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.com - licensed to.palgraom wwwyright material frCop10.1057/9780230101470 - Behind Bars, Edited by Suzanne Oboler10Waste Is a Terrible Thing to MindDicxon ValderrutenveConnect - 2011-05-06algraA mind is a terrible thing to waste.tium - P—United Negro College Fund, advertising sloganHIV/AIDS and incarceration rank among the most critical problems that haveimpacted the ethnic minority communities in the United States over the lastaiwan eBook ConsorTtwenty-five years.New York State (NYS) in particular has the largest number of people living with HIV/AIDS, and its rates of incarceration of Blacks and Latinos are among the top three in the nation.The get-tough-on-crime policies implemented in the 1970s are the primary reason why poor Blacks and Latinos nowmake up the majority of people incarcerated in NYS.The sale, trafficking, and use of illegal drugs represents the single most important reason why these two groups enter prison at alarming rates; in addition, drugs (intravenous drug use) accountveconnect.com - licensed tofor their high rates of HIV infection.Unless one works in the field of HIV/AIDS or in a prison setting, one would.palgratend to ignore the impact that these two social epidemics (incarceration and HIV) have had on poor communities in NYS.As both a human service provider andom wwwa teacher, I have been closely involved in the provision of HIV services for men incarcerated in some of the seventy state facilities that are under the jurisdiction of the NYS Department of Correctional Services.My involvement servicing incarcerated populations in the criminal justice system goes back to 1991, when I becameyright material frthe director of Osborne Association’s LIVING-Well, a model case managementCopprogram that targeted people who were HIV-positive and were being releasedfrom prison.Between 1991 and 2001, I worked closely with the NYS Division of Parole and the NYC Human Resources Administration in order to coordinate services for a segment of the prison community who reenters society—they are the casualties of the government-sponsored “war on drugs” and the “war on poverty.”Practically all persons to whom the Osborne Association agency has provided HIV services—well over 5,000—over the last twenty-five years are homeless, drug addicts, and people diagnosed, or left undiagnosed, as mentally ill.They are people 10.1057/9780230101470 - Behind Bars, Edited by Suzanne Obolerpal-oboler-10.indd 175pal-oboler-10.indd 1759/9/09 10:10 AM9/9/09 10:10 AM176 DICXON VALDERRUTENwho have spent a major portion of their lives in and out of the criminal justice system, with little or no support or assistance.For the last ten years, I have also been directly responsible for the implementation and delivery of several health prevention initiatives (including HIV, hepatitis, sexually transmitted infections, and tobacco) in several men’s prison facilities in NYS.No experience has been more empowering and therefore more enlightening than my daily work with men who were members of Prisoners for AIDS Counseling and Education (PACE),1 while serving time in prison, and who continued the mission of educating themselves and other about HIV prevention.I have worked with some of the brightest minds I have encountered in my twenty-five-year experience as an educator.I encountered them in the school buildings of prisons such as Green Haven, Downstate, Fishkill, and Sing Sing.Working with these people, many of whom have been the victims of a racist and elitist educational system, has required a humility and understanding of their intelligence and potential toveConnect - 2011-05-06contribute to various aspects of society.It has been hard to accept the fact thatalgrawhether I was teaching a social science course at a senior four-year college like Queens College or at a two-year college like Borough of Manhattan Communitytium - PCollege, my students in prison not only came more prepared for their classes but also continued with their educational inquiry well beyond the classroom.Their eagerness to learn made me realize that I needed to create a system of classroom follow-up, where some of the most qualified peer facilitators would conduct one or two additional classes on each topic in order to meet the need of those studentsaiwan eBook ConsorTwho wanted to further their knowledge about each health issue.PACE members utilize the science of HIV and other infectious diseases as an educational tool that enables them to transform their lives in ways that are sel-dom seen outside prison.Finding ways of extending the prevention messages to other members of their families, they realize that they would not have bothered to read and learn about new and related issues had it not been for the new information they acquired on issues such as sex, gender, identity, and sexual orientationveconnect.com - licensed tothrough learning about HIV/AIDS.Their classroom presentations, which are part.palgraof the PACE program, have empowered them to stand in front of people and convey messages that affirm life, not death.In short, in the absence of college courses offeredom wwwin prison, even the least educated pushed themselves beyond their past experiences.They have utilized HIV education as the foundation for a new form of curriculum that has helped them transform their lives.My health classes do not require that people read and spell well, but what is a requirement is that they try to learn beyondyright material frwhat is reasonable (beyond their reasonable doubt), which means that a good num-Copber of my students need to deconstruct what they have been told about themselves (i.e., once a criminal, always a criminal).In my class, they find an increasing fascina-tion with learning.They also learn that negative labels that they received in the past had become permanent roadblocks in their educational journey.One of the central tenets of my educational philosophy begins with the fact that students need to value their own personal and community experience if they want to be able to transform themselves and therefore transform their communities, including their prison setting.In my classes, I emphasize that an HIV curriculum has a scientific as well as a practical component about some of the challenges that 10.1057/9780230101470 - Behind Bars, Edited by Suzanne Obolerpal-oboler-10.indd 176pal-oboler-10.indd 1769/9/09 10:10 AM9/9/09 10:10 AMWASTE IS A TERRIBLE THING TO MIND 177we face in society.In other words, an HIV curriculum is a “curriculum for living”that can serve as a declaration of independence from some of the negative experiences of their past, including their past lifestyles, their engagement with drugs, unprotected sex, money, guns, and violence, and their indifference to crime and its negative consequences.The classroom is not solely the place where we meet in a given building once a week; rather, it is wherever the students happen to be, regardless of time and circumstances
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