What's the Secret to a Better Prison System?

into was this article about Coyote Ridge Corrections Facility. It's in Washington State, and it's this medium security prison that was built in two thousand and ten. And on paper, it's pretty impressive. I mean, they've managed to reduce water consumption by five and a half million gallons a year. It's about four hundred thousand dollars cheaper and energy costs than a comparable prison. They used narrow windows to trap the heat in winter, but also to keep the place

cool in summer, and all of that sounds pretty good. Well, you know, it's the first full prison campus that's completely LEAD certified, so you think it might be beautiful as well, But when you peek inside, it just looks like a horrible cement prison out that that's so disheartening, and you know, it kind of made me wonder, like, what do some of the more interesting prisons around the world look like today, and what are some of the changes that are being

made that seem to be working. So that's what today's show is all about. Hey, their podcast listeners, welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson and as always I'm joined by my good friend man guest and the man behind that soundproof glass is aspiring novelist and country music

legend Christin McNeil. Now, as we mentioned at the top of the show, today's episode is looking into how to build a better prison, and we're gonna save things like how prisons work and great escape stories for future episodes, but you know, today's show is really about how to build a system that works better for us all. I mean, however you feel about the humane aspects of locking people up,

the economic aspects of prison affect everybody. So we'll take a look at how some prisons from around the globe have reformed their approaches. Sure, so that's why you see those YouTube videos of Filipino prisoners doing thriller together, or even why Brazil allows prisoners to do book reports to get time off their sentence for every book they read. And and you know, that's clearly an attempt to deal

with overcrowding. And it actually kind of reminded me of that whole pizza Hut bookt programs you participate in that as a kid. You know, you get a pizza for every I think it was five books that you proved that you read. I don't know how you proved it exactly, but you know, except in this case, you get four days off for every book you write a report for. And also it has to be grammatically perfect or it

doesn't count. But if you read twelve books, you can get a maximum of forty eight days off your sentence. And of course not every prisoner is eligible. But you know, just like that one, we're going to shine a light on a few of the innovative programs that are getting positive results both here and abroad. Right, And obviously we aren't going to come up with clear cut solutions for such complex issues, at least not in forty minutes of chatter.

But what we can do is get a better sense of the problem and some ways people are looking to address them. All Right, so let's start with what people probably already know about the US prison system, and that's namely that it's massive. And by massive, I mean that our country has the largest prison population in the world. So that's actually not all. We also have the world's

highest prison rate. Out of every one hundred thousand Americans, roughly seven hundred and twenty four are behind bars, and for anyone keeping track, that's about a hundred and fifty people more than Russia's second place. Right. Yeah, So I've read this report from a group called the Prison Policy Initiative, and it actually concluded that there are more than two

point three million people currently incarcerated in the US. And if that doesn't sound like a lot to you, keep in mind that the whole population of New Mexico is just over two million. That actually does sound like a lot to me. I'm not sure who that wouldn't sound like a lot too, But actually, does this mean that we have more people in jail or in prison that we have living in an entire state? Yeah, or two states if you take Delaware, US Rhode Island. I mean,

two point three million is a lot of people. It's it's almost one percent of the national population. Wow. You know, and of course when you factor in the family members of the prisoners who make up that one percent, that number actually affected by incarceration swells even larger. So I read this Pew study that found that nearly three million children in the US have a parent in prison. Back in the nineteen seventies, that was true for about one out of a hundred and twenty five kids, but today

it's one in twenty eight. And according to that same Pew study, two thirds of these kids parents were incarcerated for non violent offenses. So that that reminds me. Do you remember that a secret museum in New York City? I remember we covered it in previous episode, right, Yeah, we've definitely talked about it. But for those who don't know about it, it's this tiny museum that's housed an elevator shaft, and every shelf of it's treated like its

own wing. But but the curators there had all these giant backgrounds of things when I visited of places like Hawaii or Greece or whatever, and and I asked what they were, and the guys told me that their backgrounds used to take vacation photos at prisons. Basically, prisoners can save up and use their pay or good behavior to take photos with their families in these backgrounds, so that the families have photos with their kids that look like

they've been able to go on vacations together. And I mean, when I saw this, I just found it so heartbreaking. But what's worse is the recidivism rates of prisons. So according to the Bureau of Justice, about three quarters or seventy six point six percent of release prisoners were rearrested within five years, which is a terrible track record for

