Inside-Out's June 2022 Update

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange (CRJ/SOC/WGST 476/HONS 400) is a multidisciplinary class offered in the fall and winter semesters at UM-Dearborn. Typically, the class consists of 15 “inside” (incarcerated) students and 15 “outside” (university) students. The class takes place in Macomb Correctional Facility in Lenox Township, MI, about 45 minutes northeast of UM-Dearborn’s campus.

Every semester’s Inside-Out course is unique. [Over the past year], staffing issues at Macomb caused them to deny us entry to the facility. As such, our course has taken a particularly eclectic format. We meet in the Mardigian Library’s Ford Collaboratory, where two faculty members, 18 students, and a host of formerly incarcerated guest professors comprise our class, sitting together in a circle of diverse ideas and experiences. We were only able to exchange a few sets of letters with the Theory Group, the currently incarcerated individuals who would normally participate as inside students.

Alongside the readings, in-class discussions, and reflection papers, each student participates in one of four group projects. One is an art show to celebrate and sell our inside students’ artwork, with the proceeds going to charity. Another is a chamber music performance of a musical piece and accompanying poem that were written to bring awareness and attention to individuals sentenced to life in prison as juveniles. There is also a group arranging a barbecue dinner where plainclothes police officers will bond with community members and then reveal themselves, with the goal of showing both police and the community that they aren’t as different as they might think. Finally, another group project focuses on bringing awareness to the campus community of issues related to incarceration, including a series of podcast interviews with formerly incarcerated guests and efforts to promote the other group projects.

—Zenon Sommers

I see the Inside-Out Prison Exchange class as a kind of controlled accident, a form of wabi-sabi. This Japanese concept, rooted in Buddhist philosophy, celebrates the beauty of imperfection and transience. Inside-Out at its best is always incomplete, open-ended, and becoming; a communal balancing act where the energies unleashed in class discussions and exercises are perpetually pushing against the limits of the formal course structure. In the prison setting, the opposing polarities of experiences and expectations held by the inside and outside students generate an electric field of tension. The professor in this situation is more of a facilitator, or a circus ringleader, than an authoritative imparter of knowledge. This can be both scary and liberating.

As the COVID-19 pandemic shut down access to the prison system for outside volunteers, which is how the Department of Corrections classifies university faculty and students, we had to adapt by bringing formerly incarcerated men and women, now “outside” of prison, “inside” the University to lead some of these discussions. At the same time, we sought to bring the voices of those still inside prisons to life for the class by reading their poetry, sharing their art, or hearing from their family members. From this kaleidoscopic collision of perspectives, shared insights emerge. Some of these are transformative, like the epiphanies emerging from direct observation in a haiku. Though professors get to bask in the glow, the fire is ignited by the chemistry of the group.

—Professor Paul Draus, Ph.D.