The Inside-Out Podcast
This podcast tells stories from the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, an international educational program with an innovative pedagogical approach tailored to effectively facilitate dialogue across difference. It originated as a means of bringing together campus-based college students with incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a prison, jail or other correctional setting. This podcast is produced by the Inside-Out Center, which trains and equips higher education instructors to teach courses comprised of incarcerated and non-incarcerated students.
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Ep 12: Interview with Chris Lamoureux
08/31/2021
Ep 12: Interview with Chris Lamoureux
The 12th episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features Christopher Lee Lamoureux, who served 14 months in prison in British Columbia, Canada. Chris shares about his time before, during and after incarceration, and how his family, friends and culture served as a support network. While incarcerated, Chris had the opportunity to take part in the Vancouver Island University Inside-Out Program. Chris reflects on what this program meant for him, and how it impacted his life upon reentry. "To any folks who may listen to this, look for opportunities to support incarcerated folks. By helping to deliver a sense of purpose and meaning, it breathes life into hopeless situations. Thank you to all those who have made this a life's mission and a life's purpose. It's definitely changed the trajectory in my life. And I believe it's the case for anybody who takes this experience. It's pretty special." - Christopher Lamoureux This interview was conducted by guest interviewer Morgan Mifflin, and Inside-Out intern and recent graduate of Temple University.
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Ep 11: Student Voices from the UK (Univeristy of Greenwhich)
12/22/2020
Ep 11: Student Voices from the UK (Univeristy of Greenwhich)
This episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features and , who both teach at the School of Law and Criminology at the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom. They both completed the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute in 2017. Inside-Out courses have been held in the UK since 2014. For the past few years, they have been co-teaching Inside-Out courses at a women’s prison called HMP Downview. The Inside-Out podcast is hosted by Dave Krueger from The Inside-Out Center, the international headquarters of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. To learn more about our Inside-Out Instructor Training Institutes, click . To support the expansion of Inside-Out activities around the world, please make your contribution . Episode Transcription David Krueger: This episode of The Inside-Out Podcast features two university lecturers and three of their Inside-Out students from the United Kingdom. and both teach at the School of Law and Criminology at the University of Greenwich in the United Kingdom, just outside of London. For the past few years, they have been co-teaching Inside-Out courses at a women’s prison called HMP Downview. Dr. Zampini and Dr. Stengel speaks with three of their outside students Maddy, Becca, and Amy. You’ll hear their voices after this word of introduction about Inside-Out from Tyrone Werts. Tyrone Werts: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program facilitates dialogue and education across social barriers. Inside-Out courses bring campus-based college students and incarcerated students together in jails and prisons for semester-long learning. These courses ignite enthusiasm for learning, help students find their voice, and challenge students to consider what good citizenship requires. Since Temple University professor Lori Pompa taught the first class in 1997, Inside-Out has grown into an international network of more than 1,000 trained instructors from across the US and several countries. Prisons and universities have partnered to create opportunities for more than 40,000 inside and outside students to move beyond the walls that separate them. We are more than a program...we are changing the world. Camille S: Hi, I'm Camille. I'm one of the facilitators with the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at the University of Greenwich in London, England. And I've been working on Inside-Out in partnerships with a prison called HMP Downview for the past three years, and I've been working on it with my colleague, Guilia, who's also here. Giulia Z: Hi everyone. I'm Giulia. I'm Senior Lecturer in criminology at the University of Greenwich, and I work alongside Camille on Inside-Out. We've had our partnership for three years and it's been an amazing and inspiring journey and today we have with us three of our students who have taken Inside-Out and they're outside students and they're joining us today just to talk about their experience with Inside Out. So we're really excited. Do you guys want to introduce yourselves? Becca: I'm Becca. I'm a second year criminology student at University of Greenwich. Amy: I’m Amy. I'm also a second year student at Greenwich. Maddy: I'm Maddy and I'm also a second year criminology student at Greenwich. Giulia Z: I think you can say third year now. Becca: Yeah, my third year. Giulia Z: Excellent. Okay. So our first question is really about your involvement in Inside-Out and whether this involvement—this participation—has changed your future plans? Has it impacted your future plans in any way? Becca: Should I go first? Maddy: Yeah. Becca: For me it's made me want to stay within the criminal justice system and, and that, that's kind of, I mean, it's been a big influence for me. I think, I think as well that obviously it's proved to me how prisons really are. And I was really quite scared to go into work in prisons, because I was really quite scared that they were going to be a terrible place. And really, they're not, and I think that's one of the main reasons as to why it's influenced me to stay kind of within that region, the criminal justice system. Amy: I think for me it has not necessarily impacted in terms of career because there's small aspects in the criminal justice system that I wouldn't mind going into. This is just one of them. It's certainly shaped my life in general, it's made me become more open minded about situations and the privilege that I have as a person not being incarcerated. Like, a very humbling experience it’s been. Maddy: Yeah, I mean, for me, I would definitely say it has impacted my future plans. I mean like Becca, I would say that I was always quite scared to work in a prison. I thought like you never know what could happen. I really didn't know what a prison even looks like before Inside Out. And I would definitely say it has changed my plans because before starting uni and even before starting Inside Out, I never wanted to work in a prison, it wasn't