DAVIES: Yeah. College Behind Bars, an Emmy-nominated, four-part documentary about the transformative power of education. And I went to prison for 12 years at the age of 19, 20 for assault. But the Allens still have mixed feelings about free degrees for inmates. I just wanted acknowledgement and this feeling of power and security. And they are first eligible for an associate degree, and then if they can that, they can apply to get a bachelor's degree. Get the latest news about BPI and our work. TATRO: By the way, you know, the recent research shows that for every dollar a state invests in college and prison, it saves $4 to $5 in re-incarceration costs. The Bard Prison Initiative enrolls over 300 incarcerated students in six New York State prisons. The series follows the inmates as they give birth and raise their children behind bars. DAVIES: You know, I want to talk to you, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, a bit about your lives. In four years of study they become scholars, shatter stereotypes, reckon with their pasts, and prepare to return to society. The bipartisan restoration of Pell Grant eligibility to incarcerated students is a clear political endorsement of the value of college-in-prison, signaling to New York that it is past time to also restore TAP. I had to write that I swept and mopped floors. Gordon Ramsay, in 2012, featured the enterprise as part of the show Gordon Behind Bars. But while I was receiving that education, as I said, it was liberating. I think that realization came to me when I sat down and began writing my first cover letter and my first resume. One of the things I used to do is kind of put my headphones on with classical music, and that's how I would get my reading and get my work done. We can remove the first show in the list to add this one. - and wait until you get the all clear? DAVIES: Lynn Novick, congratulations on the documentary. I'm Terry Gross. I realized that all my experiences and my skills were related to prison work. 4/22/2019 And that had been true for over a generation, and it was well understood and accepted that education was an essential part of criminal justice and of rehabilitation. PBS is a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization. And then this changed in the '90s when we had the crime bill, right? And they really love to engage the professors and each other, and that was true for every single class. Adult learners are, you know, much more mature and have life experience. And what the film shows and the work at BPI shows is that that cannot be more untrue. Are they right about that, Dyjuan? In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act made people in prison ineligible for Pell Grants. So there was this kind of seamless movement from one setting to another. Since 2001, BPI has created groundbreaking opportunities for college within Americas prison systems. "College Behind Bars" airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations and will be available for streaming. I mean, it's a wide range of liberal arts curriculums. College Behind Bars is the inspiring, emotional, deeply human story of men and women struggling to earn college degrees while in prison for serious crimes. People walk around with these frowns and Im like, Why are you frowning? People bring their children in there, and I find myself so caught up in the little kid who gets the piece of paper on the back of his shoe and trying to make his parents aware. My colleagues are aware of different types of cuisine and restaurants and whenever we travel together for work or have a lunch together, theres this tendency to talk about food and wine. You may change your parameters at any time using the link found at the bottom of every email. And that totally allowed me to reimagine myself. You know, one of the great things about being in BPI and one of the great things about this education happening in the educational space is that it really, really motivates people to be the best selves and to go on after this opportunity. Sometimes, it could take six hours. Bad Boys bakery was a social enterprise set up in HM Prison Brixton, in the UK. DAVIES: You know, this is tough material in these classes. Could you talk just a little bit about the process? "We all have. They've earned college degrees and are now employed. Leath on "Born Behind Bars" Those interviewed in the video say Leath truly cared about the babies and their mothers in the nursery. Lynn Novick, Sebastian Yoon and Dyjuan Tatro, welcome to FRESH AIR. That kind of thing. I'm an uncle. DAVIES: You know, some might think that prison inmates would have an easier time focusing on all this rigorous schoolwork because they're literally, you know, captive in the institution and are not distracted by parties or dating or football games like, you know, students on a traditional campus. This is not my identity. Men and women earn college degrees - and a chance at new beginnings - while incarcerated. Let's start with a clip from the documentary. I mean, there's - it's in the prison auditorium - right? DAVIES: And that's Dyjuan Tatro and Sebastian Yoon from the PBS documentary "College Behind Bars," which premieres tonight on PBS. My father was in Vietnam, came home drug-addicted and has never really recovered from that. There's an extreme amount of noise in prisons. You have to go back to your cell. DAVIES: Wow, that's really remarkable. . TATRO: You know, one of the great things about, you know, Bard is that it's recognized that it's not enough just to, you know, kind of issue a degree and give someone an education, send them back out into society. TATRO: And so I got to walk across the stage on Bard's Annandale campus with the other 400 students