The Women at Bedford Prison Writing Their Own History

Dr. Radhika Balakrishnan writes in the Huffington Post: “President Barack Obama’s prison reform efforts rank among his most important initiatives. I was privileged to take part in a recent conference highlighting significant work being done at the Bedford Prison for Women in New York, The Crossing Borders VI Conference, organized by Marymount Manhattan College at Bedford, the maximum security prison for women in New York State.”

The Crossing Borders Conference is a part of Marymount Manhattan College’s (MMC) program at Bedford, and the gathering is, I believe, like no other. Students and faculty from the 71st Street campus meet at Bedford, where student-inmates present their work, as in any academic conference. I used to teach at MMC and was even honored two years ago to be invited as the graduation speaker at Bedford.

We are at a historic moment, elections are in November and we wonder where this country will go and what it will become. The students in the program are defying odds by enriching their lives and those of their families and the lives of all of us. The students and their research, are contributing to the needed thinking necessary to change the trajectory of this country. As President Obama is looking at prison reform, I hope he and the policy makers look at programs, such as Bedford, to see and hear what stories the women are telling.

Read the full article on the Huffington Post.

Published: May 12, 2016