Arts in Corrections

The Arts Endowment strives to bring the arts into non-traditional settings, including correctional institutions. Taking the arts into corrections provides artists with income and opportunities to develop their art, as well as providing quality arts programming for persons who would not otherwise have such opportunities. Arts programs led by professional artists have proven effective in enhancing both youth and adult inmates’ self esteem, as well as their basic skills, including social, reading and writing.

Resources

The Arts in Corrections Resource List
A listing of resources concerning arts programming in correctional settings focusing on incarcerated and at-risk youth, prisoner rehabilitation, art residency programs in correctional facilities, and conflict resolution.

Articles

Maintaining Humanity: An Interview with Grady Hillman About Arts-in-Corrections By Steven Durland
Grady Hillman is a poet and writer who first became involved with arts-in-corrections when he did a creative-writing residency in the Texas prison system in 1981. Since then he has worked in more than 50 correctional facilities in Florida, California, Massachusetts, Colorado, Idaho, Oklahoma, Texas, Peru and Ireland, and has become a nationally recognized correctional arts programmer. In 1991, he co-founded the Southwest Correctional Arts Network (SCAN). Read the interview

Art helps inmates with reality in Shakespeare Behind Bars program
"Empathy must be learned," Tofteland* said, "and Shakespeare turns out to be a great teacher. When presented well, his plays have an unfailing appeal regardless of the audience. And few dramatists probe the human condition so perceptively," he added, "and in a way that hits home especially with the prisoner-actors who try to portray his characters."  Read complete story

*Curt L. Tofteland is Shakespeare Behind Bars' artistic director and founder.

Links

Prison Creative Arts Project
The Prison Creative Arts Project works in Michigan correctional and juvenile facilities to promote original work in the arts.

PEN Prison Creative Writing Program
The PEN Prison Creative Writing Program provides hundreds of inmates across the country a means to express themselves freely with paper and pen.

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