The liberal arts are techniques for freedom.
Essays and notes from the War Skeptic archive.
Teaching a class, “The 2016 Presidential Election: The Fight to Vote in American History,” in the JCI Scholars Program presented me with a unique opportunity to view the recent election through the eyes of a forgotten voting block – the incarcerated. The experience was a rich and rewarding one. Students were well prepared for class […]
The Department of Education has selected us to participate in the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program! I wrote about this a bit before last year here and here. There will be much more news in the days and weeks ahead. We have heard that our partnership with the University of Baltimore is one of four such […]
Reading from The Maximum Security Book Club and Q&A at the Enoch Pratt Library on June 15, 2016, with (l to r) JCI Scholar Vincent, Baynard Woods, Correspondent for the Guardian and writer for the City Paper, Glennor Shirley, Maryland State Prison Librarian, and JCI Scholar Mikita Brottman. You can listen to interviews with Mikita […]
Guest post by Joshua Cahall Today’s class with Mr. Fotheringill was quite interesting to me considering I have very little knowledge about or interest in Buddhism. Some aspects of it seemed admirable and attainable, while other parts of it seemed a bit hokey. I do believe meditation is a very powerful exercise. I touched on […]
Guest post by Steven Diffendal Prior to attending Dr. Sizer’s class, I did not possess the knowledge as to what distinguished a bandit from an outlaw. Dr. Sizer explained how historical facts differ from those of the folk legends that we have come to know. I came away from Dr. Sizer’s lecture with information such […]
On Tuesday, my class “The Inside Out Prison Exchange Program: Criminal Justice Issues”, met for the final time at Jessup Correctional Institution. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is a national program developed by Temple University in 1997, and offered in prisons across the country and internationally. This was my third year offering Inside-Out at JCI. […]
Guest post by Joey McCarthy I would like to say that I felt honored to be able to hear John Peacock’s reading about his life, and how he came to find out his true heritage and roots. Like John Peacock, I am also Irish and Indian mixed. My whole life I was led to believe […]
Guest post by Sig Throughout this semester, I continue to learn about things I know absolutely nothing about. I’m not sure how to feel about this. I guess I’m happy to be learning something, yet sad because I’m 46 years old and still don’t know shit! Much like Ian, I enjoy the act of looking […]
Guest Post by David Houk (Tree) The class on architecture was interesting because I’ve worked construction almost my whole life, and I have experience working with terracotta tile black (clay). I can’t believe it takes almost eleven years to learn this career. But I guess it really does, to learn all that it takes to […]
Visit from Dr. Saul Myers. Guest post by Emmanuel Williams Saul came here and shared some pretty well-written stories. I liked him and the stories that he brought with him. In his story of “Alfred,” he used the woman as a commander, one who controlled the situation. He used humor to bring up feminist views […]
Today, JCI Scholar Vincent Greco and I attended the memorial service for Doug Arey. Here are some things that come into my mind when I think about Doug: His loud, irrepressible, unmistakable laugh. His inability to call me anything but “Professor Brottman,” even when all the other men call me by my first name, even […]
I had some very sad news while traveling on Monday, March 28th. I learned that one of my favorite students in recent memory – Douglas Scott Arey (September 26, 1948 – March 27, 2016), a 67-year-old inmate at Jessup who served 43 years of a life sentence – died the previous day. Doug took my […]
A memorial service for Douglas Scott Arey (September 26, 1948 – March 27, 2016) will be held on April 7, 2016 at 10:00 a.m. Here is the location: St. Barnabas’ Episcopal Church 5203 St. Barnabas Road Temple Hills, MD 20748
Guest post by Michael Whittlesey, in response to guest lecture by Dr. Christine Manganaro The origin of my family genealogy dates back to mid 10th Century England. We were Whittles — the makers of swords and knives. The Whittles that resided upon hill crests, by the English term “ey,” were called “Whittlesey.” The Whittles who […]
Guest post by Donald Gross (R.I.P Douglas Scott Arey) Wow! This particular lecture had to be one of the most, if not the most informative lectures that I have ever had the pleasure of participating in. I would never have guessed in a hundred years that a Q and A during the lecture would be […]
March 22, 2016 My kids I wonder where your mind are I hope missing daddy from afar My kids I know I made promises in the past That’s before I get my GED and now attending a college class My kids I say to you that I are all grown up So you can stop […]
Guest posts, March 15 2016 Michael Whittlesey “Ladies and Gentlemen, friends, fellow citizens. I am not here today to tell you about policy reform – you have heard politician after politician speak about “Change.” I am NOT here today to tell you about change. I am here to talk about abolishment. We need to come […]
Guest post by Warren “Ren” Hynson All last week I read the handout “The School,” and I was confused. I felt the story was all over the place and I was lost. As I walked around the prison compound, everyone I saw from our class asked, “Did you read ‘The School’?” They all followed that […]
Inauguration Speech by Patrick Holmes, in response to guest visit by MICA professor John Barry My Fellow Americans, Today marks the dawn of a new age, a new beginning in which “We the People” will be reborn by an awakening of the Republic’s consciousness to guide our country back to the fundamentals that made our […]
