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John J. Lennon, who's currently serving a 28-year life sentence for drug dealing and a murder he committed in 2001. He is one of 23 out of 2,300 inmates(监犯)participating in an education program, and he advocates greater access to education in prison through TV. Currently, he says the TV is used as “an inability tool; it's a tool to keep us entertained cells.” But he suggests that prison TVs should stream online courses instead of movies.
“If inmates had the chance to watch an online course then they might say, ‘Hey, look what's on Channel 3; it's an interesting lecture from a professor of philosophy.' Believe it or not, people will tune in, and after the lecture they're going to go on their gates, hang on their bars, and they're going to talk about it.”
Education, he says, also makes prison a safer place. “If I'm working on a paper banging away(砰砰响个不停)on my typewriter, I have other things on my mind. I'm not fighting in the prison yard.” Most prison administrators support that view. “They understand it makes prison a safer place if you have a group of guys with their eyes on the prize who are trying to change themselves.”
John J. Lennon arrived at Attica in 2004 with a 9th grade education, but in May will graduate with a two-year associate degree. Attica creative writing workshops have changed his life.
“I came into prison looking up to gangsters(匪徒), now I look up to scholars and intellectuals like Doran Larson, Tim Golden, all these Pulitzer-winning journalists. Education has changed the lens(镜头)through which I view the world. I don't look up to gangsters anymore. I think it's a horrible lifestyle.”
Hamilton College professor Doran Larson has been teaching creative writing workshops at Attica since 2006. He says the demand for education from inmates is enormous and that it's “almost impossible to create a program large enough to satisfy the desire which pushes against the public perception(认识)that such people inside aren't interested in education.”
Thoughts on prison education have changed over the years. Until 1973, there was a period of rehabilitation(改造)in American prisons. Even after that year, college degree programs were available for inmates nationwide until 1994, when the country's movement to get tough on crime made prisoners not qualified for Pell fund aid. “We have moved to a punishment mentality(心态),” Larson says. No one cared about these people “as long as they are kept from the outside.”
Larson argues that inmates want to become productive members of society. The prison population is “a huge untapped resource, both commercial and intellectual. And right now there is far from enough being done to tap into skills which can get them off the public dole(失业救济金)and turn them into taxpayers.”