an interest of mine. I didn't particularly feel that there was a lot of important work going on there. But having done Inside Out. I would say that was a very naive perspective. Like there's definitely a lot that you could do and a lot that the prison system could benefit from from working in there. So I would definitely say that it has changed my future plans and the career I'd like to go into. So, yeah. Camille S: Great, thanks. That's so interesting to hear about, it's yeah, it made you change how you think about your future career plans, but also Amy's point about how it's shaped how she thinks about her life in general. I was wondering if we could go down that direction a bit more and either Amy or Becca or Maddy, if you resonated with what Amy said about Inside Out helping her become more open minded and think about specifically that privilege of not being incarcerated. I wonder if maybe Amy, you could start and elaborate on what you mean by that, and Maddie and Becca, if that resonates with you, you could add to it. Amy: So, In terms of privilege, I'm referring to the fact that I'm not stuck inside the prison 24/7. I am able to go to university and I'm able to study and learn about the justice system and how it can be fundamentally flawed and people don't necessarily think of prison education as something very important. I think there's this mindset that ignorance is bliss and they sort of throw away the key once they're locked up and we just shun them leaving be. Becca: Yeah, so I'm just going with Amy's point and I think before I started studying criminology, I had the kind of perspective that if you're in a jail or if you're in prison then you've done something to get there and Inside-Out completely changed my perspective. Completely because you go into the prison and actually they're not horrible people. They're not these horrible scary people that the media and other people make out criminals to be and although they may have committed a crime, it doesn't make them horrible people. So I think that it has made me understand my privilege in a way that I can get up and go to the shop if I want to. I think we've all kind of been in a position. Wrong place, wrong time where we could have ended up in prison. And so not always people in there as well are completely guilty. So, you know, I think that it’s kind of made me realize the flaws of the criminal justice system and how in my career, I can help put those wrongs right and as Amy said, I believe that prison education is absolutely incredible. And I feel like we need to get rid of that as young criminologists and criminologists together really and get rid of that stigma of ‘Criminals are horrible people’ and you know once someone enters the prison system society does just wash their hands with them. And I think it's, it's awful. So in my career, it’s made me want to, as an individual, change people's perspectives or change the general public's perspective. And that's why I'm so grateful for this program. For me that perspective, and to understand my privilege in society. Maddy: I mean, yeah, I would definitely agree with what you both said, I think one of the biggest things that all of us learn and like I think Inside Out brought out in it also is privilege. I think now I wouldn't use the term ‘lucky’. I think we all say, ‘Oh, I'm lucky for that’, ‘I'm lucky for this’, but I would definitely say it's because we're privileged now. I mean, obviously, like you said, we're privileged because we're not in prison. And I think many people would say, ‘Oh, I didn't commit crimes. Why would I be in prison?’ But I think it's more than that, like the prison system is flawed, the criminal justice system is flawed and I think we don't think about the people that are in there that shouldn't be because they'd have a lack of privilege. We don't think about the people that probably have committed crimes that are not in prison because of their privilege and like us, like Becca said, some of us could have been in compromising positions that could have got us in different situations and because of our privilege that hasn't happened for us. And I think to understand that and acknowledge it is the first step of helping because I think now that we know that from Inside Out that's brought that out in us, I think we can now move forward in our careers and use that to then help others. Giulia Z: Yeah, that's sad. That's a very, very strong sense that I get from all of you that you've really grasped the kind of fundamental principle of what Inside Out is about and that's really, it's a powerful thing to hear because you are young people and of course you are students of criminology, but I'm kind of curious about what maybe the differences between like what you learned in the books and what you learned in connection with other people in dialogue with other people in the inside out classroom compared to a traditional classroom, a lecture room, or you know, even connecting and talking to your peers or also University. Anyone want to go first? Becca: Can I go? Maddy: Yeah, go, go. Becca: Yes. So I think for me, and it's, it's all well and good learning from a book. I mean you do learn a lot of the legal side obviously through books. You can't really learn that by entering a prison as such. But you see the practices and how the criminal justice system actually plays out for people and how most of the people, most of the inside students that after a while, you get to speak to and you get to know. They sometimes, if obviously they want to, they don't have to, but one of the inside students told me about her story and I'm obviously not going to say what the story was but her journey. For example, I mean, she was a black individual and she only had one black juror and the black juror was the only one that found her not guilty. And for me, like just hearing that and kind of sitting there and listening to—obviously there's a bigger story but hearing what she had to say—it really pulled on my heartstrings, and you would never learn that from a book. You can never learn that from, although our lectures are amazing. They have a lot of stories to tell you. It’s different when you sit there and you hear that firsthand and you see the heartbreak and you see what these individuals, these people have been through, because I think that sometimes it's easy to forget that although, obviously not, not for us because we've experienced it, but for the media they're just a number. It’s ‘Oh, this person's committed a crime’. They’re this, that they're nasty people, but they're really not. And I think that is the most amazing thing that anyone could ask for, I think, especially with what we study, and actually going face to face with these criminals. You know, I mean, they're not horrible people and it hurts me that they're portrayed in that way. And, and I think It's incredible that we've had the opportunity to go in and actually sit there and learn for ourselves, instead