Guest post by Sean Almond in response to class visit by conceptual artist Hugh Pocock I enjoyed the presentation you gave here at JCI. Your work and thoughts really opened my eyes to new concepts of what art is, or could be. I thought that your piece “Volume” was brilliant. To utilize the museum’s own […]
Guest post by Shane Barnett We were honored to have Professor Paul Jaskunas from MICA present to us the first chapter of his novel “Cybelle” this past Tuesday, a story about the coming of age of a rural West Virginia girl battling to overcome mediocrity. In his first chapter, Jaskunas illustrates the struggle of Cybelle […]
On April 30th 2014 students in Andrea Cantora’s Criminal Justice class presented their crime prevention program proposals. Here are the summaries of their proposed programs: Sunshine Acers – An Alternative to Incarceration Program “We have come up with an alternative to incarceration program that we truly believe could work in the future. We call it […]
We finished the class by watching the 1954 animated version of Animal Farm, directed by Joy Batchelor and John Halas, which is an interesting movie in its own right, but a very watered down version of Orwell’s allegory. I’m sure none of the men were surprised that the ending of Animal Farm was depressing, but […]
Animal Farm is starting to get depressing, but I think we all predicted that. And not all the animals are having a hard time. As top pig, Napoleon is in the pink. He’s even going to market and bringing home the bacon. By the end of these two chapters, Napoleon’s regime is definitely worse than […]
The men were not in a good mood today – and understandably so. According to a recent memo, the new DPSCS Secretary has decided that, from December 1, in order to curb the passing of contraband, there will be no more physical contact during prison visits–no touching, no kissing on the mouth, no hugging. What […]
Our second book of the semester is Mike’s choice: Ernest Hemingway: The Old Man and the Sea. I have to say: Hemingway is the kind of author I think of as another “man’s” writer. Like Steinbeck, it’s all externals, action, physical details. This is another book I’m going to be suffering through. I hope everyone […]
I’m writing this paper while lying in a hospital bed in the Emergency Room at MedStar Memorial Hospital, where I was sent this morning after consulting the doctor about my knee. It’s not an injury, she said, but an infection, which makes sense now I think about it. Let’s hope they don’t have to amputate. […]
This semester, we’re trying something different in Advanced Literature. After putting the men through Conrad, Melville, Poe, Shakespeare, Nabokov, etc., I’ve decided to turn the tables and let them select the books for a change. The book we’ve started with is Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck, chosen by Mr. Gross. The book is […]
Two months ago, the Attorney General Lorretta Lynch and the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan came to Jessup to announce a plan to offer Pell Grants to some prisoners again. They gave us until October 2nd to find a university partner to offer credit-bearing programs. I’m very pleased to announce that the University of Baltimore […]
This excellent article by Beth Schartzapfel, Staff Writer at the Marshall Project, refers to the JCI Prison Scholars program, and includes quotes from scholars Josh Miller and Vincent Greco. Obama is Reinstalling Pell Grants for Prisoners
While we here at JCISP recognize that we have a much easier time with the bureaucracy than many of our comrades at other facilities, Dan Steinberg shares this vignette of dealing with obstacles in the Free Will, Intention, and Responsibility class he co-teaches with Bryce Huebner and Rebecca Kukla, to procedures that many teachers take […]
Photographer Mark Hejnar attended my Advanced Literature class at the end of May and took some great photos of the students. Not all the men can be shown due to an arcane policy regarding victim notification rights, but here are some photos that have passed the censorship rules. Most of these men have been […]
Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced Monday that the White House will take advantage of a loophole in the 1994 law that banned incarcerated Americans from using Pell Grants to pay for college, “developing experimental sites that will make Pell grants available” to prisoners. This move, which has long had the backing of philanthropists and […]
While it may be the middle of July, the JCI Scholars Program has not been as quiet as the website over the summer. Over on our current classes page you can now find links to brief descriptions of the courses being taught this summer, ranging from mindfulness to the environment and many points in between. […]
While it may be the middle of July, the JCI Scholars Program has not been as quiet as the website over the summer. Over on our current classes page you can now find links to brief descriptions of the courses being taught this summer, ranging from mindfulness to the environment and many points in between. […]
So, first, a meta-word. One of the things we’re going to try to do is have the news and views section of this website have a bit more content, so if you’re wondering why I’m being allowed to blog here about general crime/incarceration stuff, that’s why! Anyway. For a while now, I’ve been trying to […]
It wasn’t too long ago that I was expecting not to teach for the Scholars Program anymore. Things don’t always work out as you expect! But, as of this past Wednesday, I was glad to find myself back in prison. Wait… well, you know what I mean. There have been some changes since I was […]
When I tell people that I volunteer teach at a maximum-security prison, many people nod and tell me “that’s cool,” and some compliment me for being “generous.” But few understand what a deeply gratifying, enriching, and inspiring experience it is. I wasn’t a newcomer to the prison environment. I’d been familiar with several prison visiting […]
Will Millennials Embrace Prison Reform?
