Prison Project

I am a co-founder and coordinator of the Georgia State University Prison Education Project.  We teach college classes in Georgia Prisons and work to educate the general population about mass incarceration and the challenges facing formerly incarcerated people.  

I started teaching in prisons in 2004 with the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project in a poetry workshop at Tutwiler Prison (a prison that is regularly listed on the top ten worst prisons in the US).  Working with director Kyes Stevens, I found myself drawn to the work of teaching in prisons because, as a teacher, I found the students to be more motivated and engaged than any other students I had taught.  In addition, in Alabama, the lack of resources for prisoners meant that my work filled a tangible need in society, and this gave me a sense of fulfillment and purpose my other academic work lacked.  While I love literature and poetry, academia can sometimes move us out of touch with privileged people in our society.  

One in every fifteen people born in the United States in 2001 is expected to go to jail or prison; one in every three black male babies born in this century is expected to be incarcerated” (Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy, 15).
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When I moved to Georgia, I began volunteering with non-profits working in Georgia State prisons.  The combination of my experience teaching in prisons and my tenured position has opened doors in allowing me to be a part of this new endeavor to bring an Associate Degree program inside state and federal prisons in Georgia.  Most people do not know the extent to which formerly incarcerated people struggle to reintegrate into society when they are released, and almost 90 percent of incarcerated people return to society.  In Georgia alone, nearly 20,000 people return from prison to our communities every year.  Our program seeks to offer a better path for those people.  Through education, we believe that their lives can be transformed, and this might, in turn, transform our society.  Human beings deserve dignity and a chance to broaden their intellectual knowledge, no matter where they live.

​For more information about the prison project, see GSU Prison Education Project