In a world where captivity and nonconformity is suspect and creativity is suppressed, the ones being held behind the bars are looking for a release.
"Only you can make today the first day of the rest of your life."
This is one of the several signs that greet inmates and visitors as they walk down the blue and white, impersonal hallways leading to the control entrance at the St. Clair County Correctional Facility.
St. Clair is a maximum security prison to the northeast of Birmingham that holds more than 2,000 inmates behind its razor wire fences and guard towers. Close to 400 of those 2,000 inmates are men serving life sentences for violent crimes.
In the prison yard, men are herded like cattle to and from the gym, dining hall and their dormitories.
Considerate of outsiders some prisoners try to make small talk with visitors as they welcome them into their home, the prison.
Some prisoners sit, backs against walls, looking out into nothing.
However, inside the library classroom at St. Clair, the inmates there take on a different look. In a white room, walls lined with law books, the attitude seems different.
For two hours a week these inmates become students and are allowed to step outside of the bars and inside their own minds by becoming immersed in writing, drawing and reading classes.
"I get outside of a place I know I am never going to get out," says one of the inmates in the classroom. "When I read a book or draw a picture, I ain't me no more, I am somebody else."
These inmates are participating in a program called the Alabama Prison Arts and Education Program.
The APAEP is a program based at the Center for Arts and Humanities at Auburn University and has been funded since 2003 by the National Endowment for the Arts.
The program director, Kyes Stevens, said she never saw this opportunity coming.
Kyes was only just out of graduate school when a friend called and asked if she wanted to be a part of a new grant to teach literature classes at Talladega Federal Prison.
"At first I thought she was just BS'ing me," Kyes said, "I quickly learned just how serious she was."
Since then, this small grant program has grown to cover classes at 10 rotating facilities in the state.
Teachers for the program come from all across the state.
"All of our teachers love teaching in the prisons. Even if the program disappeared one day they would still want to do what they are doing. I think the education experience is unlike any other classroom experience you walk into," said Kyes.
According to 2007 statistics from the Alabama Department of Correction, coming into prison the average inmate's education level is at 10th grade. Eighty seven percent enter without a high school diploma, which comes out to 18,739 inmates. Out of those 18,739 inmates, 11,400 of them are black and 6,949 of them are white.
"There is an injustice in our education system," said an inmate at Staton Correctional Facility who was attending a literature class taught by Stevens. "It is just unfortunate because it seemed like nobody cared about me until I was already in prison. I am not using that as an excuse for anything that I have done, but it seems like folks are set up to fail."
A Cry From the Victims
Because there are inmates filling prison cells, it means also somewhere there are victims. There are groups dedicated to making sure that these victims are not forgotten.
"We did not ask to be victims. When did we agree to have our lives forever changed by this?"
This is from Miriam Shehane the director of the state organization VOCAL, or Victims of Crime and Leniency. The organization’s purpose is to ensure the equal and fair treatment of victims of violent crimes and their families.
Shehane, whose daughter was murdered in Birmingham 30 years ago, still holds onto the feeling of being victimized.
"It changes you forever. It has affected my other family relationships with my husband, my other children and my grandchildren."
Shehane said she believes too much thought is given to the well being and care of the inmates and the victims seem to get lost in the court process.
"I do believe that everybody should be given a high school education. We provide it for them for free. After that though, anything they receive should also be given to help the victim."
Shehane said it would not bother her so much if she didn't feel like there was always something being done for the inmate.
Shehane said she thinks the problems start in the court room.
"They sit and they say, 'well they haven't done any worse than the next person so why send them to jail?' "
The group, and its members, have their own views for what the sentencing process and prison time should be.
Christopher Peterson, director of the VOCAL Selma chapter, said, “Prison should be designed to punish people for violations of the rules of society.”
Peterson said he thinks that a person should serve all the time on their sentence meaning no parole and no probation.
Like Shehane, Peterson also believes in providing education to some extent. He said that a portion of the sentence should be punishment only and another portion should be dedicated to learning how to exist in society.
“Before being released, one must demonstrate that they have the desire and capacity to live in society and abide by the law.”
It's not about vengeance, said Shehane, it's about justice she feels the victims and their families never receive.
"Absolutely there is an injustice. There is an attitude that we are just supposed to be victimized.”
One of Shehane's biggest complaints is that there are no numbers, no statistics about the validity of the program. She asks to see the number of people who were reformed by the program.
"If we are going to just throw money at a program, I want to see if it's working."
Current statistics provided by the U.S Department of Justice shows the national average for recidivism, a relapse into criminal behavior, to be an estimated 67.5 percent. Those in that percentage were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within three years of their release.
When asked how many reformed inmates would indicate the education program was successful, Shehane said, "I don't really know, but I would hope more than a quarter."
Shehane said that she, and VOCAL, are not trying to take rights away from offenders, but simply demanding equal rights for the victims and their families.
A Mutual Understanding
Stevens said she knows that there are people who do not agree with what she is doing, and she has learned to accept that.
"Their fears are based on ideas of vindication. They honestly believe that all the people in prison are horrible, and that they should rot there. Yes, I agree there are some people who are just bad people, and they should stay locked up, but what the majority of people don't realize, or refuse to realize, is that majority of inmates are going to get out of prison."
According to 2007 ADOC statistics, the average sentence is almost 15 years, with the average time served at 4.75 years.