in my year in 2018. They study all the disciplines in the liberal arts. This is FRESH AIR. And you can just see it. Jule Hall walks through Sunnyside, Queens, his neighborhood. They work in business, the arts, and media; they attend graduate school; they have careers in human services. SAVOR I usually order a venti Pike, not too strong. You know, that is not the type of thing you expect to be happening in a prison. If this kind of opportunity were widely available and the sort of foundational skills made possible, a lot more people could take advantage of it. 56 views, 2 likes, 3 loves, 4 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from New&Living Way Gospel Temple: Sunday service In 2016, BPI was proud to join the first cohort of sites receiving experimental eligibility through Second Chance Pell. Rodney has been incarcerated for 17 years and is currently incarcerated at Fishkill. I mean, you both entered prison as teenagers, right? I don't think I heard anybody use that as an excuse for committing crimes, though. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. So people in the corrections department recognize that as well. And I think what surprised my father the most was just how much I transformed while I was incarcerated. You know, you forgot your book; you can't just go back and get your book. And when I actually started my courses, I was shocked by how rigorous and how demanding the program was. In December 2020 Congress finally restored Pell Grant eligibility as part of the omnibus spending and COVID relief bill. It gave me the ability to put names to systems and things that had impacted my life. (SOUNDBITE OF DOCUMENTARY, "COLLEGE BEHIND BARS"). NOVICK: You know, Sarah and I, when we got into the project, we were focusing on the transformational aspect of it, power of education, and what did it mean to get this education while in prison? And the Bard Prison Initiative, which was - began in 1999. You know, I would go in and do all the work in a day or two, and the expectations were really, really low. This film is about the transformative power of education while also confronting and challenging conventional thinking about the purpose of both education and incarceration. And it was often a joke that I would show up at school and get all these awards, and they would say, but you were never here. Confronted with the inhuman monotony of life behind bars, Mr. Hall became a serious student, ultimately gaining admission to the Bard Prison Initiative, a competitive, full-time degree program run by Bard College. Who has access to educational opportunity? The subjects and filmmakers reveal the inspiring story of how the power of education can change lives in College Behind Bars. Let's listen. Last week, the New York State budget included a major victory for educational equity, ending a 26-year-old ban on access to need-based Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants for incarcerated students. That was not our experience at all. Prison has the worst coffee, oh, my goodness thats one of the things I think anybody would tell you. The type of things that are available to people in prison currently are somewhat outdated. College Behind Bars, a four-part documentary directed by award-winning filmmaker Lynn Novick takes you on an intimate journey of a dozen BPI students who are earning their college degrees while incarcerated. Bard Prison Initiative graduate Sebastian Yoon, featured in the new PBS documentary College Behind Bars, shares how BPI changed him and the Eastern Correctional Facility, where he was incarcerated until March. For 22 years he didnt have one. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Ken Burns is executive producer. Also with us is the director of the documentary, Lynn Novick. - with, you know, caps and gowns and photos and parents in the audience. DAVIES: And from the graduation ceremony of the Bard Prison Initiative. It's always a seminar style. Also with us are Dyjuan Tatro and Sebastian Yoon, graduates of the program. MAX KENNER: Welcome to Bard College. YOON: Sometimes, it takes 40 minutes. Your support helps make this possible. "College Behind Bars" airs on PBS stations tonight and tomorrow. Accuracy and availability may vary. College Behind Bars first premiered Nov. 25, 2019 on PBS and has since then become popular among Netflix audiences. All rights reserved. But first, we need you to sign in to PBS using one of the services below. You know, he likes to tell me, you know, many people, when they get pushed down to their hands and knees, the easiest thing for them to do is just lay down. DAVIES: And that's from the documentary "College Behind Bars," directed by our guest Lynn Novick. This is when you, Sebastian Yoon, are speaking at the graduation. Prison is not an easy place to get an education. College Behind Bars is an intimate look at the lives and experiences of a dozen BPI students and their families that confronts and challenges conventional wisdom about the purpose of both education and incarceration. NOVICK: I was just going to chime in one other thing, which is I've heard Dyjuan, Sebastian and the other students, as well as Max, say that, you know, it also just sort of changes the culture of the whole facility and that, you know, there's something positive going on and that people don't want to get in trouble so that they have an opportunity to be there, to stay there and to potentially be involved in the program. Now he wants to help kids avoid prison. And I was bullied a lot. And, you know, we came to feel that it was important for them to - and they also felt it was important for them to explain themselves, how they see themselves, where they've been, where they are, through the lens of