of in books. So yeah, that was kind of my experience with it. Amy: Yeah, I get what you're saying. Becca, it's, it's one thing to learn the academics, the research into the topics that we've covered, such as drugs, sex work. It's another thing to listen to somebody’s perspective, who's gone through the system and experienced how flawed it sometimes can be. And what you said earlier— everyone makes mistakes in life. And it could just be one mistake that lands you in prison, and then you have to deal with the stigma for the rest of your life. And I'm so grateful that I've had the experience on Inside-Out, talked to the inside students, because it's really changed my perspective on a lot of topics and that's just something you can't get from sitting in a lecture for like an hour, or reading academic research. Maddy: Yeah, I mean I would completely agree with that. I think it's such a unique experience. I think that's one of the things that a lot of us, why we wanted to do it was because there's nothing like it. There's no opportunity like it for university students and I just think everyone should just go for it because it was just so eye opening and insightful. I mean, learning from books is great. Obviously, all of us go to university, we expect that we expect to be sitting at lectures and seminars and learning things and a lot of it is facts and figures and I think having that life experience is so important. Obviously, we will never fully understand what it's like to be in prison, we’ll never fully understand what the criminal justice system is like because we haven't had that first hand experience but sitting there and hearing what everyone else has to say, how the inside students feel, what their day to day life is like, has been really helpful. And I think it has benefited us all to know that because we can use that in our degrees, we can use that in later life and I think that is just a unique experience that we won't get again as university students and I think having that is actually probably sometimes more beneficial than learning from a textbook, because it is you've seen it firsthand. You know it's true. You know, you've sort of done the research because you're there, like, you know, what's happening and I think as well in, in the world, they don't tell you all the bad things, necessarily. And in books, they might not state what's going on and hearing the inside students' own experiences was really interesting because I can't say that I knew things that they'd said, and obviously when we had discussions we had their opinions and some were different, some were the same but they were sort of more informed because they've been through it. So I thought that was really interesting. And that was really beneficial as well. Camille S: Great. These are all quite fascinating points in the threads between them in terms of getting that firsthand experience that you don't get in books. I'd like to challenge you on that though, because in a way it's almost like y'all came into the prison with like nothing to offer, that you were just empty vessels there to listen, listen to the inside students and gain their knowledge. How did it, how did it help you grow as, as criminologists who you know, at the time you came into Inside Out you had a year and a half, maybe two and a half years if you're an extended student of learning under your, under your belt. So well, we've looked at the differences between Inside Out and maybe more traditional academic learning with books. I wonder if there were any synergies. So if you saw anything you could connect the dots, for example with, you know, the classes you've done so far and Inside Out. Maddy: I mean, for me personally. So one of the modules I did other than Inside-Out this year was ‘Inequality of Justice’ and I think that links so closely to the Inside-Out program because obviously a lot of the Inside students were black. And they also, we had a minority ethnic from Outside as well. And I think that was important because hearing their stories and hearing what happened to them. And obviously we're going with ‘That's truth’. Their experience to us is the truth and we're hearing these stories and I'm thinking the whole time like ‘That's interesting’ because I've learned that from the inequalities modules and I'm hearing things and that is sort of putting it in place and showing that that does happen and you hear the statistics of how often things like this happen and how often BAME backgrounds are imprisoned. It's unfair, and I think that was really shown in Inside Out and I think that sort of taught me like this is serious. This is a big issue, like and we need to move forward and change this in any way we can. And I think that made it more for me, doing Inside Out like, ‘Okay, right. This is like we need to do something like in the future. I want to be in a career where I can like change this’, because we are all the unit university students that are going to be the next generation of people that hopefully can change this. And I think all our other modules lead up to it up to this, like, not just Inside Out , not just the inequalities modules, but everything we've learned is sort of put into place for now on. Yeah. Camille S: Maddy, can you just explain what BAME means because that's a UK term. Maddy: Yes. Oh, sorry, sorry Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic so Becca: I think as well. Adding on from Maddy’s point, it's made me realize my, my voice. I think before I entered criminology, in my own journey, I found it really hard to express myself in a certain way. And when I found criminology, it was amazing. But I speak about criminology, a lot. And when I entered the Inside Out module and I was in a big group of people, it allowed me to sit and listen to other people and acknowledge it and appreciate it and then respond and challenge myself and challenge my peers. And then I was then able to put that into practice in my own life in my own personal life, as well as my professional, my professional life. And I'd like to think that it's got me to where I am today. And so for me, I think, yeah, I don't really know. What was I gonna say, where was I going with that? Again as Maddy said, I studied the ‘Inequalities of Justice’ course and I also studied criminology so I had a lot of previous education on prisons and kind of the inequalities of the justice system and, and I did understand kind of what was going on. But I think when you sit down in a prison. And you know, I think we all at times, got a bit frustrated, especially with the alarms going off for the movement not being at a certain time, so their lives are never structured. And that, for me, was one big thing about entering the prison. I love structure in my life, and, and for me, having-, thinking about having that privilege taken away from me is, is daunting. So there's things like that, that you can't learn about from books. You can't learn about how much right and how many of their rights are taken away and you know their normal day to day lives that they would have, I mean at Downview prison they eat, sleep and go to the toilet in the same place, and they're there at the moment 23 hours a day, and there's not an hour that goes past I don't think about those girls or anyone in incarceration at the moment and it's-, it's painful when you, you can't learn about those things unless you firsthand experienced it. And I think it's something that almost everyone should experience because it has completely changed my life and my career and my everyday life choices. Amy: For me, I'm very similar. Before coming to university, I'm gonna hold my hands up here. I was very naive about those who are sent to prison, about prisons in general and I never thought that those who are incarcerated could be victims and it wasn't until I started learning in our criminology courses and then learning...