US rehabilitation. Yeah, and and that's actually one of the main problems I came across in my research as well, is that our current system, you know, this current prison system, it's largely designed to punish and and not to rehabilitate, which I'm sure wasn't the initial intention. Like in Delaware history, I remember learning about William Penn and how he and other Quakers tried to change the prison system from this sort of overcrowded and inhumane conditions they saw in London.

And one of the ways was with penitentiaries, Like the idea was that you can go there to be penitent and so they were totally quiet spaces and prisoners were given their own cells and the food was simple but good, and the whole idea was you get to think about your crimes and how you want to make amends to society once you're out, which sounds good in theory, but in practice it was actually a terrible idea. Like this humane idea was actually just putting people into solitary confinement,

which actually drove people crazy. That makes sense. I really didn't think of it that way. But you know, the history of prisons is filled with stories of good intentions gone bad. And one of the things you realize in looking at the history is that there was a major shift in the nation's approach to prisons and the seventies and eighties, and this around the time we became less concerned with helping prisoners get their lives back on track and much more interested in making sure they suffered for

their crimes. And that's when the war on drugs really started, and also the big push to get tough on crime. You know, these mandatory minimum sentences even for non violent crimes, right, And during that time, the budgets for programs that focused on reintegrating prisoners, like they were totally slashed, and that was partially to build new prisons. That we're being immediately filled.

And now the results of those policy changes speak for themselves, right, Like the prison population has more than quadrupled since the eighties, which is how we get to that over two million number we were talking about, And all of that creates a tax burden for citizens instead of working to have all these X cons contributing to society. Well, you know, I think it's safe to say that the criminal justice system doesn't work well when the only goal is to punish.

Actual reminds me there's this Ricky Gervais joke where he talks about how Mandela went to prison for twenty seven years and then never committed another crime, and that tells us, you know, the system works, And I mean, he's mocking the idea that you can just send someone away and

they emerge rehabilitated. But as more criminals wind up doing hard time for low level offenses and there's a lack of reform programs, it really just leads to this revolving door system where prisoners are rearrested soon after they're released. You know. But the real question is what are the alternative? So are there any prisons out there that are finding

better results from a more reform based approach. So I actually looked into this and and it turns out some of the prisons with the lowest relapse rates also seemed to be the most humane, and Norway in particular does a great job with this. So one of the most famous is this prison on Bastoy Island, where prisoners are allowed to ride horses, go fishing, play tennis. They can

even go skiing. And they don't live in cramped cells either like Instead, the roughly hundred fifteen prisoners are so on this island, they shared these little quaint cottages and and they also have the freedom to wear their own clothes instead of prison uniforms. They can visit the prison library or church or even the shop whenever they want. Are you I mean this kind of sounds like a resort, man, I'm not sure this is a prison. So I fact

checked this and it is a prison. But that's actually the main complaint against Bastoy Like critics say the software approach makes it feel more like a summer camp than a correctional facility. But in its defense, best Toy isn't all fun and games, like the inmates actually work every single day. They tend to the Islands horses and sheep. They help out on the farm. They chopped down trees to use as firewood. I don't know. That still sounds

like camp to me. They also take part in the specialized training programs that that teach them new skills to use once they're released. Then some of them also helped run the island's ferry service ferry service sheep farm. Once again I have to ask, are you sure this is a prison? So it's actually the world's first ecological prison, and and it uses solar panels for energy, grows most of its own food, and recycles as much as possible.

