Virginia Union University has begun offering the first Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program in Virginia. The program began in the spring semester of 2012 and is being held at the City of Richmond Jail, bringing traditional college students and incarcerated men and women together to learn as peers in the same class room.

The Inside-Out model is a national program founded at Temple University in 1997.  It is currently offered at 121 universities across the country making higher education more available to people who are or have been incarcerated. Participants will explore profound social issues together, building a classroom community based on collaborative learning and sharing. Within the course students will develop class projects that have the potential to make a difference in the real world.

The 15 week class is being taught by Dr. Julie Molloy, chair of the criminology and criminal justice department. “We are very excited about it,” said Molloy.  “The course will be titled ‘Exploring Issues of Crime and Justice’ and we will be reading books such as No Matter How Loud I Shout, Mother California, and Life on the Outside, along with reports published by groups such as The Sentencing Project and the PEW Center on the States.”

Molloy attended certification training in June 2010. The program is open to all criminology and criminal justice majors at the University.