Welcome!

The Grinnell Prison Workshop is a student-run group dedicated to volunteering at nearby prisons. Since 2003, Grinnell students have traveled regularly to the Newton Correctional Facility in Newton, Iowa, and more recently, the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women in Mitchellville, Iowa. These volunteers facilitate a variety of liberal arts-style courses as well as helping with existing GED, ESL, and job training classes.

Grinnell students also produce performances of prisoner-written plays both at the prison and at the college, arrange for Grinnell professors and published authors to visit the prison, and work with prisoners to edit and publish Concrete Perspectives, an annual anthology of prisoner writing. This collaboration has a deep and lasting impact on both incarcerated and college students.