And the whole idea is for inmates to claim a lot of personal responsibility for their actions, including how they affect others as well as the environment. So one example of this is that most of the prison staff actually leaves the island at night by that ferry service. And so the prisoners are expected to take care of themselves and be on their best behavior even when they aren't being supervised. So let me just find this quote for you. Gerhard Plogue, who's the senior advice as are in the

Norwegian Ministry of Justice, he explained the prisons approach this way. Quote, life inside prison needs to resemble life outside as much as security considerations and resources allow. The more gradual the transformation from imprisonment to freedom, the better the chances to prevent reoffending. I mean, I have to admit that that is pretty neat, but I'm curious, like is it working

or what kind of results would best would be seeing. Yeah, so the prison has this incredibly low number of repeat offenders, which is actually the norm for Norway. It's it's national recidivism rate harrors between sixt Wow. And I wonder how much of that is just people reoffending so they can get back to living the good life on the prison island resort you described. Yeah, so so Norway it has thought about that too, and it's not at all like that.

Prisoners first have to demonstrate a willingness to change while serving time into more traditional jail, and then they can apply to like some of these more lenient prison systems like Best Toy, But you don't have to worry about people abusing the system. If you reoffend or try to ape, you don't get to come back. Yeah, you know, I wondered about people trying to escape as well. I mean that there aren't any gates or walls or anything from what you described, and it feels like that would make

escape pretty tempting. I don't know, I mean, except for the fact that life is already so easy there, I don't know why you'd bother to try to escape. Well, one prisoner did escape Bestoy in two thousand fifteen. He was paddling away from the island on a surfboard. I love that they had a surfboard there to begin with, but they call him pretty quickly. Okay, okay, Well, I actually I found a different reab centric prison in Norway

and it's called Halden. And while this one doesn't offer ski trips or ferry boat rides it, it does have some features that make it feel more like, I don't know, like a modern apartment building. So there are two d and fifty two prisoners there, and each one has given a private cell with a flat screen TV, a mini fridge, and an onsuite bathroom. And you know, not only do prisoners have access to shared spaces like kitchens and living rooms and even a gym that has this rock climbing wall.

There's also a recording studio for inmates to explore their creative sides. That's pretty awesome. So this sounds way more urban than the rustic cottages at Bastoy. And we know the interiors are nice, but are the prisoners are allowed to leave the facilities? Are they allowed to go outside? Yeah, definitely. I mean there's there's a jogging trail outside and lots

of benches and stone chessboards scattered through the grounds. And unlike those Quaker prisons you were talking about, the design is is actually meant to encourage interactions between inmates and staff members. So guards and prisoners often eat together or play sports together outside. And you know, the whole prison is surrounded by this twenty ft high security wall, and the designers left plenty of trees inside the perimeter to help to obscure it, and it kind of reduces that

institutional feel of the space. And in the words of one of the architects, the landscaping quote lets the inmates see all the seasons. So, I mean, I know everyone appreciates these changing colors and seeing flowers bloom, but I can also appreciate the point of view that these kinds of induligences might be going overboard. I mean, these prisoners did break the law, so how much will we be

going out of our way to make them comfortable? I mean, you described a summer camp earlier, and this is the one you're taking issue with that that, you know, it sort of goes back to that question of what's the main goal of imprisonment, you know, because I might argue that it's the court's job to punish a criminal by sending them to prison, and so being separated from family and friends and having your liberty curtailed, that is the punishment.

And so from that angle, the punishment has already been carried out. But from that point on, the prisoners should be focused on remorse and rehab. Yeah, I mean that's a strong argument, and and really I think the only reason this more lenient approach gives some of us pause is that it's such a foreign concept to us. Like we're so used to thinking of prisoners as these faceless wrongdoers and in need of punishment that that we almost

want the time they serve to be miserable. It's what we think they deserve as criminals, right, and that's also human nature, but it is what I find refreshing about these prisons in Norway. And as strange as that might sound, is that they're way more hopeful about prison and reform than we are here in the States. And I think that's because they haven't forgotten that these are human beings

we're talking about. I mean, these are citizens who can still contribute to society if if given a real chance to do so. So I read this article about hold in prison written by a research professor in criminology name is Her name is Ivan Jukes, and she really nails the importance of the rehab based approach to prison. So she writes, this is not about making prisons softer or

less of a deterrent to criminals. Normalizing prisons is essential if they are to be more than human warehouses that return offenders to society with their lives even more fractured and their life chances even more reduced than when they were admitted. The short term and long term cost of imprisonment, human and economic are staggering and unsustainable. Well, I can

