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Prison Debate Team Beats Harvard's National Title Winners

Posted by samzenpus on from the use-your-words dept.

HughPickens.com writes: Lauren Gambino reports at The Guardian that months after winning this year's national debate championship, Harvard's debate team has fallen to a debate team of three inmates with violent criminal records. The showdown took place at the Eastern correctional facility in New York, a maximum-security prison where convicts can take courses taught by faculty from nearby Bard College, and where inmates have formed a popular debate club. The Bard prison initiative has expanded since 2001 to six New York correctional facilities, and aims to provide inmates with a liberal arts education so that when the students leave prison they are able to find meaningful work. A three-judge panel concluded that the Bard team had raised strong arguments that the Harvard team had failed to consider and declared the team of inmates victorious. "Debate helps students master arguments that they don't necessarily agree with," says Max Kenner. "It also pushes people to learn to be not just better litigators but to become more empathetic people, and that's what really speaks to us as an institution about the debate union."

The prison team has proven formidable in the past, beating teams from the US military academy at West Point and the University of Vermont. They lost a rematch against West Point in April, setting up a friendly rivalry between the teams. The competition against West Point has become an annual event, and the prison team is preparing for the next debate in spring. In the morning before the debate, team members talked of nerves and their hope that competing against Harvard—even if they lost—would inspire other inmates to pursue educations. "If we win, it's going to make a lot of people question what goes on in here," says Alex Hall, a 31-year-old from Manhattan convicted of manslaughter. "We might not be as naturally rhetorically gifted, but we work really hard."

6 of 191 comments (clear)

  1. Good for them by Jumunquo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    From the article:
    "Among formerly incarcerated Bard students who earned degrees while in custody, fewer than 2% have returned to prison within three years, a standard measurement period for assessing recidivism. This is exceptionally low, when contrasted with the statewide recidivism rate, which has hovered for decades at about 40%."

    Sounds like a wonderful program.

    1. Re:Good for them by FlyHelicopters · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I have a crazy idea...

      Get a degree in prison, get out on probation....

      Ok, maybe there are some details to be worked out, but perhaps it isn't the worst idea ever...

    2. Re:Good for them by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Interesting

      who cares about correlation vs. causation.

      I care. If it reduces recidivism from 40% to 2%, then enrolling more inmates could save billions in incarceration rates and reduced crime. If the class size was limited, an obvious comparison would be the recidivism rate of graduates vs. the rate for applicants that were turned away.

    3. Re: Good for them by Aighearach · · Score: 1, Interesting

      In my experience, if somebody has something on their record then the goal is to evaluate their accuracy of disclosure, sense of responsibility, and relevance to the job.

      If somebody was convicted of a crime and they're still making excuses, then I don't care if the crime related to the work or not; they're probably not going to have a good work ethic. I don't care what their other job skills are if they don't have that.

      If they can do the whole song and dance deferentially, then it can move forward to "does the crime relate to the job?" If not, then they can move forwards and join the normal first round interviews. I'd say less than 5% can describe what they were convicted of without minimizing, misleading, justifying, etc. I can usually listen to them for 5 minutes, and before even looking at the background check I already know it is going to say something much worse than what the applicant implied. And if it was a theft crime, they're deeply into negative trust territory at that point. I mean, check the bathroom for TP after they leave. Make sure the emergency exit door alarm isn't turned off, too.

    4. Re:Good for them by KGIII · · Score: 5, Interesting

      For a while, I worked as a transport officer in a detention facility. This was a military prison and not a civilian prison. I did interview at a civilian facility at one point. I've also spent a few hours in jail waiting to be bailed out because I used to be a drunken moron at times. One mistake that people make is assuming that those who are incarcerated are automatically stupid. The reality couldn't be further from the truth. There are a higher percentage of smart people, from what I witnessed, than there are on the outside. However, those who are stupid really make up the difference.

      The smart people are brilliantly smart. They have all the time in the world to learn a skill. There are phenomenal musicians, artists, and chess players. They screwed up, often in horrific ways, but that doesn't mean that they're not smart. The ones who are dumb, however, seem to really be on the low end of the scale. I suspect those get more publicity than the smart ones.

      --
      "So long and thanks for all the fish."
  2. What proportion are legacy? by RobinEggs · · Score: 1, Interesting

    You're really trying to portray Harvard as a place where the average undergrad simply bought their degree outright, and presumably has no business attending a world-class institution? Really? The legacy rule may be stupid, but speaking as if it dominates their entire undergraduate program sounds positively moronic. Plenty of rather brilliant people with no legacy have exited Harvard, including very recently.

    Not to mention the admissions department doesn't simply tell the entire school what to do and who to accept for *everything*. Speaking as if not just the university at large but each and every club or intercollegiate team are beholden to legacies is doubly moronic. You truly believe the faculty who spend their time with the debate team care so little about their job they'll just accept every damn kid named Kennedy or Rockefeller with no regard to talent and waste their time chaperoning rich morons about the country losing debates right and left?

    Legacy lets some idiots through, yes. Harvard gets ***WAY*** too much money, literally more than they know what to do with, while good state schools and smaller private schools get less than 1/10th as much endowment for far more students, yes. But they're not just a pile of cash-crazed morons who worship at an altar of solid gold and let the rich kids do *anything* they want. They're still a fantastic school.