Nearly two decades ago, Lori Pompa, a professor in the Criminal Justice Department at Temple University, took 15 undergraduate students to the State Correctional Institution at Dallas, PA for a tour of the facility. During this tour, the students met with a panel of men who were incarcerated, most of whom were serving life sentences.
From this initial exchange, Pompa began working on an initiative that would later become the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, uniting University students and incarcerated students in a classroom setting. About six years ago, Susan Sharp brought this program to the University of Oklahoma and the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center. Two years ago, Dr. John Carl from the Department of Sociology took over the course.
Although there are nearly 50 applications each spring, only 15 seniors from the University and 15 students from the correctional facility are chosen. Carl said that this in and of itself is proof that this program's uncommon approach to education impacts.
"The program has unique and life-changing potential for students on both sides of the prison walls," Carl said. "The real magic that happens in the class is the human to human interaction that happens."
Carl said that even though most would think that University students would be typically concerned about working with those who are incarcerated, those who are incarcerated are worried about being judged by the college students.
Carl uses the first few weeks of school to intentionally get everyone to know each other, but after these first few weeks, Carl said that the relationships form themselves.
"They do learn a lot about facts and figures, but what I think they really come away with, both sets of students, is that at our core, no matter what we have done, everyone has done something they wish they hadn't done. No matter what that something is, we are still people and we are intuitive, we are creative, we desire knowledge, we want to learn, and I think that experience is really impossible to duplicate in really any other way," said Carl
More than anything, Carl stresses the importance of securing funding to both expand the course to other disciplines and to allow the 'inside' students college credit.
"Because of a lack of funding the inside students do not get college credit at this time, but they do the exact same work. More than anything I want to stress how much receiving credit and expanding the program could impact these people," Carl said.
I probably could have 500 but that number is way too high…. I usually cut off the interviews for the class at 50.