the education that they've been getting and their perspectives that have shifted over time. (Speaking Korean) Thank you. That degree really means something when they leave this program with their degree from Bard. And so the film ends up and their stories end up, you know, raising some really important questions about violence and about harm and incarceration, and what is prison for, and what is the value of education? Get the latest news about BPI and our work. College Behind Bars is a production of Skiff Mountain Films and is directed by Lynn Novick. And you see this room, and then all of a sudden, reality just comes crashing upon you. James Wiley. By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. Episodes. My father never saw me as a bad person. I never saw a class where people weren't paying attention - not one - and we were in a lot of classes. So I walked out of prison on August 10 of 2017, and I was back in college on August 24 finishing my B.A. By Jamil Smith And as I move forward in life and as I work to be a part of this social justice reform movement, I feel very passionate about it and excited that we are going to make progress. Now, I still havent taken to wine. By signing up for BPI emails, you are agreeing to receive news and updates from BPI. YOON: Oh, yeah, without a doubt. to What will the field of college-in-prison look like? : r/loveafterlockup. I'm a math major, went on after that to do some project management and data collection for a tech company and then started thinking about how I could get back in the world. It teaches you how smart you are. Or sushi, for that matter. "Officer Leath was a true example of an officer dedicated not only to safety and security of the prison infant unit, but also exemplified the goal to help incarcerated women become good mothers before leaving . Ken Burns is executive producer. I mean, anybody who watches this film will think, gosh, I don't know if I could handle this stuff. And that's not to say that it's not challenging, but that is to point to the fact that, if we support people transitioning back in society in the right way, they'd be capable of almost anything, you know? You know, I'm a brother. Novick directed the four-part documentary "College Behind Bars," which airs tonight and tomorrow night on PBS stations. YOON: Oh. People were invested in this. And I am the most proud father in the world. We always have to be mindful of how those people like myself are returning back to their communities and back to their families. And before the 1994 Clinton crime bill, there were college programs in almost every correctional facility in America. Simpson and Fritsch have a new book called "Crime In Progress." I wake up every morning and I realize Im free and Im just so grateful to be here.. Born Behind Bars is a documentary series that takes place in a maximum-security prison in Indiana. And school was just really too easy. TATRO: Yeah. And the paradox here is that I was someone getting that type of education while I was in prison, but the education itself is what liberated me. You got to go back to your - I guess to your cell - right? Funding for College Behind Bars is provided by Bank of America; PBS; Ford Foundation / JustFilms; National Endowment for the Humanities; Meg & Tomas Bergstrand; Regina K. Scully; The Lise , Find standards-aligned teaching resources for. Through the personal stories of the students and their families, the film reveals the transformative power of higher education and puts a human face on Americas criminal justice crisis. Im trying to act younger than my age, so I sometimes listen to trap music. BPI alumni overwhelmingly go home to their communities and give back in ways that positively impact the lives of others. I recently binged born behind bars on A&E and was looking for any kind of update on these mamas/babies. In early 2020 BPI began working with lawmakers to change Merit Board eligibility rules so that all incarcerated students can be eligible for early release based on earning college credits. GROSS: Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, our guests will be Glenn Simpson and Peter Fritsch, the former Wall Street Journal reporters who formed Fusion GPS, a private research company. BPI was proud to partner with College and Community Fellowships #TurnOnTheTapNY campaign to restore access to New Yorks state-level need-based student grants, the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for incarcerated students. And, you know, spending time in the classrooms - as Sarah Botstein, the producer, and I did - I kept thinking, I wish I could go back to college and have this experience because it is - the classes are small. A VIEW FROM THE BRIDGE Once I put something in my stomach, I bike ride. So just to have normal kind of conversation, people have to literally yell back and forth. Others that have to do, you know, kind of routine prison jobs instead of being in class - was there jealousy or resentment? For streaming, visit pbs.org . . College Behind Bars remains - especially in the first episode - admirably focused on the practicalities of prison life and prison programmes. SEBASTIAN YOON: When I first got into the Bard Prison Initiative, I honestly had low expectations of the program, and I think that's because, in general, as a prisoner, I had low expectations on life. How College in Prison Turns Around Lives and Saves Taxpayers Money, Knowledge & Redemption, A Conversation with Lynn Novick and Jule Hall, Incarcerated People Can Do More than Beat Harvard in a Debate. This July we saw a major legislative victory in New York, spearheaded by BPI alumni. Are children allowed in Turkish prisons? 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