A crucial resource launched today: The Marshall Project, “a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization covering America’s criminal justice system.” Check it out at www.themarshallproject.org.
Warren Hynson, who works under the name Renaissanz Rzen, began painting after being inspired by the work of his fellow prison artists. His vibrant acrylic portraits of inmates help tell the story of his own struggle and the struggles of his comrades in exile. The exhibition took place in the Rosenberg Gallery, 2nd Floor of […]
This show will feature the work of artist Warren Hynson, who works under the name Renaissanz Rzen. Hynson has spent more than 20 years in prison and is currently incarcerated in the Jessup Correctional Institution. He began painting after being inspired by the work of his fellow prison artists. His vibrant acrylic portraits of inmates […]
This has been a bit of a summer of upheavals for me, personally, so I hope you readers won’t mind a personal note to this post. After two years of having the privilege to work with the teachers and student scholars of the JCI Prison Scholars Program, I’ve finished my last class – at least […]
(Cross-posted from anotherpanacea.com) Recently I’ve been thinking about a book by Erin McKenna which I read as an undergraduate: The Task of Utopia: A Pragmatist and Feminist Perspective. I read it then because it promised to bridge the divide between my favorite genre, science-fiction, and my interest in philosophy. But the book profoundly changed me, and […]
Friday June 13, 2014: My name is Shelby Norton and I am an Interdisciplinary Sculpture student at MICA. During my freshman year I took a class called Community Arts Partnership (CAP): Finding Baltimore. An advocate for restorative justice came to talk to the class with a psychologist from the city jail. He liked what we […]
There’s always something a little bit sad about the last class of the semester. I’m leaving for a relaxing summer vacation, and the men are… stuck exactly where they always are. In a normal academic environment, the summer is a time for renewal and regeneration – metamorphosis, in fact – but at JCI all seasons […]
This week, we discussed Part II of Kafka’s “Metamorphosis.” For their homework, I’d asked the men to imagine themselves as Gregor’s sister Grete, and to write a letter to their best friend, giving an account of what’s been happening in their life. Here’s part of Mr. Gross’s response: “Guten Tag Ava. My family is experiencing […]
interesting article from The Atlantic. A Supreme Court decision 40 years ago this summer allowed states to block access to specific prisoners. What does that mean for freedom of the press and our justice system? by Adrian Shirk, Jul 15 2014, 10:03 AM Read the article here.