definitely get behind that. In fact, why don't we dig into some of the specifics of those costs, Like, I know, we spend a crazy amount of money each year on prison construction and upkeep, not to mention what it takes to actually house and feed millions of in it's I'm just gonna go ahead and rip off the band aid here. Incarceration costs US taxpayers over seventy billion dollars each year, and that breaks down to more than thirty thousand dollars

spent per prisoner. That is huge. Yeah, that's that's rough. Yeah, And of course that's just the monetary cost of prison. I mean, we already touched on the emotional pain that jail time can cause, and I don't want to dwell too much on those issues, important as they are, but in this discussion of costs, I do think we should talk a little bit about the jails and prisons themselves, definitely.

So I was looking at some of these figures as well, and there are over a hundred federal prisons and close to I think two thousand state ones in the US, and many of these are massive, I mean, these sprawling complexes that must cost a ton to build and then to maintain of course. Yeah, And and depending on the number of people it's meant to house, a single prison

can easily cost well over a hundred million dollars. And like you said, we have so many correctional facilities, like in fact, there are more than five thousand jails and um county facilities like in the country right now, and if you add those up, that's more than the total number of colleges in the whole US well. And not only that, but they're overcrowded. I mean, I remember this story from just a couple of years ago about a prison in California that gave early releases to ten thousand inmates,

and this was just ease. Overcrowding, Yeah, I mean, overcrowding is obviously the serious problem, and it's it's not just the logistical nightmare of trying to house people in a place where there's no room for them. I mean there's also the emotional and psychological toll of living in those conditions. It's no secret that our environment can have this direct

impact on our behavior. I remember reading the study from forever ago about like the proportion of fist fights that break out when people bump into each other, and that people from crowded cities were more accustomed to getting bumped into But still, like, what kind of behavior can you expect from people crammed into like a bleak, depressing building

and made to live together under surveillance. I mean, think about that story you told at the top, Like, narrow windows are great for not letting heat escape in the winter, but what does a sliver of a view do for your mental Yeah, that's true, and you know, it's easy to imagine how the added tention of living on top of one another, plus the disgusting food. I mean that

all might lead to outburst. And you know, of course, bad behavior leads to more time being added to prison sentences, which keeps people locked up for longer and makes things harder for their families, and obviously it costs taxpayers more money. It's this layered, complicated problem and it's so wide reaching. Yeah, so, not only do we need to build a better prison in terms of policy, we also need to physically construct

better prisons. Right. Well, we definitely shouldn't add to the total number of prisons, since that's already way too high as it is, but one option would be to replace the current ones with newer models that break from the traditional concrete box with washtower approaches. I mean, I don't know who decided prison buildings need to reflect the duriness of actually being in prison, but I'm not sure, it's

doing anyone any favors. Well, there's a couple of places out there, like these high schools and college campuses that I've noticed over the years that look a lot like prisons. And I don't know if you've ever noticed this before, but there's this uncanny resemblance between them. Sometimes. Have you noticed this? Yeah, I mean you think about the older schools that had those like boxy, boring designs and like concrete and like drewery long hallways. I can see that, right.

So I actually decided to look into this, and it seems that there's actually a connection between the two. Really. Yes, So the architect responsible for the San Quentin State Prison also designed a couple of California high schools, and that kind of overlap isn't uncommon, I mean, especially for high schools and colleges that were built in the sixties and seventies. So I want to dig into this a little deeper.

So tell me why that is. Well, there was this architectural style called brutalism, and this was really popular at the time, and all kinds of public buildings and institutional structures were built using brutalist designs. They were full of these sharp angles and heavy solid shapes that were cast in this reinforced concrete, and universities were looking to show how modern they were, so they started using these blocky, bunker like buildings as auditoriums or libraries or even dorms.

