Founded in 1997, The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program was based on the simple hypothesis that incarcerated individuals and college students might mutually benefit from studying crime, justice, and related social issues together as peers, through a dialogue of equals.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program facilitates dialogue and education across profound social differences — through courses held inside prison, involving students from a higher education setting and incarcerated students.

These courses ignite enthusiasm for learning — encouraging participants to find their unique voice and to consider how they can make change in the world.

The Inside-Out Center serves as an incubator for the cutting-edge approaches to learning that have been spawned throughout our global network.

Over the years, students have said that Inside-Out was not simply another learning experience – it transformed the way they viewed themselves and the world.

Through Inside-Out’s college classes and other community exchanges, individuals on both sides of prison walls are able to engage in a collaborative, dialogic examination of issues of social significance through the particular lens that is the “prism of prison.”