When students go to prison:

Vassar class has weekly dialogue with inmates

Daniel Morgan Staff Writer

Thirty minutes away but worlds apart from the arboretum-like landscape of Vassar lies the maximum security Greenhaven correctional facility. New York State’s last “Big House,” Greenhaven might be the last place you’d expect to see a group of 16 Vassar students. Past the concertina wire, down 600 foot long corridors built in the 1940s, these students are a part of the Greenhaven prison program offered by Africana Studies. Since 1979, it has allowed inmates and students to discuss current issues, prison politics, and various topics to allow both inmate and student to reflexively reach into each others’ worlds.

This program offers students what coordinator Larry Mamiya called “transformational education.” Through simple dialogue, the worldviews and social consciousness of the predominately white Vassar students experience a dramatic shift. As faculty coordinator of both the Greenhaven maximum security prison program and the Otisville medium security program, Mamiya has experienced a constant ambivalence towards the program over its 25 year history.

The Greenhaven instructional program is one of the few vestiges of an increase in rehabilitative programs within correctional facilities that began in 1971. 30 years later, prisoners have witnessed increasing cutbacks. There’s been an alarming return to the utilitarian function of prisons in New York State and the rest of the Nation that harkens back to pre-1970s conditions. This program is the last remaining instructional program where outsiders are allowed in.

Though Greenhaven has had a long and steady relationship with Vassar's program, lead coordinator Mamiya has witnessed an increase in limitations on the students and their capacity to interact with the inmates.

“They keep putting restrictions on us like not shaking the men's hands and sitting in straight rows across from each other instead of a circle with students and men interspersed” said Mamiya. Last year, sophomore Laurence Fishman was able to shake the men’s hand one week, but not the next. She added, “The prison guards don’t want us there. They keep adding restrictions and generally make us feel unwelcome from the first day.”

Upon entering the prison, the 16 members in the Greenhaven class split up, and depending on the circumstances of the day, the two groups will meet with anywhere from three to eight inmates. Students are part of the third and final phase of what the prison calls “transitional services,” intended to prepare them for release. Most inmates in the third phase of transitional services will go before a parole board within the next year and a half. Surprisingly, 80 percent of these inmates are serving time for non-violent crimes even in this maximum-security prison.

By interacting with these men—most of whom will get out on parole within a year—students get a more complete picture of humanity and the various expressions of human dignity. Students may enter with their own perception of what kind of people are sent to bleak, white-washed institutions like Greenhaven, but after speaking with them for just a short time they see these inmates in a completely different light.

Eliza Pesuit ’07 explained that, “you wouldn't expect these men to belong in a prison. They are smart, articulate, real men working hard to learn and improve their life while in prison so they can make the most of their time when they are released…and we see that very clearly from talking to them.” Inmates “think it’s a great resource to hear our perspectives. They think it’s the last good thing left in the prisons” added Pesuit.

Under close supervision during these hour-long sessions, both inmates and students close a gap of experience, social perception, and stereotype. While Vassar students may learn about the intensity with which these inmates desire to reach out and help their community once they're released, inmates gain a perceptive friend to discuss politics, family, and domestic issues in the outside world. It's unclear who learns more. Though inmates and students are not permitted to correspond or exchange personal information, the experiences and even relationships continue for both students and inmates. Released Greenhaven inmates who have worked with Vassar students meet annually for the Greenhaven Otisville reunion on April 16, 2005.