America's two million incarcerated men, women, and youth live in a hidden, isolated world filled with depression, anxiety, hostility, and violence. But the nation's soaring prison population has not been forgotten by a dedicated network of visual artists, writers, poets, dancers, musicians, and actors who teach the arts in correctional settings. This anthology compiles the narratives of several accomplished arts-in-corrections teachers who share their personal experiences, philosophies, and bittersweet anecdotes, as well as practical advice, survival skills, and program evaluation guidelines. Teaching the Arts Behind Bars is an invaluable tool for artists, program administrators, and corrections professionals, and a testament to the power of creative expression in promoting communication, positive social interaction, inner healing, and self-esteem.

Male prisons can be dangerous places with a climate of distrust, but can long-term prisoners be given the space to reflect and grow ? This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the ‘big’ questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently.

Incarcerated bodies, liberated minds: a narrative of literacy education behind bars. Words No Bars Can Hold provides a rare glimpse into literacy learning under the most dehumanizing conditions. Deborah Appleman chronicles her work teaching college- level classes at a high- security prison for men, most of whom are serving life sentences. Through narrative, poetry, memoir, and fiction, the students in Appleman’s classes attempt to write themselves back into a society that has erased their lived histories. The students’ work, through which they probe and develop their identities as readers and writers, illuminates the transformative power of literacy. Appleman argues for the importance of educating the incarcerated, and explores ways to interrupt the increasingly common journey from urban schools to our nation’s prisons. From the sobering endpoint of what scholars have called the “school to prison pipeline,” she draws insight from the narratives and experiences of those who have traveled it.

A young girl and her grandmother visit the girl's father in prison.

Literacy behind Bars: Successful Reading and Writing Strategies for Use with Incarcerated Youth and Adults is a practical resource for teachers, librarians, administrators, and community stakeholders who work with incarcerated youth and adults. The book includes examples of authentic literacy practices that have been successfully used with those incarcerated around the nation. These include: -creating graphic novels, -book clubs, -writing about gang life, -reading buddies, -urban literature -developing a writing workshop -establishing a school library

Obscured behind concrete and razor wire, the lives of the incarcerated remain hidden from public view. Inside the walls, imprisoned people all over the world stage theatrical productions that enable them to assert their humanity and capabilities. Prison Theatre and the Global Crisis of Incarceration offers a uniquely international account and exploration of prison theatre. By discussing a range of performance practices tied to incarceration, this book examines the ways in which arts practitioners and imprisoned people use theatre as a means to build communities, attain professional skills, create social change, and maintain hope. Ashley Lucas's writing offers a distinctive blend of storytelling, performance analysis, travelogue, and personal experience as the child of an incarcerated father. Distinct examples of theatre performed in prisons are explored throughout the main text and also in a section of Critical Perspectives by international scholars and practitioners.

In Arts in Corrections, the author—a poet, translator and teacher—takes readers on a chronological journey through an annotated selection of 24 of his own publications from 1981 to 2014 which recount his experiences teaching, consulting and documenting US arts programs in prisons, jails and juvenile facilities. Anyone interested in corrections and arts-in-corrections will be drawn in by the poetic sensibility Hillman brings to his writing. Readers will gain a historical and personal perspective not only into correctional arts programming in the US over the last 40 years, but also the institutional transformations in policy, culture, populations, economics, and the criminological mission expansion into other institutional settings like K-12 education. Original essays, articles, monographs and poems are interspersed with recent annotations to deliver not only a top-down view of the correctional system but also the author’s personal journey of "discouragement and hope" from work conducted in approximately 200 adult and juvenile facilities in 30 states and six countries. This comprehensive book is essential reading for a broad cross-section of international readers interested in and involved in the arts-in-corrections field. With two million individuals behind bars in the US at any given time, the profile of arts programs in prisons and jails is rising and interest in criminal-justice matters more generally is increasing. This includes not only arts-in-corrections professionals, policy makers, students, researchers, advocates and academics, but professionals in multiple other fields as well as the general public.