This week we started discussing Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” – the men had read part I by themselves over the preceding week. So far there’s a general consensus that the story is weird but intriguing. Here’s Mr. Hardy’s response: “Wow! I can only imagine what it would be like to awake and be someone you were not […]
This week we started discussing Kafka’s “Metamorphosis” – the men had read part I by themselves over the preceding week. So far there’s a general consensus that the story is weird but intriguing. Here’s Mr. Hardy’s response: “Wow! I can only imagine what it would be like to awake and be someone you were not […]
The UK Ministry of Justice says prisoners do not have an automatic right to have books. They need incentives as part of their rehabilitation and should earn privileges, including the right to buy books from the outside the prison. Preventing parcels of books from being sent in gives prison authorities more control. “Good behavior is […]
Today we discussed Poe’s dark tale, “A Cask of Amontillado.” The men were especially interested in the idea of being walled-up (imprisoned) as a sadistic form of punishment totally out of proportion to the original (possibly imaginary) “insult.” Of the protagonist Montresor, Mr. Fitzgerald wrote, “he reminds me of some DC and Baltimore killers a […]
Mr. C Doyle on Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”: I liked the story, wish it has been longer. I also liked Poe, and his style of insanity. As soon as I read the line, “I loved the old man,” I knew he was going to die! It was strange how I seemed to […]
Our discussion of Jekyll and Hyde turned out to be very thoughtful, even though a couple of the men were absent (ie. in lockup). This is unfortunate, because when things keep changing, when a routine is constantly broken, it can seem unreal, and anyone who experiences it that way is going to feel isolated from […]
I’m a little behind on my postings… but here’s an update on the men’s first encounter with Stevenson’s The Strange Tale of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. I warned the men that this short novella would be very different from the story we all think we know—that of the upright Victorian gentleman and his evil […]
Joshua Miller, one of our long-time instructors in the program, has been moving through the application process for the Open Society Institute – Baltimore Community Fellowships program (to support our work at JCI). Yesterday he received word that he has made it through the first round, and is being invited to submit a full proposal. […]
Continuing with my long-overdue posting of student writing from last summer’s class, here is part I of Mr. Shabazz’ reflections on crime, race, and class (he was kind enough to break this up into two parts in his letter to me, so I will be posting part II soon). Mr. Shabazz and I had some […]
It was a great pleasure to be in the company of you and the students. It’s refreshing to be able to let your hair down and just get to know people from the outside. But in prison you always have to be prepared for anything, so it was nice to feel like you were free…As […]
Visit the criminal justice class page to see examples of students group projects.
Our talented artist Renaissanz Rzen will be having a one-man show at the Rosenberg Gallery, Brown Center, Maryland Institute College of Art in the first week of October 2014. Stay tuned for more details! “Now and Later,” 24″x30″ acrylic on canvas.
The City Paper feature article on the JCI Scholars Program got lots of attention and good press. And in this week’s issue is a letter from program scholar Doug Arey. Thanks again to Baynard Woods for the great article. Published: May 14, 2014 Your recent cover story (“Heart of Darkness,” Feature, May 7) was about […]
Guest post from a MICA student, Jess Bither, who joined our class on April 16: After everyone introduced themselves, Mikita passed out copies of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Doctor Jekyll and Mister Hyde. Previously, they had been reading Macbeth. I was surprised to hear that they would be allowed to read such a bloody play. I […]
Yesterday, we held the Program’s summer “registration fair.” I was joined by Rachel Donaldson and two new instructors, Mark Lindley and Henry Schwarz, along with almost one hundred and fifty incarcerated men who were potential students. Registration is something that we started doing this Spring, in efforts to institutionalize the course selection/assignment process a bit […]
An interesting reflection on a recent conference on prisons and health disparities by Joshua Miller over on his own blog.
So, at the last Violence class, we were talking about both a section on the rise of the Black Panther Party (from Black Against Empire) and on the early inroads of militarization into police forces (from Rise of the Warrior Cop). A few interesting things came out of the conversation. First, what ended up being […]
Today’s post comes with two apologies. First, to you readers – here at the Program, many of us have been experiencing end-of-semester crunch in our day jobs. Second, this post comes with an apology to the student whose writing it is. Last summer, I taught a course titled Political Analysis and Political Narrative. Since the […]
As part of my class on violence, we looked at the civil wars in Liberia as an example of civil conflict, and a springboard for talking about how civil conflicts develop and how acts of violence and atrocities come to be committed in them (we also watched the brutal but pretty solid documentary Liberia: an […]
Words cannot adequately illustrate the positive energy coming from Jessup last night…but I will try to describe yesterday’s event. At 5:20PM I left the University of Baltimore (UB) to drive to my weekly Criminal Justice class at Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI). For the past few weeks 11 of my UB students attended joint classes with 24 […]
Everyone in the program was pretty excited to see a couple of our instructors, Drew Leder and Mikita Brottman, featured in an article – a cover article no less – in the Baltimore City Paper this week. It’s also wonderful to see some of our students, like Mr. Hardy and Mr. Fitzgerald, being named and […]
Our founder Drew Leder and one of our faculty, Mikita Brottman, are featured in a City Paper feature article this week! Congrats to them, and check out the article! (Though, to be fair, to get to our classrooms we actually cross a yard with quite a wide expanse of sky framed by razor wire!) […]
Mr. Greco, the clerk to Ms. Schroeder, the JCI Librarian who organizes most of our logistics on the JCI side, has recently compiled some summary information on our program over the past few years, that I think is pretty impressive. In a nutshell, since 2010, folks involved with the JCI Scholars Program, and a number […]
Yay? Anyway, if you’d like to follow our work that way, you can find us @JCIPSP.
