal priest, Chinlund started working inside as a volunteer. He created groups of people inside with the plan that they could help each other more effectively than he could help them by preaching or even counseling them directly himself. The groups developed into small communities inside the prisons. Chinlund also recognized the need to help the men and women after they were released and developed counseling and job training on the outside. Parole, at the time, provided none of that. With small steps, the prison system was improving, reflecting the growing consciousness of civil rights in the society at large. School opportunities were offered, and even college courses began to appear. But the progress was slow, and the discipline was still needlessly harsh. Chinlund became a consultant to the Narcotic Addiction Control Commission, helping new treatment facilities in the city get started, using his experience helping individuals who were locked up. He was then recruited, in 1968, to be the director of the Manhattan Rehabilitation Center, confining three hundred female heroin addicts. Then the uprising in Attica occurred in 1971. That tragedy led to a few more improvements: inmate grievance committees, contact visits, conjugal visits, inmate liaison committees, and some better schooling. In addition, the legislature created the Commission of Correction to be an independent monitor of the prisons. Chinlund had had success at the Manhattan Rehabilitation Center, so he moved on, in 1973, to become superintendent of the first work-release prison in New York State, giving reality to an important policy improvement. Governor Hugh Carey then asked him to become chairman of the Commission of Correction, where he was able to confirm the improvements that were being made. As important, he was able in 1979 to start the Network program, a more formal and extensive implementation of the old groups inside. Funded with federal money initially, it grew to be a force for good in twenty-six prisons, at its maximum size. Declining Careys request to serve another term, Chinlund moved on to a parish and then to be the executive director of the Episcopal Social Services, where he has continued the Network program and continued to advocate for progress in the correctional world. He continues that work after his retirement in 2005. The book tells the stories of the prisoners, staff, and politicians of those forty-eight years.