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Ep 10: Teaching in the DC Jail (Tiffany Simmons)
06/11/2020
Ep 10: Teaching in the DC Jail (Tiffany Simmons)
This episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features Professor Tiffany Simmons, who serves as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at both Howard University and American University. Her areas of study include criminology, criminal justice and law. Ms. Simmons also serves as the Inside-Out Program Coordinator for American University. Currently, she is the Special Assistant/Chief of Staff to the Deputy Director of College and Career Readiness, Professional Development, and Special Projects for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. In this role, Professor Simmons has administrative oversight of the education, training and professional development of the inmates and staff. She previously worked as an educational advocate/attorney with a focus on assisting many at-risk youth with their educational needs. Professor Simmons is a graduate of Texas Southern University, Thurgood Marshall School of Law and she earned her B.A. in political science from Johnson C. Smith University. The Inside-Out podcast is hosted by Dave Krueger from The Inside-Out Center, the international headquarters of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. To learn more about our Inside-Out Instructor Training Institutes, click . To support the expansion of Inside-Out activities around the world, please make your contribution . Episode Transcription David Krueger: In this episode of The Inside-Out Podcast, I speak with Professor Tiffany Simmons, who teaches as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at Howard University and American University. Her areas of study include criminology, criminal justice and law. She also serves as Special Assistant to Deputy Director of College & Career Readiness and Professional Development for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections in Washington DC. Professor Simmons completed the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute in 2016 and has taught classes combining students from American University and the DC Jail. In this interview, Professor Simmons discusses her work to increase access to education for incarcerated people and she also shares her desire to see more historically black colleges and universities involved in prison education, and specifically, Inside-Out education. Tiffany Simmons: It is imperative. And I say this as a person who is a two-time HBCU graduate getting ready to earn my third certification from the Howard University School of Business. And I also speak as a person who had a brother who was incarcerated. The narrative right now being told in the United States is that The majority of the people in prison, in jail and carceral spaces in the U.S. are African-American. And why It's important for the HBCUs to get involved in the conversation in prison education, one to act as role models, to let people know again that they are beyond the circumstances, and two, to create pipelines and gateways to education, because HBCUs are traditionally known for creating opportunities for those who normally or traditionally would not have it. So living up to the legacy that is instilled in us as HBCU students, and HBCU faculty members, I feel that responsibility to go and give back to those people because the people who are inside the facility are members of our community. Even if their address is different, they are still members of our community. And because of that, we have a responsibility to care for them and to educate them. David Krueger: The interview with Tiffany Simmons will continue after this word from Tyrone Werts. Tyrone Werts: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program facilitates dialogue and education across social barriers. Inside-Out courses bring campus-based college students and incarcerated students together in jails and prisons for semester-long learning. These courses ignite enthusiasm for learning, help students find their voice, and challenge students to consider what good citizenship requires. Since Temple University professor Lori Pompa taught the first class in 1997, Inside-Out has grown into an international network of more than 1,000 trained instructors from across the US and several countries. Prisons and universities have partnered to create opportunities for more than 40,000 inside and outside students to move beyond the walls that separate them. We are more than a program...we are changing the world. (00:06) David Krueger: Tiffany Simmons, welcome to the Inside-Out podcast. Professor Tiffany Simmons: Thank you so much for having me. (00:13) DK: So why don't we begin by just having you share a little bit about your background and how you got into the type of work that you're doing now? TS: Well, initially, I went to law school in Texas at the University of Houston, Texas, After graduating I got a job in higher education, working in our office of admissions and also working with our FEMA students. So I did diversity services in addition to admissions and financial aid. I transitioned from there into working for a big law firm, Hunt & Williams, decided the law firm life wasn’t for me. I moved to D.C. and started work as an education advocate and juvenile justice attorney here in a local area. I did that for a number of years, working with a lot of children in the foster care system and also the criminal justice system and then transitioned into teaching. I initially started teaching at Howard University in 2009, and then American University 2013. And through my work as an educator and coming in and teaching classes inside the facility here, I was able to transition to my current role, which is the Chief of Staff for Amy Lopez, who was the Deputy Director of College and Career Readiness and Professional Development for the D.C. Department of Corrections. (01:35) DK: Somewhere along this journey, you enrolled in the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute. Why