Insight Prison Project was founded in 1997 with one class for 14 male prisoners at San Quentin State Prison. Today, IPP offers unique and effective programs for thousands of men, women, and youth at 15 state prisons, three county jails, several reentry facilities, and one juvenile institution. Our core program is the Victim/Offender Education Group (VOEG), which includes an 18 month curriculum that was designed by licensed mental health therapists in collaboration with survivors of violent crimes and incarcerated offenders. IPP provides highly trained facilitators and creates a space with VOEG that allows victims and offenders an opportunity to work together, which dramatically aids in the healing process for everyone involved, and enhances public safety by greatly reducing recidivism. In addition to VOEG, Insight Prison Project offers a certified violence prevention class, critical thinking courses, professional crisis-intervention training, a therapeutic artistic ensemble, and pre-parole training.
We recognize the enormous impact of race and class in the justice system, and we also recognize that victims of crime are often not allowed to participate in the criminal justice process. We work towards a future in which the tools of Restorative Justice are available to victims and offenders so that we can all better address the problems of crime and violence. We hope to bridge the gap between punishment and parole through rehabilitation, allowing prisoners to break the cycle of incarceration, stay out of prison, and become productive community members. We are also dedicated to giving crime survivors a voice in this process.
But first, what's the point?
meaningful, ambitious, deep, real, hard
meaningful, ambitious, deep, real, hard
We mean this in two ways:
The first is that the object of your program of study should engage powerful ideas in such a way as to lead you to see old things in new ways. "Powerful" might sound vague, but it isn't. If an idea is full of power, we must be able to do something with it. "What can I do with it?" naturally brings us to consider 1) the nature of phenomena in the world, 2) our own nature, and 3) [implicitly] the nature of what we might want to do. Specifically, this means that a powerful idea is:
The second sense of depth which matters to us is the extent to which the program of study engages its object. A program of study shouldn't treat ideas superficially; it should look at them close up, empirically and from first principles.
We mean this in two ways:
The first is that the object of your program of study should engage powerful ideas in such a way as to lead you to see old things in new ways. "Powerful" might sound vague, but it isn't. If an idea is full of power, we must be able to do something with it. "What can I do with it?" naturally brings us to consider 1) the nature of phenomena in the world, 2) our own nature, and 3) [implicitly] the nature of what we might want to do. Specifically, this means that a powerful idea is:
The second sense of depth which matters to us is the extent to which the program of study engages its object. A program of study shouldn't treat ideas superficially; it should look at them close up, empirically and from first principles.
You can't un-see a powerful idea
when it is fundamental.
You see it everywhere
in analogy.
You see it everywhere
in aphorism.
We mean this in two ways:
The first is that the object of your program of study should engage powerful ideas in such a way as to lead you to see old things in new ways. "Powerful" might sound vague, but it isn't. If an idea is full of power, we must be able to do something with it. "What can I do with it?" naturally brings us to consider 1) the nature of phenomena in the world, 2) our own nature, and 3) [implicitly] the nature of what we might want to do. Specifically, this means that a powerful idea is:
The second sense of depth which matters to us is the extent to which the program of study engages its object. A program of study shouldn't treat ideas superficially; it should look at them close up, empirically and from first principles.
We mean this in two ways:
The first is that the object of your program of study should engage powerful ideas in such a way as to lead you to see old things in new ways. "Powerful" might sound vague, but it isn't. If an idea is full of power, we must be able to do something with it. "What can I do with it?" naturally brings us to consider 1) the nature of phenomena in the world, 2) our own nature, and 3) [implicitly] the nature of what we might want to do. Specifically, this means that a powerful idea is:
The second sense of depth which matters to us is the extent to which the program of study engages its object. A program of study shouldn't treat ideas superficially; it should look at them close up, empirically and from first principles.
We mean this in two ways:
The first is that the object of your program of study should engage powerful ideas in such a way as to lead you to see old things in new ways. "Powerful" might sound vague, but it isn't. If an idea is full of power, we must be able to do something with it. "What can I do with it?" naturally brings us to consider 1) the nature of phenomena in the world, 2) our own nature, and 3) [implicitly] the nature of what we might want to do. Specifically, this means that a powerful idea is:
The second sense of depth which matters to us is the extent to which the program of study engages its object. A program of study shouldn't treat ideas superficially; it should look at them close up, empirically and from first principles.