Originally posted at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/beyond-prisons/school-of-second-chances July 01, 2011 by Carol Estes Inmates who get an education are less likely to reoffend when they’re released. So why are prison education programs getting cut? Washington State Reformatory looks like a college, and in one improbable sense, it is. A massive stone temple of a building, it has sat for a hundred years atop a campus of rolling lawn and manicured flower beds, overlooking groves of giant evergreens and pink rhododendrons. Today, as families walk up the wide granite staircase to a University Beyond Bars graduation, the scene is like that at any college—except that
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Originally published in the Monroe Monitor & Valley News, Vol. 120, No. 39 September 28, 2010 by Polly Keary University Beyond Bars celebrates $600,000 grant Most medium security inmates try to earn their wayto minimum security, for thefreedoms that go with it. But such is the freedom that goes with education, some inmates have tried to stay out of minimum security just so theycould keep going to the University Beyond Bars, which is only offered at the medium security part of the Monroe Correctional Complex. “Sometimes they try to get infractions, just so they can stay,” said Carol Estes, founder
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Originally posted at http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/is-the-u.s.-ready-for-human-rights/sidebar-from-the-other-side-of-the-bars February 12, 2007 by Carol Estes & Catherine Bailey Carol Estes: This is for the next issue of YES! Magazine. YES! is a magazine that looks at problems in the world, and then tries to find a solution for them. It’s going to be on human rights, and the part on prisons and human rights we’re dealing with is the difficulty of you guys getting back into court to have your stories heard. And one thing that the guy who was writing the article for us focuses on is AEDPA. So if your story is related to
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