Baz Dreisinger had a vision: she wanted to travel around the world to expose the hidden places and forgotten people. Around 10.3 million people worldwide are in prisons, many convicted of nothing, waiting years to be tried. Many of them lack access to adequate legal assistance, and are confined in lockboxes of human emotion. Baz starts her novel by exposing some disturbing facts about the American criminal justice system. Most notable to me was the fact that it costs $88,000 per year to incarcerate a young person, which is more than 8 times the $10,653 to educate a child. Therefore, Baz felt a sense of urgency to embark on a mission to make a difference in prisons worldwide by using her profession as an educator to help many human beings. She is in search of alternatives to the American system’s reliance on harsh sentencing, mandatory minimums, and the threat of solitary confinement.
…show more content…
She created the John Jay’s Prison-to-college pipeline, which is a program for men to start their college journey behind bars. When they are released, they are guaranteed a slot in the City University of New York. The idea behind the program is to make college the centerpiece of their new lives on the outside. After the success of this program, Baz deeply questioned the complexity of human nature, and the purpose of prisons in general. The public conversation about crime rarely focuses on the global prison problem, something the US built then imposed on the the rest of the world. Thus, Baz selected nine countries to visit, and raised questions on the moral arguments about prison as an ethical concept. Not only did she visit the insides of the prisons, but she spent time exploring the various countries everyday cultures to deepen her understanding of the big
She created the John Jay’s Prison-to-college pipeline, which is a program for men to start their college journey behind bars. When they are released, they are guaranteed a slot in the City University of New York. The idea behind the program is to make college the centerpiece of their new lives on the outside. After the success of this program, Baz deeply questioned the complexity of human nature, and the purpose of prisons in general. The public conversation about crime rarely focuses on the global prison problem, something the US built then imposed on the the rest of the world. Thus, Baz selected nine countries to visit, and raised questions on the moral arguments about prison as an ethical concept. Not only did she visit the insides of the prisons, but she spent time exploring the various countries everyday cultures to deepen her understanding of the big