TATRO: They are like, congratulations. You may change your parameters at any time using the link found at the bottom of every email. And I never had really thought about going to college until, all of a sudden, there was this thing that I heard about in prison called the Bard Prison Initiative. I hope you'll join us. And the Bard Prison Initiative, which was - began in 1999. I have to really compete with mostly older women to get my clothing washed. But I needed that degree in order to get my first interview, and then I went to four more interviews after that where I was able to prove myself through speech. And they thrust you right back into prison. So when we start talking about what is best for people in prisons, Lynn said we should include them in that conversation. Who has access to educational opportunity? I'm an uncle. Tune in for an unparalleled look inside @BPIBard, one of the most rigorous & challenging #CollegeInPrison programs. NOVICK: And I think - just to put the button or the final note is that the recidivism rates for the general population are between 50% and 60%. Sign up for the College Behind Bars newsletter to learn more about the film and events nationwide. YOON: My family has been super supportive of me, as you'll see in the documentary, especially my father. I had to understand the idea of hubris, and I had to understand the idea of tragedy, and I had to understand these concepts. . PBS chronicles 12 inmates who value education in 'College Behind Bars' The film fills the screen with stories about human transformation as cameras follow a dozen incarcerated men and women. For streaming, visit pbs.org . And so yeah, that is a huge impediment to trying to learn. This can't just be watching movies and talking about it; you have to have a very sophisticated, demanding syllabus and assessments and writing assignments, and the students have to perform at the level that we expect for Bard College. It radiates and ramifies throughout my entire family structure, you know? Meg & Tomas Bergstrand; Regina K. Scully; The Lise Strickler & Mark Gallogly Charitable Fund; a fund at The New York Community Trust; Patty Quillin through the Meadow Fund at Silicon Valley Community Foundation; Barbara & Richard Novick; Chicken & Egg Pictures; The William H. Donner Foundation; Hartley Film Foundation; Bertha Foundation; The Harnisch Foundation; Compton Foundation; and Lisa Philp; and members of The Better Angels Society: By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. On November 24, 1990, James Wiley armed himself with a shotgun and brutally shot down his stepmother and two brothers in their home in Thermopolis, Wyoming. Max Kenner, when he started it, was an undergraduate at Bard and just saw this need and, you know, convinced the college that it would be something that they should try to do. . WASHER WARS After that, I will follow that bike lane back home and do my laundry. DAVIES: And have you both stayed in touch with folks you knew from the program and helped - people you helped? It took me six years to get from where I was to where Bard was. The documentary prompts viewers to consider the importance of higher education in prison. I'm a college student. You have this big smile on your face when you're leaving the auditorium and the mess hall. I guess you still treasure that moment, don't you? CAST OF CHARACTERS Im ashamed to say this, but I people-watch. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're discussing the new four-part PBS documentary "College Behind Bars." NOVICK: I'd just add that one of the really remarkable things about this program is that the admissions process is looking for people who have kind of intellectual curiosity and determination. SERIOUS READING I dont watch TV. The Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) works to redefine the availability, affordability, and expectations typically associated with higher education in America. And you can learn grammar. All Rights Reserved. GROSS: This is FRESH AIR. Turkish prisons do not have a specific policy regarding children, but in general, they are not allowed in prison. But I had no life experience to bring to that. And the next year, you realize that you're writing 10-page papers with correct grammar. Confronted with the inhuman monotony of life behind bars, Mr. Hall became a serious student, ultimately gaining admission to the Bard Prison Initiative, a competitive, full-time degree program run by Bard College. They spoke with FRESH AIR's Dave Davies. College Behind Bars is an intimate look at the lives and experiences of a dozen BPI students and their families that confronts and challenges conventional wisdom about the purpose of both education and incarceration. DAVIES: This school also has graduation ceremonies, and this is very moving. We're going to start coursework Monday morning. NOVICK: I was just going to chime in one other thing, which is I've heard Dyjuan, Sebastian and the other students, as well as Max, say that, you know, it also just sort of changes the culture of the whole facility and that, you know, there's something positive going on and that people don't want to get in trouble so that they have an opportunity to be there, to stay there and to potentially be involved in the program. College Behind Bars first premiered Nov. 