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Prison class mixes 'inside' with 'outside' students
3:54 p.m., June 22, 2006--When the professor began to do some math on an overhead projector, an adult student in class did the calculations in her head instantaneously. The woman, a 32-year-old former streetwalker who said she reads a lot but could never afford college, was part of Prof. Lana Harrison's “Drugs and the Criminal Justice System” class during spring semester at a treatment program annex on the grounds of Delores J. Baylor Women's Correctional Institution in New Castle. The innovative program is a spin-off of Temple University Prof. Lori Pompa's Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program that has been putting “inside students” and “outside students” together since it began at Temple in 1997. Altogether, students from about 30 colleges nationwide now study side-by-side with incarcerated students. Harrison, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at UD's Center for Drug and Alcohol Studies, researches the relationships between drug and alcohol use and deviant behavior. Harrison said her course at Baylor was born because she wanted to teach within the prison system. “I feel a need, always, to give back,'' she said. Less than a third of Harrison's “inside students” are taking the course for credit because most cannot afford to pay, but some, like the woman who crunched the numbers, hope to get a certificate at the course's end that will prove they successfully completed the course. “I would love to go to the University of Delaware,” the woman, who could easily pass for an outside student, said. “I love my teacher. I've gotten so much out of this class, just seeing the way we interpret the same information depending on where we're coming from. We're reading the same material, but I was just amazed at how our perspectives were so different.” An outside student who hopes someday to work for the FBI or the DEA said he's a little more critical of federal drug policy since he took Harrison's course. “We spend time reading about policies from books but then you come in here and you get a completely different side of it,” he said. In the class, Harrison teaches that criminal activity is a symptom of deeper problems in society and prisons are the end product of society's failed policies. The outside students take the course at a 400 level; the inside students take it at a less-demanding 200 level. After a few discussions, Harrison said, the inside and outside students realized their experiences were more similar than they ever expected.
Harrison said the class has been a transformative learning experience for the 15 inside and 25 outside students. “My outside students say all the time that to get the information from someone who has been out there selling and using drugs is so much better. I read one of the papers from a student who said she's a criminal justice major yet she'd never talked to a criminal and she never had the opportunity to have a collegial relationship with anyone who has been incarcerated,'' Harrison said. “It's one thing to read about people who are incarcerated in a book; it's another thing to have the opportunity to develop a collegial relationship.” At first, one outside student said, the students from campus came to Baylor half-expecting to see bars or inmates in prison garb. “This class has really opened up my eyes,'' she said. “I ended up learning so much more from inside students than from the textbooks.” The inside students had expectations, too. They thought the matriculated students would judge them. “The kids that go to UD, I'm not going to say they're privileged, but they certainly have more opportunities than those of us who are locked up. A lot of us were afraid they'd look down on us, but it's really not like that,” one inside student said. The outside students get quiet when inside students say things like: “I think there should be more programs in jail that offer career advice. I know people 23, 25, 35, and they've never had a job in their lives.” Outside students are comfortable enough to be themselves at the Tuesday night class--even wearing fun-run shirts and fraternity letters. They offer their ideas so freely that, occasionally, an inside student reminds them, “Hey, I'm incarcerated. You all go home. I don't.” Inside students uniformly said they cherish the chance to use their minds. One recovering crack cocaine addict, 43, said she thought her learning disability would make it impossible to go to college but Harrison made the class easy to grasp. “The education is real good that she gives you,'' the woman said. “It makes me feel like I want to be a part of society, to be working and going to school.” “I've always used my smarts to get me further into the street, but now I want to use my smarts to get on the other side of the law,” a former drug user, jailed three times at age 29, said. A 41-year-old recovering crack cocaine user said Harrison's course showed him how widespread drug problems are and inspired him to try to be a drug counselor. “This was the first time in my life I even took a college course,” he said. “I was afraid of it, but I'm getting B's on my papers, and I want to learn more.” Harrison said she wished more criminal justice majors could take the course. “So far, we only have space for 30 or 31 a year out of about 600 majors,” she said. Article by Kathy Canavan
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