did you take the training and how did you initially get connected to Inside-Out? TS: Around 2013. One of the professors here came to start working at Howard. I am listed as a, I’m a part-time faculty member, I’m a lecturer, a professor at Howard. And she mentioned a program when she found out about my background in juvenile justice and child advocacy. She felt like it would be a perfect alignment with my area of research and just my experience, period. So I finally went in the winter in January 2016. I was trained alongside Lori and a bunch of wonderful people in my cohort and there started my journey. (02:28) DK: You've been able to teach the class a couple of times. Could you tell us about that experience of teaching Inside-Out for the first time? TS: Yeah. So my first time teaching inside out, I actually had the opportunity to teach it for both Howard and American at the exact same time. One class at American was Critical Issues in Justice and the other class at Howard was Police, Law and Society, which is kind of focused on community relations. Both classes were very interesting in the sense of, we were talking about critical issues of justice and how violence impacts society. The conversation was quite lively with my students from American University. That class, that particular cohort was global, so I had 14 students and out of 14 students, five of them were from around the world. So we had Ireland, Austria, we had Czech Republic, Russia and someone from Central America. So the conversation was deeper than I anticipated because we had students sharing their global perspectives. And of course, the Police and Law Society class was heated at times because police and community relations and the tension in our country, even now, you know, is a hot topic. So it was interesting and it allowed me the opportunity to kind of have two divergent points of view because the populations of my classes were so different, but still very quite engaging. I learned a lot about myself as well. I felt like this balancing the two programs at the same time was interesting, but challenging myself as a teacher. First time teaching in a carceral space, in trying to adapt how I learned and how I learned the pedagogy to really making sure it benefited all of the students I had in the classroom. (04:25) DK: So the D.C. jail, as I understand, is a bit different from a lot of other correctional facilities. It's not necessarily like a county jail, it's technically a federal facility, right? Could you tell us a little bit about what it was like to teach in that facility and about the inside students that you’ve worked with? TS: Absolutely. So the D.C. jail, as you stated, is a very unique, I guess, carceral space. We have local detainees who are with us for up to two years, one month. And then we also have persons who are federal. So they're either waiting to be adjudicated, meaning they’re waiting to go to court or they are coming back to us to finish their sentence out. There's also persons who are coming back because they're asking or appealing their sentence, so they're back on a writ trying to figure this out and if it can be reduced or they'll be sent back up to the federal. And in this particular space, we have the central detention facility, which most folks would identify with as just a traditional jail where you have your cell blocks, not much programming space on it. And then we also have our space for the central treatment facility, which is where we house our female, our women inmates, as well as the male inmates who are on a lower security and who are also participating in a specialized program such as rehabilitation and work readiness. My initial time teaching in the fall of 2017 was unique because I had my American Inside-Out course at the CTF, literally teaching inside of a cell block. And then in my American, my Howard University class, excuse me, was actually inside the law library, the actual library space that is on the CTF side. The Central Chamber Facility is really great, it has actual classrooms that you would see in any local high school or university and a law library and a library system is actually run by the D.C. Public Library. So one set of students in a way, got a traditional setting, if you will, and the other ones were learning literally where the gentlemen in our class were house and where they lived every day. So teaching in that space, for me, was very interesting, I was like, this is really weird, because, again, you have a literal library where librarians are checking out books and then the housing things. I will say the students who were being taught in the housing space, the unit. Initially there was some trepidation because they knew what to expect. But after a while, they were like, you know, they even started waving and getting to know the other guys on the unit that weren't even involved in our class. And towards the end, there was a strong sense of community, the students actually wanted more time together. And were asking if we could continue the session into the spring semester. But obviously we couldn't do that because, you know, the semester was ending. (07:31) DK: If I were to ask you if there were any particular students either inside or outside students, that seemed to be particularly memorable to you or individuals that really seemed to be impacted by your classes, who would be the first people that would come to your mind? TS: I have a student, her name is Annie Rainey. Annie graduated from the university spring 2018... 2019, excuse me. And she first had me in the fall of 2018 for Violence and Justice class and then decided to enroll in the Inside-Out class. My particular Inside-Out class is focused on criminal procedure and sometimes the conflict that is present when you're viewing it through the lens of constitutional due process. Annie walked in there and just soaked it all in and she was very much impacted by the conversations and projects. I had them each identify a critical link or defect in the chain of criminal procedure and where it fell. And she chose juvenile, juveniles, persons who were juveniles who were sentenced and charged as an adult. And the interesting thing is, upon leaving the class, she says, “Professor Simmons, I'm about to take this information and do something with it. I'm going to make a difference.” She is now the re-entry coordinator for the Northern Virginia Juvenile Detention Facility. And even to this day, she and I keep in contact that she's actually creating a special internship program for a couple of my students that are from America and Howard. But she's an example of students who come in the door, green, not really knowing about this aspect. And she's interned obviously at places, but taking information, dissecting the experiences of her classmates and really taking it to heart and using it to really try to reform the criminal justice system. That's the one student right now that kind of