Green Haven Prison Program expands

Students, inmates teach one another in workshop

Stephanie Damon-Moore Staff Writer

The average Vassar classroom is accessed by crossing manicured lawns and through stately wooden doors, not past metal detectors and armed guards. But for Vassar students interested in crossing a different threshold to explore the criminal justice and witness the American prison system firsthand, prisons themselves become classrooms.

Through Vassar Prison Programs, including a class called The Prison Experience in America and a women’s writing workshop at the Dutchess County Jail, students and faculty have an opportunity to interact with incarcerated men and women in the surrounding area.

Professor of Religion and Africana Studies Lawrence Mamiya started the prison program 28 years ago at the Green Haven Maximum Security Prison in Stormville, N.Y., as a discussion group between incarcerated persons and Vassar students. The students sat in on classes coordinated by the pre-release center, covering basic topics such as grooming and household finances. But as the discussions continued, other topics found their way into the forums—issues such as domestic violence and fatherhood.

Now The Prison Experience in America classes visit not only Green Haven Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in Stormville, but also the New York State prison in Otisville, a medium security facility. Jonathan Turner ’08 has participated in the Otisville program for four semesters. He cites his relationship with the pre-release center facilitators as the reason he keeps coming back.

“I’ve just made some really good friends there,” Turner said. “I look forward to seeing them, helping them out with something they care about.”

The facilitators are incarcerated men who are paid a nominal amount to prepare the other men for their potential release. Vassar students are a welcome presence in the Friday classes because they can supply a different perspective.

“We had a conversation about technology last semester that was pretty hilarious, because some of those guys have been in there for 15 years,” Turner said.

An uneasy adjustment after prison
But not all of the issues facing prisoners are as straightforward as technological advances. One of the most dramatic problems is the recidivism rate (the rate at which formerly incarcerated persons are committing crimes), which has climbed to 67 percent nationally. While many factors contribute to this problem, one with the greatest impact is unemployment. Often people who learn trades in prison cannot work in the same fields when they are released.

“There are about 100 or so occupational categories that bar people who have felony convictions,” said Mamiya. “Skills like plumbing, carpentry, and so forth, that they are trained for in prison, the unions won’t let them in to do.”

And limitations are even greater because of educational deficiencies. According to a 2001 study from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 68 percent of prison inmates have not graduated from high school.
College degrees offer second chance
However, higher education could provide a way out of this vicious cycle.

“In New York State, recidivism rates for incarcerated persons with college degrees have dropped to around 20 percent,” Mamiya said. “In some states it’s dropped to zero.”

A college degree could provide both self-confidence and job opportunities, but as of yet, a college degree is still difficult for incarcerated individuals to obtain. Although Vassar has been involved with prisons in the area for a long time, classes have never been offered to the incarcerated persons. Professor of Sociology and American Studies Eileen Leonard has plans to teach a course to a group made up of incarcerated women and Vassar students at Taconic Correctional Facility in Bedford Hills, N.Y., but right now the program is being blocked by the New York Board of Corrections.

The Board of Corrections will not currently allow Vassar to offer credit to inmates for classes consisting of both students and inmates. In 1999 Bard College established a Prison Initiative that offers credit to inmates toward a degree, but the inmates enrolled in the program are taught seperately from Bard’s undergraduate student population. Professor Mamiya indicated that Vassar’s focus has always been on the interaction and cooperative learning between students and incarcerated individuals.

A new outlet for women in prison
This year, however, a writers’ workshop is being offered for the first time to incarcerated women in the Dutchess County Jail. The program is co-facilitated by Professor of Political Science Molly Shanley and Associate Director of Family Services in Poughkeepsie Pam Wright. Aviva Michelman ’08 who teaches the workshop, whose participants are either awaiting trials or serving short sentences. The class of about a dozen inmates, meets Wednesday nights. Although the workshop is just taking off, Michelman is excited about it.

“The program can give access for those who haven’t had any to education and stimulation,” she said.

Because women in prison face different challenges than men do, it’s valuable for Vassar students to interact with them as well. One of the biggest problems women face is abuse; In 2002 the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that over 50 percent of incarcerated women had been sexually or physically abused and 37 percent had been raped.

“It seems like the women need a lot of empowerment and self-motivations,” said Michelman. “A lot of them have been abused, a lot of them don’t have high self-esteem.”

Shanley described the workshop as “an opportunity for the women in the jail to express themselves in writing and to engage in both the creative process and the process of self-discovery
that such writing always brings with it.”

“One thing that’s really exciting about the Dutchess County Jail is that it’s our neighborhood, it’s our city, it’s our community,” she said.

A mutual educational experience
Interacting with the inmates at a jail located in Poughkeepsie gives students and faculty an opportunity to be involved with incarcerated individuals after their releases, as well as during their transition. Several students are currently doing field work with the Family Partnership Center in Poughkeepsie, which helps recently released men and women with their transition back into society.

Vassar Prison Program professors hope that they will be able to offer credit to incarcerated people in the future. Yet even without the credit, Vassar students and faculty have a lot to offer the men and women at the Otisville, Green Haven, and Dutchess County facilities. And people from Vassar gain a lot as well.

“The students learn a lot,” said Mamiya. “They probably gain a lot more than the [incarcerated] men do.”

The interactions help students learn about are race and class issues, life on the street, and the criminal justice system.

“Vassar is a place where people talk a lot about social problems and wanting to change things, but it’s hard to understand those things unless you’ve seen them,” Turner said. “And meeting some of these great people, seeing what kind of problems they’re going to face when they come back out in the world, has inspired a lot of people who have taken the class to go on after graduation and work to help people transition.”