Nonprofit Research and Prison Creativity

In a nation that prides itself on innovation, why are nearly two million people––equivalent to the country’s fifth-largest city––effectively excluded from contributing to the nation’s creativity? The last time so many people were systemically denied access to the nation’s innovation ecosystem was during slavery. (Indeed, the Thirteenth Amendment still considers people who are duly convicted subject to enslavement.) What does this exclusion of creative potential mean in terms of economic opportunity lost? Social benefit lost? Individual empowerment lost?

Prisons have historically exploited the labor value of their residents. Yet, interestingly, many great and small contributions to literature, the visual arts, music, performing arts, and other expressive works have originated in prisons due to the inherent human impulse to create, despite conditions of deliberate and severe deprivation and, in more recent times, barriers to filing for copyright protection.

There has never been a nonprofit prison in the United States. However, many types of nonprofits deliver services to prisons in the carceral ecosystem, including organizations in education, the arts, ministries, re-entry services, health care, and libraries. There is a need for nonprofit, prison-related research to advise policy, design programs, allocate resources, evaluate performance, and measure outcomes, including in the area of enabling prison residents to learn and engage in the creative arts, to protect their intellectual property, bridge supply and demand for such creativity, and provide income, build wealth, and secure needed but often denied banking services for the imprisoned. And the need is global.

Resources in the relatively new field of arts-in-corrections include an academically based International Justice Arts Network of academics and practitioners around the world, a new, nonprofit International Journal for Creativity Inside, an initiative, the Creative Prisons Project, serving as a catalyst to promote creativity in prisons worldwide. A growing ecosystem of nonprofits like PEN America, Ithika S+R, the Mellon Foundation, and other organizations feature programs that address creativity in prisons. The linkage between the built prison environment and health, including cognitive health, is a subject of interest to some in the architectural community. Legal scholars are exploring new intellectual property protection regimes designed to secure social justice for minorities, including women in prisons.

Resources for research in this space are limited. However, for nonprofit experts in retirement with independent income, this field may offer an intriguing opportunity to stay engaged and to contribute in satisfying ways. Overall, nonprofit research in the field of arts-in-corrections is an exciting, relatively new opportunity to advance empirical and theoretical knowledge to benefit society in many ways. Contact NCNE (or me) to discuss your interests further.

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