Prisons

Clint Smith | Beyond this Place

"Beyond This Place" by Clint Smith is about teaching in incarcerated spaces and art as a form of liberation.

Societal problems like racism and inequality often feel overwhelming. Clint Smith sees a possible remedy: storytelling. Through his work as a poet, educator, and activist, including an innovative program at the Massachusetts Department of Corrections, Smith often confronts how we’re socialized to simplify others down to their race, their class, or even just their worst moment. The same is being done to us, and thus our lives can feel riven by social divides. But if we learn to tell our own stories—to explore our emotions, and to captivate the emotions of others—we can fully engage with our shared humanity. Smith's experience as a poet has made him adept at teaching these key storytelling tools.

The End of Prisons
With the advent of the modern prison system in the early 1800s, society moved away from public torture toward correctional prisons—or offender settlements. Enforcing a punitive strategy of isolation, loss of liberty, and elimination of citizen rights, these settlements have grown into what prison commentator Doran Larson calls the Fourth City. This Fourth City, named for its population that outnumbers the fourth-largest city in the U.S., exists alongside urban, suburban, and rural settlements. It is a community governed by a different set of rules that no longer work to prevent crime, heal communities, diminish the pain of victims, or rehabilitate prisoners. Indeed, our Fourth City is breeding new criminals, new anger, and new disenfranchised generations. Recognizing this failure, perhaps we could set an audacious course to reimagine and redevelop these settlements within the next decade.

Acknowledging is awkward: Jen Porter Anderson at TEDxBYU
Jen Anderson, co-founder of The Reset Foundation, discusses how we can fix America's prison system by learning to acknowledge muck, hope, and each other.

Future of Prisons: Alan Holden and Kara Shuler at TEDxRosslyn
Future of Prisons: Alan Holden and Kara Shuler at TEDxRosslyn

Michael Moore Goes to Norway & Visits a Prison of the Future
Michael Moore also visits a much more civilized conceptualization of what we think of as a 'prison'. Given what we know about human behavior and criminology, prisons in the US and many other countries are a scientific and humanitarian embarrassment.

The Perfect future Prisons how to avoid crime tomorrow
FUTURE-UNIVERSITY | Future-Institute

Future of Technology in Private Prisons-II
This is a brief synopsis of what is coming down the pike in technology for private prisons.

Podcast: Global Prison Trends 2015
Podcast: Global Prison Trends 2015

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