Prison-based Education and Its New Pedagogical Perspective

This article presents how unconventional teaching environments, such as the prison system, can participate in the elaboration of new pedagogical methods and, in the process, reveal the diverse responses of marginalized groups to the study of the law. Over the course of this article, I provide valuable insight about underexplored teaching techniques to academics seeking to open up their approach beyond traditional methods. Through this partially reflective piece, I relay my experience as a law instructor in a maximum security prison, and demonstrate how those who have bore the brunt of the law can still think critically about legal topics. I also support the idea that by taking in the perspectives of peripheral groups, legal educators will be led to use innovative methods to deliver legal knowledge. Essentially this article explores the intersection between legal pedagogy and the prison system to uncover a site previously neglected by conventional work on criminology and education. Pointing out how experiencing the law differently can shape individual interpretations of legal knowledge, I hope to situate learning within a larger criminological process.