25, 2019 on PBS and has since then become popular among Netflix audiences. Virtually none return to prison. So, you know, Bard has some re-entry services, mainly job placement and career development. This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. So that was, like, really, really kind of humbling to see that type of support from the general population. What was that time like for you? WebCollege Behind Bars, which airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday night, offers TV audiences a rare window into the U.S. correctional system. BPI was proud to partner with College and Community Fellowships #TurnOnTheTapNY campaign to restore access to New Yorks state-level need-based student grants, the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for incarcerated students. The BPI student body mirrors that of the prison system at large: students come from communities with the fewest quality educational opportunities that are most impacted by crises of hyper-policing and mass incarceration. In one of our most power episodes ever, BPIs founder Max Kenner and recent graduate Sebastian Yoon join Adam this week to discuss howReadMore, One graduate, featured in a new PBS documentary, shares the ups and downs of earning a degree behind bars. DAVIES: Wow, that's really remarkable. : r/loveafterlockup. Meet the cast of Behind Bars: Rookie Year on A&E. Get season by season character and cast bios and more only on A&E. The bipartisan restoration of Pell Grant eligibility to incarcerated students is a clear political endorsement of the value of college-in-prison, signaling to New York that it is past time to also restore TAP. But in reality, out here, the degrees matter. Men and women seek college degrees - and a chance at redemption - while incarcerated. The numbers that I remember from the documentary was that at - there were about 890 or so in the institution, 110 in the program, which is a pretty good number. The College: Comprehensive Academic Engagement. Creating educational opportunities in prison nationwide. 80% are BIPOC. That means that 50% to 60% of the 630,000 people who get out of prison every year are back in prison in three years. Let's start with a clip from the documentary. I have two brothers - one older, one younger. Students accepted to the program take classes in prison taught by Bard College faculty, using the same materials and meeting the same standards as students on the college's main campus. As you will see in the film, there's tremendous potential among incarcerated people. And they really love to engage the professors and each other, and that was true for every single class. MAX KENNER: Welcome to Bard College. NOVICK: Yeah, pretty much. college behind bars where are they now. Parts One & Two. GLOBAL DINNER SCENE I eat out on Sunday another thing Im privileged to do because of my job. This movement took on renewed urgency following Congresss reinstatement of Pell Grant access to incarcerated students in 2020. TATRO: Oh, I think that couldn't be further from the truth. And she said, well, welcome to college. And today, there are 300 students in six facilities in New York state, mostly men, but there's one facility for women as well. LAVENDER AND TRAP I will either boil water or run a bathtub because on Sundays, I love to take a hot bath, with lavender Epsom salts. I mean, both - from the documentary, it seems that both of you had supportive families. Creating educational opportunities in prison nationwide. If this kind of opportunity were widely available and the sort of foundational skills made possible, a lot more people could take advantage of it. After returning home, BPI alumni become independent taxpaying citizens. DAVIES: This is FRESH AIR, and we're discussing the new four-part PBS documentary "College Behind Bars." document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); document.getElementById( "ak_js_2" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged. College Behind Bars remains - especially in the first episode - admirably focused on the practicalities of prison life and prison programmes. NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. And school was just really too easy. NOVICK: You know, Sarah and I, when we got into the project, we were focusing on the transformational aspect of it, power of education, and what did it mean to get this education while in prison? Vocational training is fine, but we should also be having an opportunity for higher education. And throughout this process, we're constantly talking with each other, helping each other out because on, like, the outside here, you have the Internet; our peers become the Internet. And I kind of froze in place and just looked around the room and just felt really, really inspired. I mean, I think, you know, having taught in the program myself, you walk into class, and the students are there. They love this film. Others that have to do, you know, kind of routine prison jobs instead of being in class - was there jealousy or resentment? SAVOR I usually order a venti Pike, not too strong. And there's - I'll just let the listeners know there's an emotional moment here where you start to speak of your family, and you have to stop and compose yourself. But while I was receiving that education, as I said, it was liberating. And