09/21/2026
Inside Out with Reiko Hillyer this week on Prison Pipeline
This Monday on Prison Pipeline, we’ll be talking with Reiko Hillyer, a professor of history at Lewis & Clark College, about the Inside Out Prison Exchange Program. Hillyer has taught an Inside Out class called Crime and Punishment in the United States at Columbia River Correctional Institution in North Portland since 2012. The program brings together undergraduate students from Lewis & Clark with incarcerated students to take college-level classes together inside the prison.
Hillyer explains how Inside Out is designed to break down stereotypes and fears between incarcerated and non-incarcerated people. Fifteen Lewis & Clark students and fifteen inside students study together, bringing both academic knowledge and lived experience to the classroom. Hillyer says that human connection can develop almost immediately, and describes how students who initially fear being judged can discover how much they have in common with one another.
We’ll also talk about how the experience changes the way students understand incarceration. Hillyer describes incarcerated students as often being extremely well-read, with extensive knowledge and personal wisdom that they can bring to academic discussions. When the class studies the work of philosopher and historian Michel Foucault, for example, theories about prisons, schools, factories and other institutions take on a very different meaning when students in the room are describing their own experiences of incarceration.
Hillyer also discusses her research into the history of connections between prisons and the outside world. She says there were once more opportunities for incarcerated people to leave prison on furlough, work, speak to community groups and maintain family connections, including conjugal visits. She argues that the increasing isolation of prisons can make the conditions of incarceration invisible to the broader public and can make it easier for fear and distorted ideas about incarcerated people to persist.
And we’ll discuss what happens to a person's relationship with time while they are incarcerated. Hillyer argues that the decline of clemency, parole and educational and other programs can leave people frozen in the public imagination at the moment of their worst act, rather than recognizing that people can grow and change over decades. She contrasts that with the experience of incarcerated people who may spend their time developing skills, earning college degrees, taking accountability, learning and trying to prepare for a future beyond prison.
That conversation with Reiko Hillyer is coming up this Monday on Prison Pipeline. Prison Pipeline airs Monday, September 14, at 6:30 p.m. on KBOO Community Radio, 90.7 FM in the Portland area, and online at kboo.fm. We’ll be talking about Inside Out, prison education, incarceration, isolation, human connection and the possibility of growth and change.
https://kboo.fm/media/135520-inside-out-reiko-hillyer
