Arts + Prison: Transforming Lives Behind Bars through the Arts
From Craig Watson, Director, California Arts Council, blogging for Art Works Blog:
By June the first phase of the program was launched. The Arts Council contracted seven arts organizations with dozens of artists scheduled to provide more than 10,000 hours of arts programming in 14 state prisons in the first year, and even more planned for the following year.
The current Arts-in-Corrections pilot isn’t exactly new, but rather is a revival of a previously successful program. Arts programs in California prisons started in the late 1970s, and became world-renowned through the 1980s and early 1990s. But due to various budgetary and policy decisions, the program dwindled to next to nothing during the first decade of the 21st century and was officially closed by CDCR in 2010.