Arts In Prison Inc

Causes: Arts & Culture, Singing & Choral Groups

Mission: Arts in prison utilizes the arts to inspire positive change in the incarcerated to reduce recidivism and to reconnect offenders to their communities.

Programs: Arts in prison offers programs in music, yoga, writing, visual art, debate, public speaking, knitting, crocheting, poetry, step dance, spoken work and shakespeare across the three units a lansing correctional facility. The east hill singers perform at least four public concerts outside the prison walls each year and the living shakespeare program mounts a full production inside the facility each june to which supporters are invited. A writing and theatre program was started in 2014 in the foundations program at johnson county juvenile detention. The recidivism rate of participants in the east hill singers program was 18% compared to the state of kansas average of 33%. In 2014 arts in prison served 3,952 people including program participants, audience members and volunteers. The public audience members and volunteers come from the five county kansas city metropolitan area and are as diverse as those communities. Program participants hail from all areas of kansas and surrounding states. Arts in prison serves a diverse male population. The average age of an inmate at the lansing correctional facility is 38 years of age. The population is 58% white (including hispanics), 39% african american and the remaining 3% are asian and native american. About half of the population has a high school diploma or has completed their ged. Most of the remaining have completed at least 11th grade. The prison population is actually locked away from the rest of the world. They are a truly under-served population without economic standing or access to the arts. The board of directors is diverse across many demographics. The organization continues to recruit instructors who are ethnically and culturally diverse.