PJP to host inmates for campus event

University Public Safety officers will be on hand when corrections officers escort four inmates of the state prison system into McCosh Hall Thursday afternoon. The prisoners will speak on their experience behind bars at the first event of the Princeton Justice Project's lecture series on prison conditions and sentencing guidelines.

The students who planned the event said, though they don't know exactly what the prisoners — two men and two women — will say, their aim is to spread awareness of what they characterize as a discriminatory and needlessly punitive corrections system.

"I think the prison system is unfair for several reasons," said Spencer Compton '05, one of the students organizing the series. "Perhaps the most troubling is the bias toward incarcerating minorities and the mentally ill."

Prison officials may have another agenda, however. Deirdre Fedkenheuer, a spokesperson for the New Jersey Department of Corrections, said the inmates would visit Princeton under the auspices of the Project Pride program. The program sends inmates to New Jersey schools, churches and community groups to testify to their mistakes and encourage young people to avoid criminal activity.

"If one kid listens, we've succeeded," Fedkenheuer said.

Project Pride inmates, typically young drug offenders, volunteer to participate and receive no rewards from the prison system — though they do gain satisfaction from serving the community, Fedkenheuer said.

Compton said the inmates' stories would advance the cause of reform by humanizing prisoners in the eyes of Princeton students.

"A lot of people don't realize that prisoners are people like us who have made a poor decision . . . We should not strip them of their dignity," she said.

Krista Brune '06, the other organizer, stressed the discriminatory effects of sentencing policies, saying that 80 percent of the inmates in New Jersey are black or Hispanic.

"The '1,000-foot law' mandates a minimum three-year sentence for anyone carrying drugs near a school," Brune said. "This unfairly targets minorities who live in urban areas, where there is a greater school density."

Compton and Brune lead the Princeton Justice Project's Prison Reform Group, which has 10-15 undergraduate members. The group has received $5,600 in funding from University sources, including the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, the USG Projects Board and the Program in African-American Studies.

At least one student on campus said he disagrees with the aim of liberalizing sentencing guidelines.

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"I don't think the policy is unfairly targeting minorities," Tommy Curry '08 said. "I think sometimes people read too much into these laws, and it's important not to overlook the fact that people are personally responsible for their actions, regardless of race."

Curry said he plans to attend the event Thursday.

Compton acknowledged that achieving significant reform would not be easy.

"The problem is that it's political suicide for a politician to be labeled soft on crime," she said. "Policy changes are going to have to come from lobbying."

Compton said she hopes that some members of the New Jersey Commission for Criminal Sentencing Review might attend the lectures and be persuaded to reform the system.

The Prison Reform Group hopes to follow up on the lecture series with a documentary film. "One of the girls in the group has made films in the past and would like to make a documentary film on prisons," Brune said.