It’s Hope That Springs The Inmate

We recently had the pleasure of sitting down for a long and enjoyable discussion with Dr. Turner Nashe, President of IDS, a technology company bringing educational content to inmates and correctional facilities.

Dr. Nashe shared his remarkable story of how injustices he suffered helped propel him to become involved in the welfare of inmates. Incarceration costs nearly $68 billion dollars a year, yet the education and skill-set improvement of the prison population remain highly inadequate. If imprisonment is to be seen as rehabilitation, then it seems logical that efforts remain focused on pre-release training to ensure adequate job security upon reentry into the workforce.

“Hope is a strong and powerful thing. You can’t let it be extinguished by a system that has a lens that says, ‘You can’t do sh** with your life, now, because you were in here.’ ” – Dr. Turner Nashe

Dr. Nashe believes that through Virtual Reality learning and other technological advances; the prison population can become far better trained before reentry into “real world” life. Better training equals better job security, which in turn leads to less recidivism. It’s clear after talking with Dr. Turner Nashe that we all benefit in society when everyone, including the highly marginalized, become properly trained and educated. Above all else, Nashe delivers an impassioned endorsement of hope; because with hope and the steadfast belief that every individual possesses the strength to succeed, lasting rehabilitation has a fighting chance. To read Dr. Berger’s interview in its entirety check out The Huffington Post Check out Dr. Turner Nashe’s TEDx Talk.

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