February 3, 2006
Director of Media Relations
413/542-8417
AMHERST, Mass.—Temple University criminal justice instructor Lori Pompa will speak on “Exploring Issues of Crime and Justice from Inside the Walls” at 4:30 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 6, in the Babbott Room in the Octagon at Amherst College. The first in a series of lectures on “Regulating Citizens: Prisons and the Future of Democratic Societies” sponsored by the Corliss Lamont Lectureship for a Peaceful World, Pompa’s talk is free and open to the public.
Pompa is the founder and director of the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, a program at Temple University that brings college students together with incarcerated men and women to study as peers in seminars behind prison walls. These courses allow students from both sides of the wall to rethink what they know about issues of crime and justice, and gain insights that will help them to take steps towards effecting social change.
Pompa was named a Soros Justice Senior Fellow in 2003, providing her the opportunity to develop Inside-Out into a model for national replication. She has taken thousands of students behind the prison walls to enter into dialogue with men and women imprisoned there. Going in and out of prisons for 20 years, she has included education, counseling, social work and advocacy in her work with incarcerated men and women. She is a licensed social worker with an MSW degree from Rutgers University.
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