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Chapter 2. Service-Learning in Prison Facilities: Interaction as a Source of Transformation
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Chapter 2 Service-Learning in Prison Facilities Interaction as a Source of Transformation Shelly Schaefer Hinck, Edward A. Hinck, and Lesley A. Withers Recently, state governments have turned to reducing prison populations in an attempt to cope with decreasing state revenues (Archibold, 2010; Schwartz, 2010; Steinhauer, 2009). While prison activists might greet these developments with some degree of satisfaction, such actions on the part of states leave the more fundamental issues facing incarceration policy unaddressed . Prison activists have argued against incarceration on far more complex grounds than simply wasting social resources, noting that prisons perpetuate racism, sexism, classism, and poverty (PCARE, 2007). Justifying a reduction in the U.S. prison population on the basis of a lack of resources rather than on the basis that prisons fail in achieving rehabilitation (Associated Press, 2009) implies that when economic times are brighter, we can—and should—incarcerate others to the fullest economic extent possible. This fiscal line of thinking distracts citizens from the more fundamental concerns that prisons fail in reducing recidivism rates and perpetuate the complex social problems facing society. Additionally, because the commitment to incarceration on the part of some states seems to be waning, concerns about rehabilitation programs for those who are currently serving time or who will be incarcerated in the future seem less than pressing. But for those who are deprived of rehabilitation opportunities , release offers little hope of improving their lots in life, and worse, might lead them back into re-offending. For these reasons, we are interested in the kinds of learning opportunities that hold the potential for changing the ways that college students think not only about the issues underlying incarceration as a response to crime, but also about the individuals who are incarcerated as a result of committing crimes. 40 Hinck, Hinck, and Withers We argue that prison activism, in conjunction with strong educational initiatives that foster deep understanding of how economics, race, and class interact to produce the prison-industrial complex (PIC), holds great promise for achieving long-term policy and institutional changes in our national, state, and local communities. Our claim is that activism, by itself, presumes the existence of an audience that is rational, compassionate, informed, and capable of developing an enlarged understanding of the systemic forces that produce and sustain the PIC. However, unless audiences are educated about the plight of the human beings who populate our prison facilities, they tend to reject prison-reform advocacy on the grounds of stereotypes about crime and criminality, compassionless frames of punishment for those caught up in the PIC, ignorance of the complexity of social forces that entrap individuals in the PIC, and ideologically driven justifications for ineffective social policy. The chapters in this section of the volume illustrate how engaged activism holds out the promise of rehabilitation for those seeking personal development through educational opportunities. As Coogan notes in Chapter Three of this volume, on autobiographical inquiry, “it is just as important that we need to find creative ways to show ordinary people living in society what they share in common with their counterparts in jail and in prison.” Shailor’s (Chapter One) premise for his program in teaching the Theater of Empowerment “begins from the observation that we are all actors in the theater of everyday life” and that studying the four archetypes of King/Queen, Warrior, Magician, and Lover shows how we all, whether incarcerated or free, struggle to develop maturity. We believe that firsthand experience can become an important way to shape an audience’s sensitivity for processing arguments calling for social change regarding the PIC; by countering mass-mediated stereotypes, such firsthand experiences can help to prepare the public for a critical examination of incarceration policy, thus giving the arguments of activists a chance to register with those who care about justice in our society. The chapters in this section offer persuasive firsthand observations of how activists’ engagement in volunteering , teaching, and serving the incarcerated through programs designed to facilitate rehabilitation can hold out the possibility for positive change for prisoners. Similarly, our chapter presents a rationale for service-learning as a way to challenge stereotypes about the incarcerated and reports data from two research studies to substantiate the claim that service-learning projects in communication courses can play an important role in advancing a vision of a more just community. For the public to support such programs, citizens need stories demonstrating the possibility of prisoners pursuing personal development through guided communication programs in the arts (Coogan...