So then what happened Like everyone suddenly decided that these places look like prisons. Yeah, so pretty much. I mean, public opinion turned on them pretty quickly, and so tons of students and faculty and other members of school communities began to speak out about how ugly these new buildings were. And it even sparked a bunch of urban legends about colleges being built purposely to disorient and intimidate students, you know,

in order to prevent riots and political demonstrations. But you know, at any rate, the brutal is fad died down pretty quickly, at least for the school designs. But prison buildings, well, we kept building these in the same style for decades after. There's something about how impersonal but also functional it look that made it perfect for jail houses. Well, brutalism is

definitely the right name for it. But you know, it's funny you mentioned prison design influencing college architecture, because I actually found a case of the exact opposite. There's this new women's prison in San Diego that's been taking design

cues from modern college campuses. It's called the Lost Colina's Detention and in re Entry Facility, and it's a partnership between two architecture firms, cam D and h m C. They work together to design this new kind of prison that that aims to put a dent in some of the biggest problems found in correctional facilities. And you think about like assault, vandalism, and also recidivism. I mean that sounds awesome, but but how would the architecture actually help

with this. Well, the designers also took inspiration from health care facilities so they could make choices that would benefit the physical and the mental well being of the inmates. So every decision from like the color, the materials, the texture of the buildings and their furnishings, to even the more intangible elements like uh light, air quality, acoustics, all of that was under careful consideration and based on research studies, and everything's made to help the inmates mood and sense

of community. There's stuff like Florida ceiling windows, shorter campus styled buildings and wide open spaces that allow for easy access to nature. I mean that definitely sounds like an upgrade. And you know, the that we're talking so positively about a correctional facility within the United States, that's definitely a nice change of pace. So, well, what do you say we see what other signs of progress we can find in the US prisons? And for that, but why don't

we break for a quiz? First? Our guest today as a professor of literature and creative writing at Hamilton's College, he's also led the Attica Writer's Workshop inside Attica Correctional Facility, and it's the director of the n e H funded American Prison Writing Archive. Welcome to part time genius Dourin Larson, Oh,

Thanks to you. Thanks for having on so during UH In the Atlantic piece, I read that you'd visited UH for high security prisons in Denmark and Norway and Sweden and Finland, and and one of the things I was struck by was how you wrote about the profound difference between how prisoners interact with the officers. Could you tell us a little bit about that. The basis for that is that the Scandinavian for and we really can think of Scandinavian prisons really is one whole, because they look

to each other and see themselves. Really is sort of one philosophy of of incarceration. The base philosophy that they all work from is called normalization, and that is the experience inside prisons should be as much like life outside as it possibly can be, since the intent is to prepare people to go back out and become productive, taxpaying citizens once they leave. So it's an entirely forward looking system rather than hours which is very much backward looking.

You know, we're going to keep punishing you and holding you here until you know, there's some sort of arbitrary decision about whether or not you suffered death. Uh. There, it's all about preparation for leaving, and the officers are very much participants in that effort. So they are there to work with incarcerated people to prepare them to go back out in the world old where you know, they're

returning themselves every day. Um. And that changes quite drastically everything uh, surrounding the way they actually relate to each other. And another part of that is that the ratio of officers and staff to incarcerated people is much much higher than it is in the US. We have about a one to ten sometimes on certain shifts, one to twenty ratio. So American officers are constantly under a sort of state

of siege because they're so badly outnumbered. Uh. There, it's not uncommon for a prison to have a prisoner to staff ratio of one to one. So there's not that sense of, you know, uh, sort of being like an occupying army, which is in some sense the way officers um operate in the US, and some sense the way they have to operate since we want both a mass scale system and they have it on a cheap Yeah.

That that's incredible. That ratio is incredible. But I think you said it wasn't just for the prisoners unfit, right, It's also partially for the life of the prison guards. Yeah, one of the motivations for making these kinds of changes, but not simply have better results on the back end of a prison term. Um. But the in those countries they had a problem that we still have, which is the prison officers here have a life expectancy about sixteen

years shorter than the general population. Uh. And the reason is not from being stabbed or killed by people inside. UM, it's hypertension, epidemic, levels of suicide, alcoholism, UM everything you generally associate with a scene of continued trauma because they're very stressful jobs. And you know, what we've learned from other scenes of a sort of organized oppression is the oppressors are as damaged or often as it damaged as the people who are oppressed, because officers here really do

nothing but negative things all day. They help people what not to do, they punish, they regulate, and there's nothing that they can go home with at the end of the day and saying I did something really positive, right, I helped somebody out, and that has real psychological effects.