American prisons are now releasing more than 600,000 inmates a year, according to the American Public Media story, "Hard Time: Life After Prison", which tells the story of a man released from prison who struggles to find a job and rebuild his life.
During the 1960's alone the inmate population doubled and is now sitting at two million incarcerated individuals.
Stevens realizes these numbers. She sees a fraction of these faces weekly.
"I’m doing what I do because I believe in it. I used to just think I was doing the right thing, now I know I am doing the right thing."
Stevens said these misunderstandings and stereotypes are where the problems start. She says prison is not a delicate part of our society. It is a dark, uncomfortable thing to think about
Stevens said she respects the people who disagree with her. She accepts that people must agree to disagree, and says she has not made it her mission to “change peoples’ minds”.
However, she says there is still work to be done on the communication and dialogue front. She said she believes there needs to be a better foundation to the mutual relationship that is forming.
"We, both sides, agree what we are doing is the right way to do things. And that's fine. I'm not sitting here telling them they are wrong. I just do what I do because I know it's what's right for me."
This same vision of a mutual relationship is deep in the mind of William Cash, or "Cash" as he prefers to be called. Cash was incarcerated during Stevens’s first class she ever taught. He said he saw the program at its most unstructured level there, but knew that it was a step in the right direction.
Speaking directly about the program, Cash said that many people can benefit from that kind of intense educational experience.
"Being in prison allows oneself the time and space to dive into the educational process. On the outside, the distractions of life get in the way and you never learn to appreciate it, or even have the desire to go through the process."
Cash said it's hard to get everyone on board though. Many prisoners, he says, come into the program from different mindsets. Some come for simply a change in pace from everyday prison life. Some are seriously looking for any means provided to better themselves. But most come in unsure about what the program will do for them, he said.
"This program was a real freedom I was afforded. I saw it as a way to improve and better myself while serving my time. Just the dialogue offered is liberating, the safe environment in which to communicate about ideas and yourself is a gift in prison. You don’t get that kind of safety in prison much."
Since being out of prison, Cash describes himself as a success story. He now works managing three businesses and some 200 employees. He contributes his success and his new perspective on life to what he learned while he was in prison.
Cash said the program demands responsibility from its participants. It’s a responsibility that is forced onto inmates.
"Guys come in not really having a clue about themselves and that is what this program is about. It not only allows a dialogue with other students, but more importantly, a dialogue with yourself."
Cash says that the mutual relationship between both sides is the next piece of the puzzle.
"I can understand where groups like VOCAL are coming from, and I respect them. But they have to realize not all of us committed a violent crime. In fact, most of us have to get out and rebuild our lives at some point."
One former inmate, who chose to remain anonymous, feels resentment towards groups like VOCAL.
"Where were they to represent my daughter, my wife and my mother when I went to prison? My crime didn't have a corpse. My crime didn't have a rape victim. My family was the victim of my crime and who helped them when I went to prison?"
The inmate claims groups like VOCAL only work at one portion of the spectrum, a portion this inmate was not a part of.
However, both Cash and Stevens said feelings like these are not part of the next step that needs to be taken by the program. Stevens said to continue to fuel the animosity only further divides people from coming together to solve the bigger problem, which is stopping the victimization before it happens.
Where it All Stands Now
Standing inside her literature classroom at Staton Correctional Facility, Stevens tells the men, some of who have been with her for years, that funding for their class, a project of Big Read sponsored by the National Endowment for the Arts, is at risk to be cancelled.
"It's up to you to tell them that you need this," she tells them. "They need to hear from you that this program is worth saving. That there is a reason to fight for this class."
Some of the men go around the room telling stories of being skeptical of the class at first. Some told stories of never having been given a chance to go to school before and how this class had taught them the value of an education. Others tell about how this class had helped them begin college classes while incarcerated and the education they looked forward to upon release.
One student said, "The problem is that we are just getting this now. We already in prison and now we getting the chance to learn in a safe environment. For some folks it's too late, but for us, the ones in here, we care."
This is the fuel that drives Stevens every day.
"The fact that there are people longing, begging for this knowledge and to learn is what keeps me coming back. Changing one life, that is a success. When one person is released and then goes to college and makes something of his life, that's a success."
One of the students in her literature class at Staton is due to be released in June and hopes to continue with his college courses to become an engineer.
"We may not have thousands of people knocking down our doors to help teach," says Stevens, "but the ones we have now will tell you that this has been something that has changed their life forever. They want to come back year in and year out to teach these men and women. This is the mutual relationship we are working towards. This is the point where our program takes off."
The Alabama Prison Arts and Education Program is still growing. Its history is not old, but it is rich and meaningful. The stories of inmates, the books of poetry and drawings done by those serving time for crimes they have committed, are just the physical product of this program.
"It is a quality thing, not a quantity thing," says Cash. "It's about the change you spur to happen in peoples lives. That's where the beauty is, and it is beautiful to see that transformation in a guy."
What will the future hold for this program? Will the bridge of communication ever be completed between the two sides of thought? The future is not important to Stevens. She is too busy planning classes for the spring semester and putting teachers where they long to be, in prison, with the inmates who want to learn.
As long as there are people locked up, behind bars, Stevens doesn't mind freeing their minds, even if it is just for a few hours a week.
