"…these scenes from PBS documentary, show viewers a different kind of prison life – the rigorous pursuit of higher education." - Max Cohen, USA Today
College Behind Bars, a four-part documentary film series directed by award-winning filmmaker Lynn Novick, produced by Sarah Botstein, and executive produced by Ken Burns, tells the story of a small group of incarcerated men and women struggling to earn college degrees and turn their lives around in one of the most rigorous and effective prison education programs in the United States – the Bard Prison Initiative.
Shot over four years in maximum and medium security prisons in New York State, the four-hour film takes viewers on a stark and intimate journey into one of the most pressing issues of our time – our failure to provide meaningful rehabilitation for the over two million Americans living behind bars. Through the lived experiences of the students and their families, this is a groundbreaking story of incarceration, injustice, race in America, and the transformative power of education. It raises questions we urgently need to address: What is prison for? Who has access to educational opportunity? Who among us is capable of academic excellence? How can we have justice without redemption?
The series is now streaming free on PBS and Amazon. It premiered on PBS in November, 2019.
“College for prisoners, it has something to do with responsibility. How do you heal these communities that you perhaps destroyed, or the people that you hurt? College helps us become civic beings. It helps us understand that our community is a part of us and we are a part of it.”
“I got my GED on Riker’s Island 2005 when I was sixteen. And from that point until 2010, my mentality was very negatively focused. I thought I could go home and do crime better. Then, I got here and discovered, oh, they have college. I didn’t want to do it, but a friend forced me to apply to the program, which is the kindest, most loving thing anyone has ever done for me. Because who I am now is light years away from who I was then. I have to go home and I have to succeed. That’s the only way I’ll be able to redeem myself, in my eyes, in my family’s eyes, in society’s eyes. That’s the only way.”
