UC Santa Cruz

Through this project, I present a new archive of literature and art from incarcerated youthfrom The Beat Within magazine, which is a longstanding twenty eight year old multi-county, interstate, “inside-the-walls” publication. I use a Freireian humanistic methodological approach to understand issues of incarceration and education. Paulo Freire, philosopher and author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed, hones in on the concept of listening to the oppressed as a way for us to learn, which is something I find truly valuable in this project. We have been taught by education and the media that the incarcerated are deviants, and they must be punished. Because of this, I will be using a “boots-on-the-ground” methodological framework that focuses on listening to the real experiences of incarcerated youth—those who have been silenced by the carceral state. I explore methods of juvenile justice literary and art empowerment. Through vulnerable liberatory writing and amor art, the real human heart and consciousness is found.