I can't I can't imagine now. You you also write about how adjustments are made in the Scandinavian prison system and it, you know, it sounds like the criminal justice process really isn't part of the political process so much as it is, you know, being being left to professionals. Is that accurate? Yeah, in all those countries they've had a long history of one. They've seen with the experience of the world Second World War, what happens when popular

sentiment is what drives public policy right. Uh, that you can you can basically whip people up into believing in UM taking actions that are destructive for everyone. And so with that lesson as close by as it was UM after the war, Uh, they put an enormous amount of faith in experts, people who are trained, uh to basically do their jobs well on the basis of evidence and the most recent science, and to put those actions in place.

And that depoliticization is obviously being challenged now because there are you know, right wing nationalist parties coming in prominence even in those countries. UM, But the basics, you know, function inside prisons is really not changed. I was there just this last summer touring Sweden with students. The recent

changes really just haven't penetrated there. Another thing from your piece that I thought was fascinating was you talked a little bit about Nile's Christie and his conclusion that these homogeneous nations tend to institutionalize mercy. Can you speak about that with the U S and the diverse population we

have in in our present system. Yeah, you know, the distance between the people who are voting for any particular policy or also sort of philosophy or operate from the philosophy behind that that voting and the people that that those decisions are gonna actually land upon the greater that

distance is the harsher the punishments tend to be. And what Christie did is this actually came out of his work in the Second World War and looking at who survived in camps, in the death camps, and found that it was particularly people who at some point or another and made a human connection with the guards literally just sort of lit a cigarette, you know, or they found out they had a common musical interest anything that would humanize the held from the people for the from the

human for the holders. Um. And then from that work is very very early work, he looked globally and what these patterns are like, and the pattern helped that the extent to which the person making a decision could find humanity and a sense of common humanity and the person the decision was going to be made about resulted in

milder remedies for any particular problem. Right, the they want to legislate just like in the family, you know, you have different consequences for your child stealing something than you have for your thinking about home bringings. Right, Um, you know,

one's obviously more serious, but it's not principle different. It's a matter of you know that person, you know all the circumstances under which they did that because they're jealous of their sister or whatever the situation might have been, right, right, uh. And Christie died just a year or two ago. But his work he was actually called in very specifically by Finland when they realize that their incarceration rates in the fifties, we're out of line with other Scandinavian countries, and he

and others were called in. Academics were called in. They say, what can we do to change this? That's incredible? Wow, that's that's really interesting. Well, is is there anything the world can learn from the US prison system? Is you know,

anything that we're we're not seeing about it. It's very difficult to make to sort of strike any kind of continuum really, and I'm working on an essay now about precisely this is that we can look at the practices in Scandinavia and we can ask ourselves, well, why can't we do that what they're doing there. But there are very very concrete reasons why translation is extremely difficult. One is simple scale um that the entire prison calpulation of

Sweden would fit inside San Quentin. You know, on any particular day, there are more men than women walking the yards of any single prison or jail in America. That number is great as in the entire prison population of Iceland, which people. So these countries, in Scandinavian countries are are quite wealthy, particularly per capita, because we have much more even distribution of wealth and an extremely low incarceration rates, So they can spend three times per incarcerated person over

what we spent, so ours an expense assist them. It's expensive because of a size, not because of how much we spend on individuals. So when you have those scale differences, it's really hard to make those comparisons. It would be fairer to say, um, you know what Sweden doing, and what's Oregon doing, or what Sweden doing, and you know what's Michigan doing. And there are progressive measures that will be taken in individual states, but overall, of course we're

sort of just grossly over incarcerated here. I think really what uh Europeans take from us is simply the negative lesson, right, we don't want to do this because we know where that goes. They've already done it in the US, right, So I know you've been teaching and working with prisoners since I think around two thousand six, Um, But what give people hope in these high security settings and and what do they get out of the writing? Out of

