Prison Arts Promote Reform

When in prison I cane to think the vast number of Americans would not weep if the U.S. Bureau of Prisons gassed us. I would not have minded. Giving up suicide did not mean I was so inclined to stay alive. My inclination for death has changed, but gassing us would have been a relief.

Criminal justice reform does not matter to most Americans. Rehabilitating criminals does not fit into American thinking - for such a Christian nation redemption gets short shrift.

Still, we do get released. Whatever reformation I have achieved came from myself, my own willfulness, not from any policy of the federal government. Do not worry that they spent any of your tax dollars trying to make me a good citizen. Not everyone has my willfulness, not everyone had my submerged interest in writing or philosophy. Not many decide if they must keep breathing, they need find a reason to justify their lives.

For those people, for those of you would object to gassing America's prison population, check out the William James Association's Prison Arts Project (PAP).

...Empowerment, that they may use in their own efforts to rehabilitate. Empathy, agency and imagination are achieved in art programs that step outside the racial segregation, violence, and oppression of prison.

Taught by professional artists in hands-on visual, performing and literary art workshops, the 
by-products of PAP, and other successful Arts in Corrections programs, are proven to decrease institutional tensions, lower recidivism rates and 
enrich the incarcerated individual’s environment.

 The site publishes a Research page. 

The costs fiscal and moral are too high for a prison policy that only punishes 

sch 6/26/22