Teaching with American Prison Newspapers: Education

Education + Prison

“Education was about the practice of freedom.” 

• bell hooks

This page consists of several informational resources for exploring the relationship between education and prison. Studying the relationship between education and prison includes (but is not limited to) topics such as the school-to-prison pipeline, access to higher education in prison, and educational programming to reduce recidivism. Editors of the issues in the APN collection consistently feature permanent sections relating to education. From highlighting teachers to celebrating graduates to announcing new classes, these newspapers prove that incarcerated people have a strong investment in and passion for education. Therefore, readers get a firsthand account of what education looks like for incarcerated individuals as well as how their education impacts their lives behind and beyond bars. 

Guiding Questions

1. What is the school-to-prison pipeline? 

2. How do school discipline programs reflect theories of law and order? 

3. To what extent do school discipline programs contribute to mass incarceration? 

4. What is the relationship between literacy and crime? What are the underlying factors of literacy/illiteracy that impact mass incarceration? 

5. What educational opportunities exist for people once they are incarcerated? 

6. How can educational programming in prison reduce recidivism? 

Readings

1. Breaking Barriers with Books: A Fathers’ Book-sharing Program from Prison by Margaret Humadi Genisio (1996)

2. Are Zero Tolerance Policies Effective in the Schools? by American Psychological Association Zero Tolerance Task Force (2008)

3. Racial Imbalance Feeds School-to-Prison Pipeline by Stephanie Francis Ward and James Podgers (2014)

4. The Right to be Literate: Literacy, Education, and the School-to-Prison Pipeline by Maisha Winn, Nadia Behizadeh, Garrett Duncan, Michelle Fine, and Gadsen (2011)

5. School Discipline Feeds the “Pipeline to Prison” by Deborah Fowler (2011)

6. The Relationship Between Prison Education Programs and Misconduct by Jeremy Courtney (2019)

7. Higher Education Programs in Prison: What We Know Now and What We Should Focus on Going Forward by Lois M. Davis (2019)

8. Targeted Policing in Schools by Karen Dolan, Cecelia Scheuer, Uma Nagarajan-Swenson, and Lindsay Koshgarian (2020)

9. Expansion of Police Power in Public Schools and the Vanishing Rights of Students by Randall R. Beger (2002)

10. The Impact of Career and Technical Education Programs on Adult Offenders: Learning Behind Bars by Howard R.D. Gordon and Bracie Weldon (2003)

11. Beyond Recidivism: Positive Outcomes from Higher Education Programs in Prisons by Emily Pelletier and Douglas Evans (2019)

Viewings

1. Education in Prisons by Karyn-Lynn Fisette, TEDxPortland State University (2018)

2. Inmate University by National Geographic (2007)

3. Turning Prisons into Schools by John L., TEDxMonroe Educational Complex (2014)

4. School to Prison Pipeline by InsideOut TV (2014)

5. Hope: A Story of Prison Education by Northwestern University (2022)

6. How These Inmates Are Getting an Ivy League Education by NowThis News (2019)

7. Learning to Code in Prison by Freethink (2020)

8. Offering Prisoners a Second Chance Through Education by Freethink (2018)