Learning With Incarcerated Scholars

In this article, the two authors talk about their vastly different trajectories that span international geographies and contrasting circumstances. By chance, their lives intersected in a music education program in an American prison. They trace their lifeworlds and how their musical engagement was a reciprocal learning experience for both of them. The article describes the “Empowering Song” music education approach that had its genesis in American prisons. The authors also share the experiential learning that has marked their collaboration, a relationship that has benefited them socially, emotionally, and politically. As a liberation pedagogy, the Empowering Song approach has wider implications, from general music and professional settings to community music in peace-building and forced migration circumstances.

This study sought to gain an understanding of: (a) the formation and operation of four instrumental music programmes active in prisons between 1973 and 2020 and (b) the meanings ascribed to those programmes by their directors and their perceptions of the meanings that incarcerated instrumentalists ascribed to their participation in those groups, focusing on aspects of the programming that might contribute to desistance. Four retired music educators completed an online, open-ended questionnaire, describing their experiences teaching instrumental music in prisons. Using inductive thematic analysis, the following themes in participants’ responses were identified: (a) the importance of support from those in power in starting and running prison-based music programmes; (b) the potential for participation in prison-based instrumental music programmes to help people overcome prejudice and establish community connections; and (c) satisfaction through the development of new abilities among incarcerated musicians. From these findings, I argue that prison-based instrumental music programmes can potentially foster activities and relationships that contribute to social rehabilitation and desistance. Furthermore, the finding that incarcerated musicians reportedly enjoyed a wide array of musical genres and pedagogical approaches invites further discussion about the potential inclusion of different kinds of instrumental music programmes in prison contexts.

In the course of a group discussion, five student members of New York University’s Prison Education Program (PEP) reflect on their transition from prison inmates and students to their training as peer researchers in the PEP Research Lab. They trade their experiences of life on the inside, debunking a variety of public myths about the welfare and treatment of those caught within the prison system. Discussing their postcarceral roles as students and researchers, they analyze the differences between the two, drawing particular attention to the social status accorded to researchers. Building on the independence and resources offered by PEP’s Research Lab, they describe the initiatives they have taken to launch new paths of inquiry into carceral life and the financial and social burdens that continue to afflict the formerly incarcerated upon reentry.

"Phillis in Prison" is a reflection on recent experiences in teaching African American literature in four MDOC facilities, over two semesters, in 2020; then connecting those students to an academic opportunity to present their work (reading and writing) on colonial poet Phillis Wheatley, and the work of contemporary poet Honoree Fanonne Jeffers (The Age of Phillis, 2020) at the Society of Early Americanists (SEA) biennial conference, in March 2021. Student-inmate work was read by undergraduates in the Social Justice Program at Spelman College.

The Prison and Jail Innovation Lab (PJIL) is a policy resource center at the LBJ School of Public Affairs that serves as a catalyst to ensure the safe and humane treatment of people in custody and that cultivates the next generation of justice policy leaders.

In 2008, the Prison Studies Project at Harvard University began compiling a list of higher education in prison programs throughout the United States. For the next 10 years, the National Directory of Higher Education Programs in Prison remained a central focus of the Prison Studies Project and an important resource for the higher education in prison community. Today, working with our partners at the Research Collaborative on Higher Education in Prison at the University of Utah, and the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, the Alliance for Higher Education launched the National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs (2020), which serves as a comprehensive resource for people seeking information about college in prison programs in the United States.

National Directory of Higher Education in Prison Programs. (2023, May). Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. Retrieved from https://www.nationaldirectoryhep.org

Texas Appleseed's mission is to promote social, economic, and racial justice for all Texans by leveraging the skills and resources of volunteer lawyers, other professionals, and community partners to identify practical solutions to difficult, systemic problems.

The World Prison Brief is an online database providing free access to information on prison systems around the world. It is a unique resource, which supports evidence-based development of prison policy and practice globally.

The World Prison Brief is hosted by the Institute for Crime & Justice Policy Research(link is external) (ICPR), at Birkbeck(link is external), University of London. ICPR hosts and updates the World Prison Brief as part of its World Prison Research Programme. This programme, which involves collaboration with research partners, civil society organisations and policy makers, aims to inform and promote debate and policy reform through international comparative research projects, publications and civil society engagement.

In addition to providing access to the World Prison Brief database, this website holds other prisons publications by ICPR, including World Prison Population Lists, the handbook A Human Rights Approach to Prison Management, research project reports, blogs and expert commentary on prisons issues.

NIJ is the research, development and evaluation agency of the U.S. Department of Justice.

On this page, find links to articles, awards, events, publications, and multimedia related to justice system reform.

Produces annual national- and state-level data on the number of prisoners in state and federal prison facilities. Aggregate data are collected on race and sex of prison inmates, inmates held in private facilities and local jails, system capacity, noncitizens, and persons age 17 or younger. Findings are released in the Prisoners series and the Corrections Statistical Analysis Tool (CSAT) - Prisoners. Data are from the 50 state departments of correction, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, and until 2001, the District of Columbia. After 2001, persons sentenced under the District of Columbia criminal code were housed in federal facilities.

On this page, the Prison Policy Initiative has curated all of the research about youth in the criminal justice system that we know of.

Because prisoners are a vulnerable research population, the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP) requires and enforces additional protections (45 CFR 46 Subpart C). OHRP Guidance on the Involvement of Prisoners in Research will be useful to PIs who conduct prisoner research, or those who have enrolled a research participant who subsequently becomes incarcerated.