the writing? It's not simply the writing and isolated, you know, sitting downs and going you know, it does all the good that writing does for anyone, you know, a place to reflects, as to essentially sort of sort out one's thoughts. Um. But what I found in the setting at Attica, which is quite a brutal prison, is that equally important was that two or three hours in a room with other men whose only priority was working on their writing and

discussing literature, not debts, not vendetta. Is not all the other stuff politics that's going on inside the prison as well as watching out, you know for a famously brutal staff, but a moment in which they are there because of the minds they bring in, not because of the bodies and the objects they bring in, and that just having

that community of trust is enormously important. And then you know, I had to sort of teach them to critique each other because they were, so, you know, sort of universally supportive of each other's work simply for having produced it, which is extra ordinary in a place like that. Right, But over time, you know, they learned that, you know, as great as it is as someone's produced a piece of work, you can also help them along by pointing

out what's problematic in it, all right, yea. And those that have published, and they published extremely well, uh, The New York Times, Atlantic, Um, Harper's Esquire, a lot of top literary journals. Um. You know those moments when you see your name in print. Really, and I've had men tell me this explicitly. I'm no longer just my crime. I'm now a writer. That's how people know me. And maybe more people will know me as that than the people who see me as nothing more as literally sort

of disappearing behind my crime. So it can be a real transformation of self conception and self image, which is very, very constructive for them. So for our listeners that are interested in reading more and learning more, they should definitely check out a book that Dorin edited called Fourth City, Essays from the Prison in America. But Dorian, thank you so much for joining us today. Of course, of course,

thank you. Okay, So Mango, you were really lifting my spirits talking about the Los Collinas Detention and re Entry Facility, And I like it because it seems to adopt the same humane approach to incarceration that we saw in those Norwegian jails, and it's really just cool to see that way of thinking taking root in the American prison system. Yeah, definitely.

Instead of the typically like stark and alienating environments we associate with prisons, these are more like tight knit communities, almost like a college campus or a small village, and that ends up feeling way healthier than just a people warehouse. Well. Building a sense of community and purpose is actually a common thread that I noticed in lots of prison programs that aim for rehab and reintegration. And one of my favorites is a program organized by a nonprofit called Hudson

Link for Higher Education in Prison. So in this program that they allow inmates to enroll in college courses that count toward a degree once they've been released. So for the last nineteen years, the group has partnered with eight colleges, one of them being Columbia University, to offer classes two inmates at six different correctional facilities. So the program's aim is to increase the chance of employment upon release and reduce recidivism, and so far it seems to be working.

I mean, release prisoners who have taken classes offer through Hudson Link have a recidivism rate of less than two percent. That's unbelievable. So what kind of stuff are they studying. It's a little bit of everything, really. I Mean one of the courses from last year was a literature humanities class, so they read and discussed ideas from ancient authors like Homer and Virgil, which sounds heavy, but uh, how's that help in the real world. I mean I feel like

a college parent talking right now, right exactly. Well, you know, just like any liberal art student will tell you. You know, studying classics helps develop critical thinking skills, and so you don't learn just how to read well or write well or speak well. You learn how to think well too, and and that can be useful for people who are interested in, you know, better life choices. But according to the course instructor, professor Laura kol Kowski, there's also another

benefit to engaging with these books. She says it can help students gain more confidence, so they feel more comfortable taking part in other debates once they're released. As she puts it, there's really a deep value for them to feel like, yeah, I can read this stuff and talk about it. I'm part of a civil society and can be part of a larger conversation. Yeah. I can definitely see that, and and I'm definitely for any program that helps prisoners find their voice. Again, speaking of it, have

you been listening to Your Hustle? Oh? I haven't. I'm actually so glad you brought it up, because I was going to if you didn't. Yeah, So, for any listeners who haven't checked it out yet, Your Hustle is this bi weekly podcast about life inside San Quentin State Prison.

