‘You go, girl!’: Joy, tears as 19 Washington prison inmates earn college degrees

This Former Inmate Is Fighting for Every Prisoner’s Right to a College Degree

Story by Victoria Law
Photos by Laura Baker

As Cheryl Wilkins accepted her college diploma, hundreds of women screamed her name and whooped with joy. They were so loud that Wilkins’ brother, sitting with his four-year-old daughter, couldn’t hear the girl cheering, “Auntie! Auntie!” Other family members were even more enthusiastic. When another woman’s name was called, her six-year-old daughter grabbed her hand and dragged her to the stage. “Come on Mama, get your degree!” Wilkins remembers the girl shouting. “Her daughter took the diploma and walked off the stage with it.”

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What happens when you bring college classes to incarcerated men and women?

by James S. Kunen ’70CC Published Summer 2017

If you’ve ever glanced out the window of a plane flying into or out of LaGuardia Airport, you’ve seen Rikers Island. The flat strip of land, strikingly treeless, sits in the East River between Queens and the Bronx. With its clusters of long, low buildings, Rikers could be some sort of warehouse and distribution center, where tractor-trailers back up to bays to be loaded or unloaded. But there are no trucks. What is warehoused here is people — about 7,500 on any given day — detained by the New York City Department of Correction. Most of them, accused but not yet convicted of crimes, have been waiting months and even years for their day in court. Others have been found guilty and sentenced to a year or less in jail….

CLICK HERE TO READ FULL ARTICLE IN THE COLUMBIA MAGAZINE

LEARN MORE ABOUT ROSALIE CUTTING BY WATCHING THIS SHORT DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HER FIRST DAYS HOME AFTER DECADES IN PRISON

Florida is one of only four states that denies the right to vote to all former felons until they petition for rights restoration – this process is the target of our lawsuit. About 1.6 million Floridians are currently disenfranchised under this system—the highest state total in the nation.This includes men and women of all different political parties, races, ethnicities, ages, from cities and rural areas, as well as veterans, small business owners and others…

CLICK HERE TO LEARN MORE AND SEE HOW YOU CAN HELP

CHAMPIONING A FORGOTTEN PEOPLE GROUP – THE ROMA PEOPLE

BY CRISTIANA GRIGORE

How can teaching Plato in prisons teach us what justice is? 

Plato’s Republic begins with Athenians asking: what is justice? Now, through the Justice-in-Education initiative, Columbia faculty and students look for answers in a setting that goes well beyond the theoretical, reading dizzying Socratic dialogues with currently or formerly incarcerated students…

Click here to read full article at Giving to Columbia and make a gift to contribute to criminal justice reform.

Thank you to everyone who joined us for the 7th annual Beyond the Bars Conference: Transcending the Punishment Paradigm.  We are grateful for the more than 1500 attendees and the 150+ speakers who joined us over the four days. This year’s conference focused on the criminal justice system’s responses to violence focusing on the following four questions:

1. What are the root causes of violence within communities? What are the root causes of state violence? How do the two intersect?
2. What is needed to makes communities safe?
3. What are the existing narratives about people who have committed violent acts? How do we change those narratives?
4. When violence happens in the community, what are responses that decrease mass criminalization and incarceration and do not rely on the punishment paradigm?

Recap Video Below 

We are especially thankful to the dozens of organizers and supporters that contributed in some way to make this a meaningful and important event.

We have lots to share from this year and are looking forward to publishing a report from the conference in the Fall of this year.

Voices from Beyond the Bars 

Videos from the Conference 

• Women Transcending the Punishment Paradigm 
• Building the Movement: Conversations with Angela Davis 
• Understanding the Root Causes of Violence and What Makes Communities Safe 
• Beyond the Non, Non, Nons: Challenging Narratives of “Violent Criminals” and “Dangerous Communities” 
• How do we Respond to Violence? Strategies to Transcend the Punishment Paradigm 
• Safety and Justice Without Prison: A Restorative Justice Response to Violence 

Conference Programs 

• Thursday March 2nd – Women Transcending the Punishment Paradigm
• Thursday March 2nd – Women Transcending the Punishment Paradigm
• Saturday March 4th – Transcending the Punishment Paradigm: Panel Discussions
• Sunday March 5th – Building the Grassroots

Photos 

• Photos from the Photo Booth 
• Conference Photos 

2017 Recap Video

by Professor Geraldine Downey, Director of the Center for Justice at Columbia University

Young people with a criminal history may face a lifetime of marginalization but we can support their transition to adulthood through education, says Geraldine Downey, Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Justice at Columbia University.

Downey’s interests lie in how people’s identities are shaped by experiences of rejection, whether because of something about them as a person or because of their membership in a stigmatized group. Her scholarship has been published in Psychological Science, Child Development, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience.