This is a prison documentary with no shivs, no riots, no orange jumpsuit drama — just students arguing over the U.S. Constitution like it’s an Ivy League seminar.
My colleague, Rob Kelly, lists this one as #8 in his list of the “Best Prison Documentaries.”
Trailer for “College Behind Bars”
You Can’t Make This Sh!t Up
- A group of incarcerated students from a NY Correctional Facility beat the Harvard debate team on the topic of undocumented immigrants’ access to public education.
- These inmates take the same rigorous Bard College courses as students on the outside. This includes calculus, philosophy, Mandarin, and literature. They must write 80–100 page senior theses to graduate.
- The recidivism rate for Bard Prison Initiative (BPI) alumni is about 4%, compared to the national average of nearly 50%.
Watch “College Behind Bars”
You can watch “College Behind Bars” for free on PBS or on Hoopla (with a library card). It’s also available on Amazon with a PBS trial.
Ratings:
- My Rating: 95/100
- IMDB Rating: 8.3/10
- Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 9100/100 (Critics); 83/100 (Users)
Director’s Note: This is a Lynn Novick documentary (she often works with Ken Burns), and you feel that depth of access and craft. It’s filmed from 2012 to 2016, and the trust she earns with the students and staff is rare in prison documentaries. The interviews are raw, unfiltered, and sometimes painful. But they’re always real.
Release Date: Premiered on PBS on November 25, 2019
My Review of “College Behind Bars”
The Setup
This doc follows men and women incarcerated for serious crimes as they attempt to earn real college degrees through the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI). The lead voice is Dyjuan Tatro, a 27-year-old from Brooklyn serving time for gang-related violence. He says early on, “Education? My way out.” Another inmate challenges him: “Physically or mentally?” Dyjuan replies, “Both.” That back-and-forth sets the tone.
The series jumps between two prisons: Eastern New York Correctional Facility (a maximum-security men’s prison) and Taconic (a medium-security women’s facility). Over the four episodes, we watch incarcerated students transform—from GED holders to college-level writers, thinkers, debaters, and graduates.
It’s deeply human. The learning is hard. The stakes are high. And not everyone makes it.
More Highlights from the Doc
- In Episode 1, students wrestle with Shakespeare and political theory, while one woman breaks down over her struggle to understand a math concept. A teacher tells her: “You’re doing exactly what college students do.” That moment floored me.
- We see a parole hearing where an inmate, formerly involved in violent crime, uses his academic work to explain how he’s changed—quoting Michel Foucault.
- There’s footage of the students defending their senior theses in prison, wearing suits and ties, passionately arguing about philosophy, sociology, and ethics in front of Bard College faculty. These aren’t paper diplomas. They’ve earned them.
- The doc also shows how controversial BPI is—cutting to news clips of critics who say taxpayer money shouldn’t go to educating prisoners. The filmmakers let both sides talk, but the results speak volumes.
- One graduate, now free, becomes a policy advocate for prison reform. Another becomes a published writer. The ripple effects outside the prison walls are real.
Lesser-Known Details from the Doc
- The students live under constant surveillance, but BPI insists on academic freedom. Instructors are allowed to teach controversial topics, assign intense reading loads, and push critical thinking—even when it unsettles prison authorities.
- BPI students aren’t allowed access to the internet, yet they conduct deep research using only physical books, notes, and conversations. Some write entire 100-page theses this way.
- Director Lynn Novick spent 4 years filming inside prisons, following students through failures and triumphs, some of whom didn’t graduate, and some who eventually re-entered society as leaders.
Wrap Up
“College Behind Bars” shows what can happen when you give someone a second chance, and a syllabus. It’s a story about possibility.
Thanks for reading!
Heather Fenty, Guest Writer Daily Doc