And that's interesting enough right there. But the really cool thing is that it's created and recorded and also produced by two current inmates and this volunteer local artist, all in the very limited free time they have every week, and one of the inmates or long Woods co hosts, and this other guy, Anton Williams, handles all the show's sound design. It's all done through a keyboard bar from the Prisons Media Lab. It's pretty awesome, and it reminds

you that these are human beings. We're talking about. Yeah, it is amazing, And your hustle is full of interviews with different prisoners on all sorts of topics. So they'll cover things like justice and regret and love and race and isolation, but also more mundane things like you know, food and pets and disagreements with cellmates. It's definitely worth a lessen. Yeah, but but it's also just like this great example of what a program that invests in prisoners

as people can lead to. Yeah, you know, And because we're talking about the importance of giving prisoners a voice, I want to share Wood's own take on what he considers the aim of the podcast. So he writes, I want the listeners to be able to relate to the struggles that we go through on a day to day basis and not get caught up in the US versus them mentality. We're all the same. Some of us just took different routes and needed a time out and a

little rehabilitation to get back to responsible behavior. So I know, we started by acknowledging that fixing the entire prison system is beyond the scope of our forty five minute podcast. But wait, are you about to tell us how to fix the entire prison system. Yeah, definitely not. And I know I'm at risk of sounding like a p s A here, but I would encourage anyone who's heard anything on today's show that surprised them to do your own research and even let your congressman or women know about

anything you find you don't like. It might sound silly or Pollyanna, but just raising awareness about problems in the prison system can really help make those two plus million citizens who are part of it feel a little less invisible. Yeah, I think you're right, Mango. I mean, it's definitely a start, but um, you know, I don't want you to think that your p s A announcement will win you any sympathy in today's fact off, just to be clear about that. So I gotta kick this off with one person who

definitely doesn't seem to have been rehabilitated. Courts reported that in prison Bernie made Off, who scammed America out of so much money, used as economic savvy to corner the hot chocolate market and then sell it into prison yard at high margin. Friendly Anyone who wanted some of that sweet Swissmas needed to go through Uncle Bernie to get a taste. He clearly feels a lot of regret for

what he's done. That's crazy, all right. Well, here's the fact I found surprising about a Spanish prison called r O S, which is notable for having cells for families. But normally, if an inmate has a baby, the child is sent to foster care to live with relatives. But here the child is allowed to stay with their parents until they're three years old. The children have toys and other kids to play with, and the bonding is supposed to not only help the child but give the parents

something to look forward to after their sentences served. So this one totally baffled me. But have you heard that prison authorities in Abu Dhabi are planning a jail where inmates could serve their sentences without ever meeting a prison guard. So how does that work? So instead of interacting with guards, this humane prison has people communicating with quote social workers, trainers, psychologists, counselors,

and medical staff and they continue uh quote. Security guards will be available behind the scenes, but asked to intervene only when necessary. Definitely curious to see how that works. All right. Here here's what I found curious about the Civil War prison camp in Elmira, New York. Apparently the prison camp had two observation towers for visitors where they had concession stands selling peanuts, lemonade, and cakes, all while

you watched people suffering below. That's so gross. Also, it's a little different than the Philippines prisons where they charge visitors to watch them dance to thriller in Greece, I mean that's to make money for the facilities. But speaking of entertainment, did you know that the opening song of the Coen Brothers movie, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou? Was

actually an old track from nine recorded by prisoners. The most amazing part is that forty years later, the Coen Brothers actually tracked down one of the prisoners, this guy named James Carter, and paid him royalties. Oh that's perfect. I've actually got one about a different James Carter. And this is an incredible story I read in the New

York Times about Jimmy Carter. Apparently, this woman, Mary Prince, who had been convicted of murder, was assigned to work at the Governor's mansion and a work release program when he was there, and after Carter spent time with her, he became so convinced that she was innocent, that he applied to be her parole officer. Also he could take her to the White House to be his daughter's nanny. Prince was eventually pardoned, but it's kind of an unbelievable story.

Oh I like that one. And ending this on a hopeful note. So you in today's trophy, and that's it for today's Part Time Genius. As always, if you've got comments or feedback, please don't hesitate to write us at part Time Genius at how stuff Works dot com or hit us up on our seven fact hotline four four pt Genius. So that's eve it is, thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do

the important things we couldn't even begin to understand. CHRISTA McNeil does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song and does the mixy mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does the exact producer thing. Gay Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the research army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams, and even Jeff Cook gets the

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