What I Learned From Visiting Two Prisons In One Day, or A Day In The Life Of E4C's Executive Director

On Wednesday, March 8, I started my day at Everglades Correctional Institution. As a founding board member of Exchange for Change, I’ve watched the organization grow from a handful of students at one facility to a robust catalog of programs at prisons, jails and re-entry facilities across Florida and writing exchange partnerships that stretch across the country. I attend the graduation performances that mark the end of each semester, but I don’t get enough opportunities to see our programs in action. I took advantage of my university’s spring break to follow E4C Executive Director Kathie Klarriech around for a day, and I could barely keep up.

Kathie and I met in the parking lot of Everglades Correctional Institution at 9:30. The first item on our agenda: meet with the Student Leadership Council from 10-11. E4C creates an SLC in each correctional facility it works in—they are the eyes, ears, and heart of the program. In addition to helping us make decisions about classes, members also serve as inside co-facilitators for each of the classes taught by our outside facilitators. In addition to assisting with their assigned classes, the SLC  helps get the word out about classes to residents on the compound. It recruits new students, tells us what’s working and not working, what classes students want, and what problems it is encountering (from students, the facility, or even our facilitators). Its biggest question for the day: what more could the SLC be doing to help Exchange for Change? The members know our program’s impact, and they are in the best position to tell the stories of who they are, what they need, and the change our programs make in prison communities. 

After our SLC meeting, I attended Kathie’s class on Commencement Speeches. The formal education levels of the students range from high school to MBAs, but here they’ve formed a community where they can teach and learn from one another. A student is assigned to facilitate each class, reinforcing one of the core strengths of E4C’s model: participants learn by teaching. Today the facilitating student began class with his own speech, putting into practice elements he had learned from studying commencement speeches by Ellen Degeneres, Steve Jobs and others. After providing feedback on his speech, the class discussed the elements of successfully facilitating a class discussion, including how to develop questions that generate discussion, and guide the group in thinking critically about the readings. Next up: developing their own commencement speeches to audition for the Spring graduation. (Be sure to sign up to see the winner!)

We left ECI and I followed Kathie to Homestead Correctional Institution, where Kathie also meets weekly with the SLC. Both ECI and HCI are also sites for the Frederick Douglass Project for Justice, a signature partnership for Exchange for Change that allows community members to sign up to visit a prison in order to learn first-hand about the criminal justice system. Did you know that 85% of housing units in Florida prisons lack air conditioning? Did you know that residents of Florida prisons range in age from under 17 to over 90? There’s no better way for those outside of the prison system to learn about the experiences and living conditions of incarcerated Floridians.

While I’ve been to HCI many times for classes and graduations, I had never participated in a FDPJ visit here. I thought I knew Homestead–it’s one of the smaller prisons in the state, with a cottage-style layout of small buildings and an integrated campus that stands in contrast to the divided grounds I’ve come to know at other facilities. This visit included 4 students from University of Miami with their professor, and one additional community member who signed up in order to learn more about Florida prisons. We met in a classroom with 11 Exchange for Change students, including the current Florida Prison Poet Laureate. Our brief ice breaker helped us leave our jobs, titles, and the many labels we all walk around in at the door and introduce ourselves to each other as humans. We each shared one person in our communities whom we are grateful for, and every one of the Homestead residents mentioned someone inside the prison. For those of us coming in from the outside, it was perhaps surprising to see incarcerated women express gratitude for the warden (for allowing the program to exist), as well as gratitude for bosses, staff, teachers, friends, and the various mentors in their lives. Prisons are designed to remove identity and individuality, but this brief introductory activity provided a glimpse into the communities that interact and thrive in spite of conditions constructed to isolate: supervisors who mentor, bosses who listen, peers who serve in crucial roles of facility maintenance and food preparation; “everyone I do time with” and “people who can still laugh.” When we broke into groups it was our opportunity to have more in-depth conversations. Groups conversed about and bonded over movies, politics, love of books and writing, and of course food (cheesecake in particular). 

The hour spent in our groups flew by, and as we reconvened and shared our experiences and take-aways, I was struck by how meaningful our conversations together had been. For those coming from the outside, there is always something new to learn about prison: yet another element of Kafka-esque absurdity is revealed as we get a glimpse into institutions that are so fervently kept from public view. But what’s in it for the prison residents, who are well aware of what life is outside, no matter how long it’s been since they’ve experienced it? The answer is simple: a brief opportunity to talk and engage with someone from the outside as equals, dialoguing about shared knowledge and interests–whether political, literary, or culinary. To connect and share and learn from other people as you might in a book club, community meeting, or social event. In other words: to be treated as human. 

I left HCI exhausted by my two-prison tour, in awe of Kathie’s energy and ability to keep up with so many programs, and inspired by what I had learned from the women with whom I spoke. They are actively writing and sending out their work, hungry for more E4C programs, and ready to speak to the next group of community members. The only question left: when are you signing up for a visit?