TEACHING
The Prison Studies Project, in collaboration with Boston University’s Prison Education Program and the Massachusetts Department of Correction, brings together students from Harvard and students in prison. Each is part of a curriculum for college credit; classes focus on urban sociology and transformative learning.
RESEARCH
The growth of America’s prison and jail populations over the last 35 years creates an array of new challenges for public policy and provokes a variety of questions about the quality of American democracy and citizenship. The Prison Studies Project conducts research to address these challenges and questions.
OUTREACH
The Prison Studies Project aims to raise public awareness about incarceration in America, promote a perspective on criminal punishment that emphasizes its connection to racial, class and other socioeconomic disadvantages, and inject into the public conversation a discussion of policy alternatives.
Michelle Alexander at Harvard Law School, April 25
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, will be at Harvard Law School on Wednesday, April 25 for a speaking event. The talk will take place at 6:00 PM in Wasserstein Hall, Room 2019 (HLS, 1585 Mass Ave, Cambridge). The Prison Studies Project is co-sponsoring the [...]Supreme Court Expands Defendants’ Plea Bargain Rights
In a 5-4 decision on Wednesday, the Supreme Court voted that criminal defendants have the right to effective lawyers in the plea bargain process. Over 90 percent of criminal cases in the United States end in a plea, rather than a trial. Evidence shows, however, that not all defendants have proper counsel during the plea [...]Philosophy in Prison
Damon Horowitz teaches Philosophy in California’s San Quentin State Prison through the Prison University Project. In the short clip below, he provides a powerful testimony of the moral questions that result from an interaction with a student.Supreme Court to Rule on Fairness in Drug Sentences
There is tremendous disparity in our nation’s drug sentencing laws based on whether one is dealing crack or cocaine (same drug in powder form). People convicted for selling crack have historically received similar prison sentences as people convicted of selling 100 times as much powder cocaine. In the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010, this disparity [...]National Directory of Prison Education Programs
