American Psychological Association Monitor spotlighted the work of prison education programs, including JIE, in a recent article by Efua Andoh. “Transforming cellblocks into classrooms: Psychologists are teaching in-prison college programs and finding renewed purpose in their work” features interviews with our very own Geraldine Downey, Jarrel Daaniels, and Mujahideen Muhamm.

Columbia University offers courses through its prison education program to students at several correctional facilities in New York State, including Sing Sing Correctional Facility, Taconic Correctional Facility, and Queensboro Correctional Facility. Since the launch of the program in 2015, Columbia has offered credit-bearing courses to more than 1,200 incarcerated students. At the helm is Geraldine Downey, PhD, the director of Columbia’s Center for Justice and the Robert Johnston Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology. Although the exact proportion of students in Columbia’s program who complete degrees is difficult to track, Downey estimates about 80% of students at Sing Sing and Taconic—two correctional facilities offering degree programs—go on to eventually earn associate or bachelor’s degrees.

Read the whole article here.