I just want to - after the euphoria of graduation, I mean, you certainly - you know, you had this terrific asset, this college degree that a lot of ex-offenders don't. And I think it bred for me empathy, which is something that I didn't have a lot of when I was a teenager. And then they're like, strip. Are children allowed in Turkish prisons? We should not expect that they are only capable of vocational training. It was just a really, really moving moment to be celebrated on the main Bard campus in that way by all these amazing young people. How much noise is there, and does that make it hard to read, Dyjuan? The Bard Prison Initiative enrolls over 300 incarcerated students in six New York State prisons. You know, what's striking about this program is that - I think a lot of people who think about ways that prisons can help incarcerated people get jobs when they get out of prison is to provide vocational training - you know, teach people to be welders or auto mechanics or, you know, stuff like that. The PBSand Emmy-nominated documentary "College Behind Bars" seeks to showcase the students of BPI as well as the need for more prison college programs throughout the country. Now, I still havent taken to wine. For now, the roughly 300 students taking . College Behind Bars, which airs on PBS Monday and Tuesday night, offers TV audiences a rare window into the U.S. correctional system. DAVIES: There was a time when higher education in correctional facilities was pretty common. oyster bay snow crab combo meat puckett's auto auction okc does tulane have a track. Your education in that space can be interrupted in all types of different ways at any time of day. TATRO: You know, I'm not taking it back to my cell and going to sleep with it. How can we have justice without redemption? I go to bed around 9 or 10. But I also look at the Manhattan skyline. College Behind Bars, an Emmy-nominated, four-part documentary about the transformative power of education. And I think we should just start being really clear about the scale of the commitment, first of all, that we're making to you and, secondly, that we expect of you. I'm just interested in your perspective on this because I'm just - I imagine that, in a maximum security facility, there are a lot of folks who just didn't have kind of the educational kind of foundation to do college work the way you did, or maybe I'm wrong about that. And the paradox here is that I was someone getting that type of education while I was in prison, but the education itself is what liberated me. The subjects and filmmakers reveal the inspiring story of how the power of education can change lives in College Behind Bars. Well, you know, for a number of the graduates - and this was true of Sebastian, not Dyjuan - there was this - there's this terrible paradox where, you know, the fact that you are completing your college degree and graduating doesn't mean that you are released from prison. Let's keep the noise down. I'm interested in your take on this - whether vocational programs should be there. I went on to work for Congressman Sean Patrick Maloney on his attorney general campaign here in New York. This is five times a day, right? Hes a regular at the local Starbucks, where he takes his coffee with cinnamon, not too much sugar.. DAVIES: And that's Dyjuan Tatro and Sebastian Yoon from the PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," which premieres tonight on PBS. DAVIES: You know, some might think that prison inmates would have an easier time focusing on all this rigorous schoolwork because they're literally, you know, captive in the institution and are not distracted by parties or dating or football games like, you know, students on a traditional campus. That is to say, the college has no interest in the nature of your criminal conviction, the length of your sentence, how much time you have left in prison. Anyone can read what you share. And that had been true for over a generation, and it was well understood and accepted that education was an essential part of criminal justice and of rehabilitation. Dyjuan Tatro and Sebastian Yoon are graduates of the Bard Prison Initiative. For me, my family has been YOON: My dad, appa, I'm sorry for having dishonored our family, for putting you through such an undeserved and unbearable pain. To learn more about the restoration of TAP, read Jessica Neptunes the Director of National Engagement blog post here & Executive Director, Max Kenners, letter to our supporters here. You can learn the math skills you need pretty quickly if you're motivated. NOVICK: Yeah. Hold on. Incarcerated men and women are admitted to the Bard Prison Initiative, a rigorous college program, where some make great strides while others . Few people know the joy of a free Sunday like Jule Hall. They have the bike path right on the corner that leads all the way to the East River. You know, Lynn Novick, I believe this project grew out of your own experience teaching a course, right? YOON: I never stopped being a student. YOON: And it was a very interesting moment for me where I realized that the education that I was receiving in prison was the same education that I would receive had I gone to college out there. And I wondered - I couldn't help but wonder when I went - when I submitted this application, would