Crito Project celebrates 10th anniversary
By: HUM-FPS
The Crito Project came to campus earlier this semester to celebrate its tenth anniversary with a round-table discussion on its mission to bring higher education to prisons in the East of England.
In partnership with UEA’s Faculty of Arts and Humanities and PeoplePlus, the Crito Project provides accredited philosophy classes to incarcerated students. The programme is designed to encourage real and lasting reform through education, and was inspired and mentored by the US-based Bard Prison Initiative (BPI).
There was a panel Q&A as part of the event, with panellists including: founder Ben Walker, UEA partner and Project Chair Tom Greaves, BPI alumni Rodney Spivey-Jones, as well as representatives from HMP Warren Hill and PeoplePlus.
The award-winning BPI documentary College Behind Bars was also screened, which you can watch via the PBS website.
Rodney Spivey-Jones had this to say about higher education in prison:
“I made a promise to my mother, to complete high school, right before she died. That was the primary motivation for me to graduate from high school, and naturally I wanted to take it further.
“But when I was sentenced to 20 years to life, I thought that dream was over, that my dream was crushed. My first prison was a very dark place, and the state-mandated education programmes there didn't resonate with me, so I felt that nothing in the way of education could help me.
“But in 2011, my neighbour in the next cell slid a flyer for Bard Prison Initiative under my door... I did not think the chance to earn a degree would ever happen, and that's the beginning of my real academic journey. It lifted me up out of the darkness.”
The Crito Project – aptly named after Plato’s dialogue on injustice, education, and our relationship to society – began as a pilot scheme in 2013 with the support of PeoplePlus. In 2018, UEA began to investigate the feasibility of accreditation, and in 2019, Crito became an officially registered charity.
Now, the Crito Project offers face-to-face teaching delivered by UEA Faculty and PhD candidates in two Suffolk prisons, HMP Warren Hill and Highpoint, and has taught more than 100 student since its founding. In 2025, UEA will roll out a Certificate of Higher Education in Liberal Arts, combining philosophy, creative writing, and literature, for a total of 120 degree credits.
Karen Dollery, Head of Education, Skills, and Work at HMP Warren Hill, had this to say about the project:
“It has been phenomenal for the men involved; the trajectory of their academic success, their experiences and positive responses have been far greater than I could have hoped for.”
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