to see your answers are there any
criminals in the room okay you’re all
lying has anyone in the room committed a
crime thank you you’re in good company
I’m a criminal too I’ve been committing
crimes my entire life at the age of 10
my best friend and I stole a Bic lighter
a bottle of butane and nearly burned an
elementary school to the ground at the
age of 14 I sold drugs to impress a boy
and at the age of 16 I shoplifted
I stole a book and a New Age CD these
are some of my favorite stories to tell
but they’re my favorite stories to tell
because the statute of limitations is up
I think except on arson and also because
I wasn’t caught we don’t use the word
criminal to talk about ourselves when
we’ve done something wrong we reserved
that word for people who’ve been caught
and those are the people I want to talk
about tonight in Oregon we call inmates
adults in custody that’s the official
term and it’s a lovely term and it’s
sensitive and maybe even progressive but
outside of the Department of Corrections
when we are with our friends and family
and loved ones we’re a lot more likely
to use words like convict delinquent
deviant murderer rapist arsonist drug
when I was hired to work in a college
program in three of Oregon’s prisons the
man who had become my boss said don’t
Google your students you don’t want to
know except that I have a background in
journalism and an insatiable curiosity
and I had never taught in a prison
before and so fear also took over so I
said thank you thank you for the advice
thank you for the job I left his office
I went home and I sat in front of my
computer and I waited for my roster and
I waited and I waited and when it came I
googled I googled mug shots face sheets
rap sheets Appeals affidavits I read
victim statements I discovered a website
called love a prisoner which was not
very impressive
okay and the stories that Google told me
were heinous to call any of my students
criminals would not be an exaggeration
most of us think that they’re the the
vast majority of people in prison are in
for petty crimes or this is something
that’s being talked about a lot today
that we have too many people in prison
for petty crimes drug theft property
crimes I do not disagree with that at
all however the students that I teach
are largely in for violent crimes
incredibly violent crimes these stories
the stories that Google told me didn’t
pan out in the classroom my first night
at the Oregon State Correctional
Institution I was surprised to find that
the class looked a lot like the other
classes I teach in tidy rows of desks
students sitting in tidy rows of desks a
the student said thank you for coming
they said it that night and they said it
every night and every night they said
drive safely when I left I didn’t forget
all of what I had read on Google but it
wasn’t part of the interaction or at
least I can’t point to a time where I
felt that it was part of our interaction
in the classroom but the stories that
the students told me the students that
were at the center of my experience at
the Oregon State Correctional
Institution were that these men our
fathers brothers cousins uncles sons
grandsons they are best friends they
have best friends they’re lovers of
nature of Pikes Peak of the high desert
of the Elsi Bay they love iron maiden a
lot of them which is great because I
teach poetry in prison and iron maidens
lyrics are quiet poetic they love
cowboys cow-tipping fast cars and over
time they learn to love Adrienne Rich
Margaret Atwood Langston Hughes Raymond
Carver and bozo who wrote the temple
bell stops but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers I want to repeat that
very tiny poem because I think it
perfectly reflects what time must be
like for a person who is incarcerated
the temple bell stops but the sound
when we incarcerate a person it’s
dehumanizing but it doesn’t make them
less human and I think in some cases it
makes us less human a lot of us think of
education as a process by which we gain
skills knowledge information when
education is done well it engages the
imagination one thing the students I see
in prison need more than anything is the
ability to imagine themselves when they
get out and I’ve told you that 99.9% of
the guys I teach in president are in for
violent crimes and all of them are
getting out they need to be able to
imagine what their lives can will should
imagination is at the core of problem
solving so we have a problem
to talk about there are 2.3 million men
and women in prison in America 95% will
get out 5% will leave prison in a coffin
ninety-five percent of 2.3 million
adults in custody will be released
they’ll be our neighbors our colleagues
our co-workers maybe our in-laws they’ll
take their children to the same schools
67% of those who are released will
reoffending three years they may or may
not go back to prison 76% will
reoffended in five years without the
application of imagination this is
useless data and so is this providing an
inmate or an adult in custody with an
education reduces the likelihood that
they will return to prison by 43% the
program that I work in has a recidivism
or repeat offense rate in the single
digits and the highest number I’ve seen
is six percent and I only know of one
person who has reoffended we need to
reimagine for ourselves what our
communities will look like when 95
percent of 2.3 million people locked up
or released back into them we need to
reimagine what the function of our
correctional institutions is why we call
them correctional institutions in the
first place
what it is that we ought to be
correcting why we call them
Penitentiary’s and who it is who should
feel penitent why we call them
reformatory I don’t think we called from
that very often any longer we also need
to reimagine and redefine justice so
that justice looks a little bit more
like mercy and hope and less like
vengeance I want to end with a poem that
was sent to me by a former professor of
my own also witnessed to many of my
crimes it was also a favorite poem of
some of the men that I’ve taught in
prison so it’s called making peace I’m
just going to read a couple few lines
from a long poem making peace by Denise
lever tov a voice from the dark called
out
the poets must give us imagination of
peace to oust the intense familiar
imagination of disaster peace not only
the absence of war but peace like a poem
is not there ahead of itself can’t be
imagined before it is made can’t be
known except in the words of its making
grammar of justice syntax of mutual aid
a feeling towards it dimly sensing a
rhythm is all we have until we begin to
utter its metaphors learning them as we speak thank you