Not every student is given a second chance, but for these 17 they were.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program lets some students who were incarcerated at Floyd County Prison (FCP) take a college course with Berry College students.

Throughout the 15-week semester, they studied together in a classroom at the FCP and discussed issues concerning disability, illness, and aging in the context of prisons.

Twenty Outside and seventeen Inside students finished the course taught by Dr. Sarah Allred, Associate Professor of Sociology at Berry College. The program was based on the simple hypothesis that incarcerated men and women and college students might mutually benefit from studying crime, justice, and related social issues together as peers.

Participation in this Inside-Out course is also a source of pride to participating students, who attest in this video to the educational and transformative nature of this unique learning experience.

Like all Inside-Out courses, the semester concluded with ceremony that honored student accomplishments with the presentation of certificates, commentaries, and was followed by a reception at the FCP. Students, FCP staff and administrators, and Berry faculty and administrators attended the ceremony. Inside-Out serves as a source of pride for Berry College, the Floyd County Prison, and the Floyd County Jail who were the first institutions in the state of Georgia to host the program.

The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program began in 1997 when Temple University criminal justice professor Lori Pompa began taking “outside” students from Temple to study with “inside” students at prisons in the Philadelphia area. To date, more than 200 instructors from 123 colleges/universities in 35 states and abroad have been trained to teach Inside-Out courses.

For additional information about the Inside-Out Program, visit www.insideoutcenter.org