(Editor’s Note: The Emerald chose not to use the last names of students because Inside-Out policy prohibits relationships among the incarcerated and college students. )
Catherine, a senior at Oregon State University, isn’t allowed to know the last names of half her classmates. She can’t contact them outside class or see them once the class is over.
Half of her classmates are prisoners, some of whom are serving long sentences.
She is taking a public policy course through the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program. Temple University professor Lori Pompa started the program after she took some of her students to a Pennsylvania prison on a field trip. A prisoner suggested turning the field trip into a class.
After the program was piloted in 1997 around Philadelphia, about 60 classes have been offered through the program, most of which are in Pennsylvania.
University English professor Steven Shankman, the director of the Oregon Humanities Center, interviewed Pompa a few years ago for an OHC television show and was interested in bringing the program to the University. Melissa Crabbe, Inside-Out’s assistant national director, lives in Eugene.
Portland State University offered the class last year at the all-female Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, and Oregon State offered a class winter term at the all-male Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem. Shankman and Crabbe will team up to teach a four-credit literature and humanities class spring term at OSP through the Robert D. Clark Honors College. Shankman said students will read and discuss novels by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky, including his 1866 book “Crime and Punishment.”
Every Wednesday night, Catherine and four other Oregon State students pile into a car for the roughly 40-mile drive from Corvallis to Salem to take a class at the state’s only maximum-security prison.
Once students arrive, they go through a screening process that takes about 30 minutes. Students flash their driver’s license three times to pass locked gates and bars and walk through a metal detector. After the security checks, 15 college students sit in folding chairs in a circle with 15 inmates.
Miranda, a behavioral sciences senior at Oregon State, said she feels safe with the “inside” students because they have been on good behavior for at least 18 months and sex offenders aren’t allowed to take the class.
“They’re basically the cream of the crop,” she said. “The only thing that’s different about them is their inmate clothes. They’re so nice and so considerate.”
Catherine said she didn’t know what to expect because she had never been inside a prison before or interacted with inmates.
“In our society, we have this idea that they’re big, bad monsters, and they’re all different than we are,” she said. “This experience has really made me realize that it’s not that way at all.”
Oregon State sociology assistant professor Michelle Inderbitzin said about half of the incarcerated students are serving a life sentence and were convicted of serious crimes. Incarcerated students take the class for self-enrichment.
Inderbitzin said college and incarcerated students interact with one another in her class, which covers crime, justice and public policy.
“This program isn’t about studying the inmates or writing an expose about the justice system,” she said. “It’s about bringing two populations together to learn from each other.” Crabbe said during required training in the Philadelphia area, instructors learn how to “facilitate” the class. Crabbe, who is friends with Pompa and moved to Oregon from Pennsylvania, said instructors spend a week in the Philadelphia area for 60 hours of training.
“We’re not lecturers, we’re more facilitators,” she said, adding that emphasis is placed on interacting with one another. “From day one, the instructor’s number one goal is to get students to completely trust one another and feel completely comfortable with each other.”
Inderbitzin said Oregon State students learn first-hand about the corrections system from incarcerated students.
Miranda said the inmates were more nervous than the college students because they didn’t have classroom experience.
Crabbe, who will help teach the University’s spring class, said the course gives inmates confidence.
“They can take the class knowing they can keep up with people in college,” she said. Crabbe added that incarcerated students who take the courses are less likely to commit crimes once they get out.
Inderbitzin said incarcerated students often tell her that they share course materials with cellmates.
“I’ve heard them say, ‘Oh, I’m having my cellmate read this book,’” she said.
Shankman, who will help teach one of the first literature and humanities courses in the Inside-Out program, said the class is already full, but he hopes similar courses will be offered in the future. The OHC is funding Inside-Out training for University professors in Philadelphia each year.
Both Oregon State and University students had to go through an application and interview process because so many students were interested.
Ted, a freshman studying journalism at the University, said he enrolled in the spring class to try a new experience.
“College is supposed to be this great, diverse thing, and it doesn’t necessarily live up to those expectations,” he said.
He said he hopes the inmates accept the students.
“My initial fear is that when I say I’m looking for a different experience, they’ll think I’m using their plight for my experience,” Ted said. “I don’t want the prisoners to resent us.”
The Oregon State students aren’t looking forward to the last day of class because the college students won’t be able to contact the incarcerated students once the class is over. The Inside-Out program prohibits relationships between inside and outside students for safety reasons.
Catherine said the inside and outside students often share personal stories.
“I’m taking my tissue box with me,” Catherine said.
Contact the crime, health and safety reporter at [email protected]