Stories from Prison
March 4, 2014鈥擝efore her Prison Literature class began on a recent Wednesday, Associate Professor introduced the special guests sitting before her students.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e my squad,鈥� she told the class as she presented Elvin Johnson, Ricky Bryant, and William Lawson.
The men were also her former students but at a very different institution. The trio had all been inmates at one time or another at the now-shuttered District of Columbia correctional facility in Lorton, Virginia. All had served decades in prison for a variety of offenses, mostly stemming from drug and alcohol abuse.
Before the men met O鈥機onnor, who is also founder of Georgetown鈥檚 , they had hardly written a page of text. The men were all products of the DC Public Schools system during their formative years in the 1970s and 1980s. The school district was not only plagued by a lack of resources and management, but it was also struggling with ongoing issues of race and poverty. Back then, you merely had to show up to pass, and sometimes you didn鈥檛 even have to do that.
But after taking classes with O鈥機onnor at Lorton, the men saw a change in themselves. This time, they wanted to learn. They weren鈥檛 focused on hustling or doing drugs. They were focused on thesis statements, sentence construction, and basic composition.
鈥淥nce we began to learn and read, it was so exciting. It was a shift in direction, and I really enjoyed learning,鈥� Johnson told the class.
This year marks the Prison Outreach Program鈥檚 30th anniversary. And Johnson, Bryant, and Lawson are living proof of its power to transform.
O鈥機onnor, whose academic expertise is in the narratives of violence, began teaching Prison Literature at Georgetown a couple years after the Prison Outreach Program got off the ground. She saw the class as a bridge between the real world of the prison and the university.
鈥淚 feel like the work we do in the classroom should never be disconnected from the work [the students] will do for the rest of their lives,鈥� O鈥機onnor said. The class has evolved over the years from the time O鈥機onnor first began teaching it, but it has always had at its center a focus on the prison experience as told by the people living it.
According to O鈥機onnor, students鈥� interaction with current or former inmates is crucial to their understanding of what they are studying. Over the years, her students have taken classes alongside inmates at Lorton and the two groups have critiqued each other鈥檚 work. 翱鈥机辞苍苍辞谤鈥檚 students have also served as tutors to prisoners like Johnson, Bryant, and Lawson.
Getting a university to come inside the prison and teach inmates was a tough sell, Johnson told the class. But, O鈥機onnor says, it was ultimately the inmates鈥� persistence that got Georgetown inside the prison walls.
While the Lorton inmates contacted all the universities in the DC area to invite them to come and teach inside the facility, only Georgetown responded. Soon, the partnership between the two institutions was changing prisoners鈥� lives, and probably some students鈥� as well.
鈥淭he most gratifying thing I ever laid eyes on was a woman who was determined to have me learn,鈥� Johnson said about O鈥機onnor. 鈥淭he cellblocks changed because we all started talking about school.鈥�
Bryant told the class that even though he signed up to take the prison outreach classes with O鈥機onnor, none of his fellow inmates thought he would make it. He was a hardened troublemaker who had done more than three decades of jail time.
鈥淏ut I always wanted to learn. I surprised them because I was one of the most determined to learn,鈥� he said.
For Lawson, the fact that a school like Georgetown would venture into Lorton was inconceivable, especially given that all the other colleges they had reached out to had turned them down. That鈥檚 why he considers O鈥機onnor to be an 鈥渁ngel.鈥�
鈥淪he came through when the need was so great. A lot of us were functioning at our lower selves,鈥� Lawson said.
Lawson felt so strongly about his prison outreach classes that he would do anything to prevent them from being disrupted. He once spent six months in solitary confinement after trying to stop a fellow inmate from 鈥渟crewing up鈥� a Georgetown visit.
翱鈥机辞苍苍辞谤鈥檚 Prison Literature class is composed of students of all stripes, including many like Laura Higbee (C鈥�15), who are also prison outreach volunteers. The experience of working in local prisons, as well as what she鈥檚 learning in 翱鈥机辞苍苍辞谤鈥檚 class, is helping inform Higbee about the real state of American prisons.
Higbee, an major, says she took the class after spending last summer interning at the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee. Ultimately, she wants to go to law school and seeing the system from all angles鈥攊ncluding the perspectives of current and former inmates鈥攊s critical.
鈥淚 think it鈥檚 so important to gain perspective from the other side of the criminal justice system,鈥� Higbee said.
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