just definitely sticks out to me in terms of all that. One of my inside students, his name is Diante and he was in the class. He was 21 years old. And he was kind of just looking at me like, “I can't do this Mrs. Simmons, I can't do this. You know, I barely, I don't really have a G.E.D.” You know, one of the things I will say? I will say, because of the level at which the information is presented, and the level and the complexity of it, in a way, we do kind of ask for students on the inside to have at least some of their eighth grade education level so that we can kind of, you know, continue the process, the whole thing. The first couple of sessions, he was just like “Whatever”, not engaged. Towards the end, he was telling us what an expert witness was. He was able to utilize the concepts and even apply them to his own case, not seeing like “OK”, he was able to understand it from a different perspective, “So this was the expert witness and this is why they did that.” The reason he sticks out to me is because, while he was in the custody and care of the CBOC, see, he earned a GED and he was able to just… he matured so much, even in the conversation in the classroom. And he is free now. They dropped his case. And he’ll walk around and he'll say, coming to jail, although he, you know, he never would want to do it, it changed his life for the better. So when you have students exiting your class who never thought they would be capable of handling a college or graduate level course, and now they get out and you're like, “I'm going to school”, “I'm enrolling in college”, “I got my GED”. That's when you know that you made a difference. (11:18) DK: When you think about these individual stories of students in your class that you work with, in what ways do you think the Inside-Out model or this kind of teaching, or these kinds of experiences… What kind of a social impact do you see them having around the world? TS: For me as a person, that's law related. I'll speak first from that perspective. Teaching criminology, law, criminal justice related courses, students are able to go beyond the pages of the textbook. They really experience and put themselves in a situation where, OK, yes, this person can share their experiences with you, but it also humanizes. Inside-Out does a great job of humanizing, for people, whether you're teaching law or you're teaching someone music. Just because a person happens to be located in a different position than you and the label, because you might be labeled as a student of an Ivy League university and they might bear the label of an inmate or whatever. In that space we’re both students, in that space we’re equal. So Inside-Out on a global level is transformative education and it is best because not only is it experiential learning, it's people teaching people how to have an appreciation of various perspectives, its teaching intercultural communication skills, its teaching respect. And it's bringing about a strong sense of humanity and my opinion. And it's empowering. Again, for the students who in most cases in our programming across the world, the inside students are not earning college credit, but it's letting them know that, “Hey, you can do college level work. You can do graduate level work. You can do law school level work. You are capable of more than what your circumstances are at this moment.” And for me, that's the biggest impact, it’s not just transformative in the sense of, you know, “Hey, we're bringing this program, it's transforming people's lives literally every day. (13:34) DK: How important would you say that it is for educators from historically black colleges and universities to get involved in prison education or Inside-Out specifically? TS: It is imperative. And I say this as a person who is a two-time HBCU graduate getting ready to earn my third certification from the Howard University School of Business. And I also speak as a person who had a brother who was incarcerated. The narrative right now being told in the United States is that the majority of the people in prison, in jail and carceral spaces are African-American. And why it's important for the HBCUs to get involved in the conversation in prison education, one to act as role models, to let people know again that they are beyond the circumstances, and two, to create pipelines and gateways to education, because HBCUs are traditionally known for creating opportunities for those who normally or traditionally would not have it. So living up to the legacy that is instilled in us as HBCU students, and HBCU faculty members, I feel that responsibility to go and give back to those people because the people who are inside the facility are members of our community. Even if their address is different, they are still members of our community. And because of that, we have a responsibility to care for them and to educate them. (15:11) DK: You’ve had a really interesting and diverse career path and in the last couple of years, you've been working for the D.C. Department of Corrections. Could you share some about what you do there and maybe something about your transition from being an educator to working in a carceral space full time? TS: So my path here is indeed interesting. As you already know, fall semester 2017, I was teaching Inside-Out and when we sat down with the program administrators to debrief, to figure out what we could do better, what we would like to see. One of the things I shared with them was my, you know, my background. They know that I'm a diversity person. So being a diversity inclusion strategist, I'm thinking we need to input some type of format, at least in my class, as I said, I was gonna utilize some of the trainings I do to create a more balanced community setting and to take away any apprehension or trepidation the students may have, one of the person sitting in the room was the head of the behavioral health unit. So she contacted me after the meeting and asked “Tiffany, would you mind coming to do a training? We’re starting this unit called Young Men Emerging, its modeled after a unit in Connecticut where it's a therapeutic environment for those 18 to 24. And I remember you also being, you know, a child advocate.” And I was like, “This is right up my alley.” You know, that great spot of recidivism is right there. So I was able to develop a curriculum for training for the staff that were going to be assigned to the unit. It was a two part series. And I did it in January of 2018. At the end of January 2018, I get a call from the director's office, Director Booth, here at D.C.D.O.C. asking me to come in for a meeting. And I am very scared and I'm thinking like, “Oh my goodness, did I do something wrong? Was the training not sufficient? Lo and behold I am in his office and he's like, “I want you to come here. I want you to help me put this place out.” And I said, “What? What do you mean?” You know, again, right up my alley. He said that “I have someone who I say you...
