Staff

Last Saturday, about halfway through Part 1 of the ASU Center for the Study of Race and Democracy’s two-part Impact Arizona lecture series titled “Race, Crisis and the Future of Democracy,” which was organized in the aftermath of the May 25 police-involved killing of Minneapolis resident George Floyd, the New York Times sent its subscribers a news alert that yet another black man, 27-year-old Rayshard Brooks of Atlanta, had died at the hands of law enforcement.

In the United States, managing the tensions between the privileged, politically dominant classes of society and its politically, socially and economically disadvantaged classes, to which communities of color have disproportionately belonged, has always been a central concern of police and the criminal justice system. Some U.S. police agencies were explicitly established in the Civil War era to help preserve slavery and white supremacy.

The logistical challenges of teaching a class inside a state prison are complicated enough during a typical semester, let alone one that includes a pandemic.

This spring, an Arizona State University professor and a doctoral student were instructing 10 students based at the Downtown Phoenix campus, plus 10 more who happen to be men serving criminal sentences at the Arizona State Prison Complex-Florence.

The sixth annual ASU Prison Education Conference will bring together a broad coalition of experts and community members to discuss criminal justice and the transformative power of education. Organized by Arizona State University's Prison Education Awareness Club and sponsored by the Department of English and the School of Social Transformation, the conference is set for 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 10, in the Turquoise Room of the Memorial Union on ASU’s Tempe campus.

The U.S. prison system is retreating from an era of force and punishment and is starting to think once again about education and rehabilitation programs.

And that’s not only good for society but good for the economy, according to a panel of experts who gathered at Arizona State University this weekend to discuss the role of prison education as part of the American landscape.

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