© 2024
Virginia's Public Radio
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tapping Into Open Minds Behind Bars

Many universities offer students a chance to study abroad, but Virginia Commonwealth University is offering a whole different travel experience - sending a handful of students to jail. 

As a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, David Coogan had heard of the school to prison pipeline:

“For many people, schooling is not a welcoming experience but rather a punishing experience  of suspensions and expulsions and violence, so by the time they’re actually kicked out of school, and they drift into behaviors that lead them into jail, they don’t want anything to do with education.”

But some, like 30-year-old Christian Brackett, are still anxious to learn.  He had been sentenced to seven months in the Richmond Justice Center for stealing textbooks, and when he learned that VCU was offering college courses in the jail, he jumped at the chance.

“It was a great opportunity, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I got a chance to use my mind, other than watching Keeping Up with the Kardashians and playing cards.”

Professor Coogan taught humanities courses, convinced they could heal.

“We tend to think of the humanities as a wing in the museum - as something you go to visit, but in the real world is people are still asking the questions that humanities scholars have been studying for generations: How does the world work?  Why is there injustice?  How can people change?”

John Dooley, who recently retired as head of the justice center’s school, helps fund the program - knowing how important it is to inmates.

“They literally know that they are physically safe and then their minds are hungry, they’re open.  Most of the folks have never had this experience, and they’re just joyful.  People were amazed that they could actually take university courses.  ‘I’m in college - whoa,’ and they were awesome.”

And the prisoners took special pleasure from their classmates - VCU students who wanted to meet and learn from them.  Again, former inmate Christian Brackett and his 35-year-old classmate Billy Scruggs.

“It was great to interact with the college students and be challenged.”

“The college students were put on such a pedestal, because they came down to spend the time with us.” 

And that’s not all they shared. Many of the college kids had experienced violence as children, gotten hooked on drugs or confronted racism.   Scruggs says sharing stories led to close, personal bonds.

“People are sharing  a lot of their personal pain and stuff and experiences, and it’s not something you take lightly, so there’s definitely some close personal relationships that flourish in that situation.”

And the class gave him hope for the future and faith that he could succeed after leaving jail.

“You know you go in there and you get dehumanized to the most base level, and then you’re able to build yourself back up through words and ideas and realize that a few mistakes or actions don’t define your whole life.  There is some good in you.”

Today, both men are free, and the Open Minds Program is offering another chance to move forward with their education - the opportunity to take a course at VCU at no charge.  A total of three scholarships have been awarded, and recipients will be welcome at a new drop-in center, directed by Assistant Professor Liz Canfield.

“I do have friends and family members who have been incarcerated on and off over the years, so I know that people inside are the same as people outside.  Maybe a wrong place, wrong time, bad decisions, but there really isn’t a difference.”

Canfield says the Sanctuary will serve as a non-judgmental space where people come to share writing and music and get help in studying for college classes or the GED.  With one of every 89 Virginians now behind bars, she knows this service will be needed. 

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
Related Content