Inside-Out Podcast: Interview with James Forman, Jr.
June 5, 2017
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Episode #2 of the Inside-Out Podcast features Dr. James Forman, Jr., a professor of Law at Yale Law School. James talks about his journey from public defender to law school professor and how the Inside-Out pedagogy informs his teaching. He'll also talk about his new book, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America.
Bio: James Forman, Jr. is a professor of law at Yale Law School. He has written for The New York Times, The Atlantic, numerous law reviews, and other publications. A former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, he spent six years as a public defender in Washington, D.C., where he co-founded the Maya Angelou Public Charter School. He is also a trained instructor in the Inside-Out pedagogy.
Episode Guide
- 1:30 – Could you start out by sharing your journey from serving as a public defender to teaching in a law school?
- 5:37 – How did you hear about and how did you get interested in teaching through the Inside-Out program?
- 7:37 – What was it like teaching a class in the Inside-Out model for the first time. Do you think teaching an Inside-Out course changed how you taught your other classes?
- 12:54 – Let's shift gears for a minute. You have a new book out, Locking Up Our Own: Crime and Punishment in Black America. Could you talk a little bit about what brought you to write this book?
- 18:07 – What do you think is behind this decades-long shift in our society towards mass incarceration? Why has locking up so many Americans become such an accepted part of American policy?
- 21:55 – In recent years the public discourse about mass incarceration has been changing. Where do you think we stand today, especially in light of the 2016 election?
- 25:47 – What do you want your readers to take away from your book?
- 28:37 – How does education speak to mass incarceration and, specifically, why do you see value in the Inside-Out approach to education?
The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program:
The Inside-Out Podcast is hosted by David M. Krueger and is a production of The Inside-Out Center at Temple University in Philadelphia. The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program is an educational program that facilitates dialogue across difference. It started in 1997 and originated as a means to bring together campus-based college students and incarcerated students for a semester-long course held in a correctional setting. This educational model has been replicated across the United States and in multiple countries. It has grown into an international network of more than 1,000 trained faculty, 38,000 alumni, and hundreds of higher education and correctional administrators, who have sponsored these classes over the years. Inside-Out seeks to bring about "Social Change Through Transformative Education."
