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The Inside-Out Center

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Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program® facilitates dialogue and education across profound social differences — through courses held inside prison, involving students from a higher education setting and incarcerated students. These courses ignite enthusiasm for learning — encouraging participants to find their unique voice and to consider how they can make change in the world.

Mission Statement

Education in which we are able to encounter each other, especially across profound social barriers, is transformative and allows problems to be approached in new and different ways. Inside-Out’s mission is to create opportunities for people inside and outside of prison to have transformative learning experiences that emphasize collaboration and dialogue, inviting them to take leadership in addressing vital issues of social justice.

Vision Statement

We believe that, by studying together and working on issues of crime, justice, and related social concerns, those of us inside and outside of prison can catalyze the kinds of changes that will make our communities more inclusive, just, humane, and socially sustainable.

Bridging the Gap Among Institutions

Higher education and corrections are among the most powerful institutions in the world today. Yet, both have limitations in their ability to foster just and humane social realities. Individuals in both systems can often feel alienated, objectified, and pessimistic about the possibility of social change.

Statement of Solidarity on Racial Justice
image of incarcerated youth

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program® rejects racism in all of its forms and intensifies our dedication to social justice and real social change during this unsettling time in our nation. We are horrified by the systemic violence (both actual and potential) that exists in every part of our country, and particularly, in the criminal legal system, due to the egregious use of power that is too often left unchecked.

We stand in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, believing that such a movement should not even be necessary, while fully recognizing that racism is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

We encourage everyone to continue, with increased urgency, the crucial work of seeking justice — through a critical analysis of unjust systems — that is at the heart of what we do, both inside the prisons, in our classrooms, and in our individual lives. Let us be newly inspired and emboldened by the rising up of people around the globe in protest to the atrocities committed, often at the hands of those who are meant to protect us all.

As a society, we can and must be better than this. However we can, each of us needs to lead the way towards a change — of hearts, of minds and, in the larger context, of policies that have led to unequal treatment under the law.