Prison reform has been a hot topic recently, but a few professors with local ties are taking a different perspective by highlighting the importance of prison writing.
Hamilton College Edward North Professor of literature Doran Larson has previous experience teaching creative writing to inmates at Attica Correctional Facility. The writings provide needed insight into prison life and the role of incarcerated individuals as more than just their crimes, he said.
“There were men in there who had several multi-100-page novels that they've written. It was a way to absorb time, but also to give them a life and an identity for themselves outside of what the state you know, had to determine for them," Larson said. "They were going to be generating documents that would be enormously important and valuable for the world outside.”
Larson also has compiled a library of works written by individuals in prison and multiple books with essays from those in prison.
The accessibility of educational resources means incarcerated people can learn skills for life after prison, said Mary Nell Trautner, a sociology and criminology professor with the University at Buffalo.
“One of the biggest stereotypes about incarcerated people is that they are uneducated or unmotivated or unskilled," she said. "So many of these authors either taught themselves to write, where they studied philosophy and literature. They became intellectual leaders while in prison, and then a lot of that carries through once they're released.”
UB has taken prison education efforts a step further, this year launching a Prison Studies Certificate program for campus undergraduates to "learn about prisons and incarceration from a multidisciplinary perspective," Trautner said.
The university also is opening admissions, starting in the fall, for inmates at Wende Correctional Facility to earn a bachelor's degree in sociology and minor in nonprofit leadership.
"It shows that we have a direct responsibility to be part of those conversations in those communities, and helping to strengthen not just the entire world around us, but the world that's outside our doorstep," Trautner said.
There actually is a history of colleges and universities around New York providing programs for people who have been incarcerated to pursue higher education, Larson said.
"I've started two college programs in New York State prisons," Larson said. "They feel as though, once the door closes they're actually in college, they're no longer in prison."
Among other programs around the region, Larson previously taught classes at Attica through Genesee Community College, while the University of Rochester also provides classes at Attica, and Bard Prison Initiative offers classes at the women's correctional facility in Albion, among others.
Trautner is acting as the organizer for a panel discussion about prison writing, set for 5 p.m. Monday at UB’s Oscar A. Silverman Library, with Larson as a panelist.
