There is an interesting documentary called College Behind Bars that explores a college program for incarcerated workers called the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). The program illustrates the contradictions between reform and revolution in the criminal injustice system under capitalism.
This program is helpful to the incarcerated workers who can enroll but it also sends the message that they have to be rehabilitated so they can reenter society. As you listen to their stories, it’s clear that it was poverty, racism, lack of health care, lousy education, and all the evils of capitalism that led these young men and women to commit the “crimes” that are the reasons for their incarceration.
At the same time, capitalists commit crimes against the working class and go free. Recently there was a fire at an apartment building in New York City with numerous safety violations that the city and the owners ignored. Seventeen tenants died, including eight children. No one has been arrested or even charged for this racist crime. The real estate investors in this building included a member of Mayor Eric Adam’s transition team. That’s capitalism. The capitalists exploit and profit and the politicians serve and protect them. Crimes against property and the ruling class are prosecuted and punished, crimes against the working class are aided and abetted.
College Behind Bars= Prison Reform
The documentary shows how BPI aims to “educate” the incarcerated workers and then aim them toward working within the system to make improvements. As one participant said, “if we want a better world, then we must first change ourselves.” But in Progressive Labor Party (PLP) we say the rebels in Ferguson were more truthful when they said: “the whole damn system has to go.” If we want a better world, we need to organize and fight to overthrow the capitalist system. We need a communist revolution so that the working class can run the world. That’s what communism is, a world run by and for the working class.
From this four-part documentary, it is immediately clear that BPI is a traditional college program. The classes are rigorous. They read, analyze and write about Othello, Moby Dick, Plato, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The classes include Environmental Science, Calculus, Biology (genetics and evolution which requires three prior courses), Spanish, German, American Politics, Public Speaking, Art and Philosophy. They have a debate team that defeated Harvard. This shows the lie of capitalist education, that only some workers are hard working or smart enough to be college educated.
In New York State, there are 51,000 incarcerated men and 2,400 incarcerated women. BPI has 300 workers enrolled mostly in the Associate degree program and 37 in the Bachelor degree program. Nationwide almost 50 percent of incarcerated workers who are released get rearrested within three years. In the Bard program it’s four percent. This reform, though helpful to those fortunate enough to enter the program, reveals that it is a band-aid on a rotten system of racist mass incarceration.
The working class can and must run the world
Now, according to BPI, these incarcerated workers have reentered society. Some are working in nonprofits, in one case organizing for criminal justice reform. Some are finishing their Bachelor degrees and one is in a PhD program.
In PLP, we want more. These workers and millions around the world can and must run the world for the benefit of the working class. One of the incarcerated workers says that BPI “has great professors teaching you how smart you are” whereas right now we have a “dual education system, one for individuals who will rule and one for everyone else.” Under communism we will incorporate all workers’ skills and smarts to teach and learn from each other. Join PLP and help organize for a communist revolution. Power to the working class!