We had an interesting session of Game Theory and Game Design yesterday, but I’ll let Josh tell you about it (if we had trouble getting dice in, I think the materials for Mr. Twist’s favorite game – Kiss the Girls – are going to be even more of an issue). In the meanwhile, here’s another […]
Drew Leder writes: Why do I teach in prison? Well, I’ll give an answer (that might not seem so interesting) – because prison teaching is itself interesting. In oh so many ways. The men who I work with, some 30-40 in my classes, not counting 5-10 of my undergraduates I bring with me, are passionately […]
So, the Violence class. I’ve wanted to teach a course like this for a while, for two reasons. First, it’s a matter of professional interest to me – especially to look at violence as a phenomenon that cross-cuts issues that are often academically stove-piped (e.g., war, psychology of trauma, domestic violence). Second, it’s an issue […]
Rachel Donaldson writes: In class we have been reading Robert Heilbroner’s The Worldly Philosophers and this week we read the chapter on Thorstein Veblen. We began by discussing how Veblen’s economic views intersected with earlier economic theorists like Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Marx. Specifically, we examined how Veblen’s view that taking pride in work is a part […]
Since February our class of 25 students has gathered weekly to discuss questions around “what is crime?”; “why do people engage in crime?”; and “how might we prevent crime?” Students have responded to these questions through a series of essays and in-class discussion. Our last three class sessions included a group of 11 University of […]
This is a bit belated, as it relates to last Friday’s class (but I thought I should write it up before I leave to teach this Friday’s class). Josh has already put together a nice write-up of basically what this class is on about. But he’d asked me to write up our particular experience from last week, in […]
Mikita Brottman writes: Today we read the murder scene in “Macbeth,” and I was surprised how focused the men were. Each of them was following the text closely; some of them were even running their fingers along the lines and mouthing the words to themselves silently as the readers spoke their parts. The room was […]
The Daily Nous put up a nice discussion of teaching philosophy in prisons the other day. Drew Leder, Joshua Miller, and I were interviewed for it, in addition to some folks from other programs. All the bits except the questions to me are worth a read!
This semester we decided to do something a bit differently. First, we decided to experiment with team teaching; it’s difficult to team teach in a university because labor requirements are usually expressed in terms of teaching load, and so there’s no good way to give credit for teaching half a class. Plus, my co-instructor, Daniel […]
I’m still working on putting together my thoughts on Friday’s class and our chaotic game of Labyrinth Lord, but in the meanwhile, here are some thoughts from one of our students, L.B. (posted with his permission; I am transcribing this from his paper, so any typos are probably mine): It was very interesting from a sociological […]
Mikita Brottman writes: In Advanced Literature (Tuesday 2-4pm) we watched Acts IV and V of Polanski’s adaptation of “Macbeth”. When watching the first three acts a week earlier, I’d been surprised the men had found the movie rather dull and slow. This may have been due to the fact that we were watching on a […]
We are very excited to be able to launch our first crowdfunding effort, a Patreon campaign. Patreon allows people to donate a small amount each month to our work – which, for a project that has a steady drip-drip of costs to our instructors, is a perfect model. If you are interested in our work, […]
One of our long-time students, Lakhem Ra-Sebek, has a new book out (he’s now one book ahead of me; I’ll have to catch up). It’s a collection of poetry, called From the Pages of a Bleeding Heart. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, but Mr. Ra-Sebek has been part of the program […]
As you may have noticed, the website hasn’t been updated in a while. But, that doesn’t mean that the program has not been active – quite the opposite! We taught a number of classes in the Fall of 2013, and we’re now gearing up for Spring 2014. You can see what we’re doing over at […]
Our talented cover photo artist, Renaissanz Ren, now has his own website. Check it out for more of his art.
Many of our student scholars are also involved with the Peace Initiative, which is a program that aims to use men who are in prison as part of an outreach to youth who may become involved in violence. In July, the Initiative will be holding a symposium at Jessup Correctional Institute. If you are interested […]
The photo used in our favicon image and elsewhere on the website is from a painting created by one of our student scholars, an accomplished painter and poet, Warren “Renaissanz Rzen” Hynson, titled “The Struggle.” Here it is in its full form.