The Inside-Out Center

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program^®

Social Change through Transformative Education

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program facilitates dialogue and education across profound social differences. Inside-Out courses bring traditional college students and incarcerated students together in jails and prisons for semester-long learning. These courses ignite enthusiasm for learning, encourage students to find their voice, and challenge participants to consider how they can make change in the world.

Since it began in 1997, Inside-Out has grown into an international network of more than 1,100 trained instructors from across the U.S. and several countries. Correctional and higher education institutions have partnered to create opportunities for more than 60,000 "inside" and "outside" students to move beyond the walls that separate them. Inside-Out generates social change through transformative education.

We are more than a program. We are changing the world.

The Inside-Out Center's Statement of Solidarity

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program rejects racism in all of its forms and intensifies our dedication to social justice and real social change during this unsettling time in our nation. We are horrified by the systemic violence (both actual and potential) that exists in every part of our country, and particularly, in the criminal legal system, due to the egregious use of power that is too often left unchecked. We stand in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, believing that such a movement should not even be necessary, while fully recognizing that racism is as ubiquitous as the air we breathe. As Martin Luther King, Jr. once said: “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

We encourage everyone to continue, with increased urgency, the crucial work of seeking justice — through a critical analysis of unjust systems — that is at the heart of what we do, both inside the prisons, in our classrooms, and in our individual lives. Let us be newly inspired and emboldened by the rising up of people around the globe in protest to the atrocities committed at the hands of those who are meant to protect us all. As a society, we can and must be better than this. However we can, each of us needs to lead the way towards a change — of hearts, of minds and, in the larger context, of policies that lead to unequal treatment under the law.