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Ep 09: Becoming an Agent of Change (Xavier Perez)
12/13/2019
Ep 09: Becoming an Agent of Change (Xavier Perez)
The ninth episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features Dr. Xavier Perez, who teaches criminology at Depaul University in Chicago. Perez was born in Quito, Ecuador but came to the U.S. as a child. Despite early encounters with the juvenile justice system, he was able to to attend college with the help of mentors and community organizations. Professor Perez completed the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute in 2019. His Inside-Out courses bring together students from Depaul and Chicago’s Cook County Jail.
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Ep 08: Connecting to the World Outside of Prison (Joseph Schwartz)
11/13/2019
Ep 08: Connecting to the World Outside of Prison (Joseph Schwartz)
Joseph Schwartz served 14 years in a federal prison before his sentence was commuted when he was 65 years old. Joe discusses how his Inside-Out experience at FCI-Loretto was a critical part of his journey to reentry.
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Ep 07: Interview with Jeri Kirby (West Virginia)
10/16/2019
Ep 07: Interview with Jeri Kirby (West Virginia)
Jeri Kirby, a professor at Fairmont State University in West Virginia, teaches courses combining campus-based students and incarcerated students. She previously served two years in prison.
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Ep 06: Inside-Out in Australian Prisons (Marietta Martinovic)
09/23/2019
Ep 06: Inside-Out in Australian Prisons (Marietta Martinovic)
Dr. Marietta Martinovic teaches criminal justice at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. She talks about her experience of teaching Inside-Out in Australian prisons.
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Ep 05: Interview with Harold Dean Trulear
03/12/2019
Ep 05: Interview with Harold Dean Trulear
Harold Dean Trulear is an associate professor of applied theology at Howard University School of Divinity. Each week, he brings his students to the Washington DC Jail to study alongside incarcerated individuals.
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Ep 4: Interview with Nick Cannon & Meditation by Kempis "Ghani" Songster
01/29/2018
Ep 4: Interview with Nick Cannon & Meditation by Kempis "Ghani" Songster
Nick Cannon discusses higher education in prisons and shares his experiences of the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute. Kempis "Ghani" Songster shares a meditation on the Canadian geese that reside inside the walls of Graterford Prison.
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Episode 3: Interview with Formerly-Incarcerated Juvenile Lifers
09/14/2017
Episode 3: Interview with Formerly-Incarcerated Juvenile Lifers
In 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court held in that it is unconstitutional to sentence a juvenile offender to mandatory life-without-parole. A 2016 ruling allowed this to be applied retroactively. In practical terms, this means that those juvenile offenders previously sentenced to mandatory life-with-out-parole can seek re-sentencing by the trial court. That is exactly what happened to John Pace, Stacey Torrance, and Charles Brown. They were featured in a from September 6, 2017, about formerly-incarcerated "juvenile lifers." In this, the third episode of the Inside-Out podcast, Dave Krueger talks with them about their experiences of higher education in prison and the role that Inside-Out courses played in their personal and professional development. Episode Guide: 2:25 --Charles Brown, Stacey Torrance, and John Pace introduce themselves. 3:05 -- You are all alumni of Inside-Out courses, which combine incarcerated and non-incarcerated students together for semester-long courses. Could you describe what it was like to meet the "outside" students on the first day of class? 8:10 -- What were some of the techniques in the Inside-Out classroom that you thought were most helpful to get students to engage in dialogue with one another? 13:26 -- How is the Inside-Out approach to teaching different than other teaching approaches you have encountered? What do you think are the attributes and methods of an effective educator? 18:23 -- Given the highly divisive political and cultural climate in the U.S. today, do you think the Inside-Out model of dialogue and learning can have any relevance in the world outside of prisons and jails? 23:36 -- What kind of an impact did Inside-Out courses have on you personally while you were living inside the prison? Do you think that these courses had any effect on changing the culture of the prison? 30:40 -- The three of you are just a few months into your new life on the outside of prison. What's next for you? What are you looking forward to? 36:43 -- Where do you see yourselves five years from now? The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program: The Inside-Out Podcast is hosted by and is a production of The Inside-Out Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program that facilitates dialog across cultural differences and social status. It started in 1997, originating as a means to bring together campus-based college students and incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a correctional setting. This educational model has been replicated across the United States and in several countries. It has grown into an international network of nearly 800 trained faculty, 22,000 alumni, and hundreds of higher education and correctional administrators, who have sponsored classes over the past 20 years. Inside-Out seeks to bring about social change through transformative education. To find out more about the program, make a financial contribution, or apply to upcoming Instructor Training Institutes, please visit the website at .
