Panel Highlights Benefits of Inmate Education Programs

When Jan Warren graduated from high school in 1969, she wanted to become a doctor. Instead, her dreams were derailed when she was sentenced to prison at age 35 for selling drugs. Last night at the Graduate School of Education (GSE), Warren shared her story as part of a kickoff event for "Prisons in America," a conference sponsored by the Harvard Prisoner Education Program.

"If I had known where to go, I wouldn't have sold drugs," she said. "And if it can happen to me, it can certainly happen to other people."

Warren, who served a 12-year sentence at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility in New York, called for prison reform, saying that educating inmates is the key to improving society.

"If prisons were working, we wouldn't be building more of them," she said.

A pamphlet passed out at the beginning of the event said that California has built 21 prisons and only one new university since 1984. The pamphlet also cited statistics showing that half of the American population will be in incarcerated by the year 2053 if the prison population continues to grow at the current rate.

The event featured two documentaries highlighting the benefits of education programs for inmates and emphasizing that these programs are dying as a result of decreased federal funding.

"[At Bedford Hills] it costs the same to incarcerate a woman for a year as to send her to Harvard for a year," filmmaker Benay Rubenstein said.

Rubenstein's documentary "The Last Generation" said that prisoners often did not get fair opportunities for education when they were young. Prison, she said, should be a place where people can get a second chance.

Author Hettie Jones, who began a writing workshop at Bedford Hills back in 1989, said that the work that she does as an educator in prison is just as important as the work she does in colleges.

"It's giving a voice to people who might be voiceless," she said.

A collection of poems that her students have written was published in a book entitled Aliens at the Border and the second documentary featured the writers reading their work aloud at a poetry reading.

Precious Bedel and Warren, both former members of the program, told last night's audience that the chance to express themselves through writing gave them an outlet through which they were able to reform themselves.

Both shared poems they had written with the audience.

"Twelve years for you, my keepers, in a box," Warren said, "but I emerged reconstructed by my own hand."

Hugh Morgan Hill, a storyteller who goes by "Brother Blue," listened from the audience and said that he was very impressed with the quality of the poets' works.

"[This event] breaks down the prison that separates people," he said.

In her speech, Jones urged College students to get involved in prisons and in the movement for prison reform. Prisoners are eager to make use of any education programs available, she said.

"If you manage to get there," she said, "[the inmates] will come."

Rubenstein said that there is a direct link between education and crime. The parents' level of education determines the child's, she said, and 40 percent of state prison inmates cannot read.

Warren said that in order to solve the problem of crime, prisons should try to reform rather than punish inmates. She said each individual case has to be looked at individually.

"Stories need to be told because it is people who are there," she said. "People in prison are human beings first."

This week's conference will also include several panel discussions, a protest at a local prison and an exhibit of photos of prison environments.