they see this and give me a chance for an interview had I not been able to write that I received a Bard bachelor's degree? (SOUNDBITE OF MARCUS ROBERTS' "IT'S MARIA'S DANCE"). college behind bars where are they now. BPI transforms wealth, power, and purpose in America by providing full-scholarship, college education in the most unlikely places. Of course, I recognize where this comes from: I wasnt around children for 22 years. As public funding of college-in-prison returns to the field the question shifts from Will there be college-in-prison? They love the Bard Prison Initiative. We're in the business of education. After the federal Pell ban in 1994, New York implemented a ban on TAP eligibility in 1995. Your support helps make this possible. College Behind Bars is directed and produced by Lynn Novick; produced by Sarah Botstein; edited by Tricia Reidy ACE; produced by Salimah El-Amin and Mariah Doran;original music by Jongnic Bontemps; cinematography by Buddy Squires ASC and Nadia Hallgren. And you can just see it. DAVIES: You know, getting a liberal arts education is - it is a lot of work, and it expands one's horizons in a whole lot of ways. And then, you know, you're approaching this search area, and you're in this liminal place. Sebastian Yoon, how long after your graduation did you have to serve before you got - were released? I mean, Dyjuan, I think you had a brother who had been - a younger brother who'd struggled and had been incarcerated at some point. James Herriots adventures as a veterinarian in 1930s Yorkshire get a new TV adaptation. Mr. Hall is the first formerly incarcerated person to be hired full-time by the Ford Foundation, where he works as a program associate, developing strategy and analyzing data for grants to advance, gender, racial and ethnic justice. Part 2: 'I'm Trying to Get Home to My Family, Too.'. DAVIES: It's to literally count to ensure that every inmate is is accounted for. I was in a poor, disadvantaged community, and I ended up at a very young age in gangs. Who has access to educational opportunity? And that moment when that letter came forever altered the trajectory of my life. DAVIES: You know, I'd like, Sebastian and Dyjuan, to hear a little bit about how - reconciling with your families. Our stories, our lives, they are influenced by a great number of people. 56 views, 2 likes, 3 loves, 4 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from New&Living Way Gospel Temple: Sunday service And that's - Pell grants are supposed to be based on economic need. I finished my degree in the spring of 2018. I grew up in a single-parent household, the child of a disabled mother. College Behind Bars is a production of Skiff Mountain Films and is directed by Lynn Novick. The type of things that are available to people in prison currently are somewhat outdated. I had to write that I swept and mopped floors. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. That degree really means something when they leave this program with their degree from Bard. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. It gave me the ability to put names to systems and things that had impacted my life. In four years of study they become scholars, shatter stereotypes, reckon with their pasts, and prepare to return to society. Adjust the colors to reduce glare and give your eyes a break. This is FRESH AIR. Now that Im thinking about it: more often than not, Im recognizing that the Twin Towers is not part of that skyline anymore. And one of the reasons that we had to focus so hard and have that - the discipline that we had in this program is so that we could focus on the work and get the work done in a place where there's a lot of stress, pressure and distractions. We will hear Sebastian Yoon first and then we'll hear Dyjuan Tatro. Were they all like that, Lynn? In this era of mass incarceration, America is the world's largest jailer, with more than 2 million men and women behind bars; 630,000 are released annually, and nearly 50 percent end up back in . Mr. Hall is the first formerly incarcerated person to be hired full-time by the Ford. Thats another thing I think is a spillover from prison: I saw the television as a space of conflict because people would argue over what to watch, so I stayed away from it. Could you talk just a little bit about the process? College Behind Bars | A Film by Lynn Novick | PBS All Episodes Now Streaming Men and women in prison for serious crimes try to earn college degrees in this groundbreaking story of. Born behind bars. After graduation, there were like, 30, on each side of the shower room just waiting for you. So it has a ripple effect even beyond people applying to just - you know, the facilities where there is higher education have less incidence of violence and disruption and things like that. DAVIES: Sebastian Yoon, tell us what it was like getting started in these classes. Its about two miles away. The series College Behind Bars aired on PBS on November 25 and 26 and is now available for free streaming on PBS.org through the end of January. Did you feel yourself changing as you moved through these courses? And so, you know, I think we always need to consider that we're not talking about people in prison getting a degree in isolation, you know? 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