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Episode 2: Interview with James Forman Jr.
06/05/2017
Episode 2: Interview with James Forman Jr.
This episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features James Forman, Jr., a professor of Law at Yale Law School. Dr. Forman talks about his journey from public defender to law school professor and how the Inside-Out pedagogy informs his teaching. He'll also talk about his new book . Episode Guide: 1:30: Could you start out by sharing your journey from serving as a public defender to teaching in a law school? 5:37: How did you hear about and how did you get interested in teaching through the program? 7:37: What was it like teaching a class in the model for the first time. Do you think teaching an Inside-Out course changed how you taught your other classes? 12:54: Let's shift gears for a minute. You have a new book out, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Could you talk a little bit about what brought you to write this book? 18:07: What do you think is behind this decades-long shift in our society towards mass incarceration? Why has locking up so many Americans become such an accepted part of American policy? 21:55: In recent years the public discourse about mass incarceration has been changing. Where do you think we stand today, especially in light of the 2016 election? 25:47: What do you want your readers to take away from your book? 28:37: How does education speak to mass incarceration and, specifically, why do you see value in the approach to education? The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program: The Inside-Out Podcast is hosted by David M. Krueger and is a production of The Inside-Out Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program that facilitates dialogue across difference. It started in 1997 and originated as a means to bring together campus-based college students and incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a correctional setting. This educational model has been replicated across the United States and in multiple countries. It has grown into an international network of more than 700 trained faculty, 22,000 alumni, and hundreds of higher education and correctional administrators, who have sponsored these classes over the years. Inside-Out seeks to bring about "Social Change Through Transformative Education." To find out more about the program and learn about the upcoming instructor training institutes, visit: Bio: James Forman, Jr. is a professor of law at Yale Law School. He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, numerous law reviews, and other publications. A former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, he spent six years as a public defender in Washington, D.C., where he co-founded the Maya Angelou Public Charter School. He is also a trained instructor in the Inside-Out pedagogy. Professor Forman, welcome to the Inside-Out Podcast.
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Episode 1: The Origins of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
01/05/2017
Episode 1: The Origins of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program
In this premier episode of The Inside-Out Podcast, the founder and executive director of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program Lori Pompa shares her thoughts on how the program began and how it has evolved over the years. You'll also get to hear from a man named Paul, whose idea was instrumental in the birth of this program nearly 20 years ago. Paul is incarcerated in the Graterford Prison in Pennsylviania. Episode Guide: 0:20 A description of the Inside-Out program 1:29 An introduction to Lori Pompa 2:00 Lori discusses how the program began, what is unique about the Inside-Out method of teaching and learning, and her thoughts on winning the 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award for Teaching from the American Society of Criminology. 15:52 An introduction to Paul from Graterford Note: from here on, sound quality is lower due to technical challenges w/incoming call from Graterford Prison. 16:30 Paul discusses the history of his incarceration and how he became motivated to become an educator. He also discusses the Graterford Think Tank and the impact that Lori has had on his life and the thousands of students around the world who have taken Inside-Out courses. To find out how to enroll in the 2017 Inside-Out Instructor Training institutes, visit: About the Show: This podcast tells stories from the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, an international educational program with an innovative pedagogical approach tailored to effectively facilitate dialogue across difference. It originated as a means of bringing together campus-based college students with incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a prison, jail or other correctional setting. This podcast is produced by the Inside-Out Center, which trains and equips higher education instructors to teach courses comprised of incarcerated and non-incarcerated students. About the Program: The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program with an innovative approach to learning designed to facilitate dialogue across difference. It started in 1997 and originated as a means to bring together campus-based college students and incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a correctional setting. This educational model has been replicated across the United States and in multiple countries since its inception nearly 20 years ago. It has grown into an international network of more than 700 trained faculty, more than 22,000 alumni, nearly two dozen think tanks, and hundreds of higher education and correctional administrators, who have sponsored these classes over the years. Inside-Out seeks to bring about "Social Change Through Transformative Education."
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