Jeff Greene

Program Manager Prison Arts Program

Hi, I'm Jeffrey Greene and I've been working with Community Partners in Action (CPA) for 16 years now. I have the opportunity to work in the Connecticut prison system. I coordinate art programs and workshops in the prisons throughout the state of It has been an incredible opportunity to have a positive change on the environment within the prisons to assists inmates within the prisons to create bodies of artwork and take advantage of their time and use their prison sentence constructively. They really make amazing work and through their artwork in prison people grow and they can asses their situation, they can change, they can develop. It's not just the people in the prisons, but it's also the staff in the prison.

We coordinate publications and exhibitions in the community and by doing so it gives the inmate in the prison an opportunity to communicate with the outside world. It gives people in the outside world an opportunity to have a window in this unseen environment that is such an impact in the community. It gives the inmates a chance to really see themselves and it gives their families a chance to see themselves, it gives the staff to see the inmate more than a number and a crime, and it gives the people in the community that chance. It gives their neighbors in the community a chance to see them as substantial human being they are.

Working with Community Partners in Action which has been around for so long, since 1875, it's been able to organize a structure that is trusted by legislators in the state and allows for these types of projects to occur. As to why I do the work I do, I have no idea why, but I can't help to do it, and I think that is another aspect of CPA. That a lot of people that are very different, but all like minded that really believe in the work that they do and they do it just because they can't help it but do it. The greatest reward of what I do is that I'm lucky to see great art and see people change and evolve in so many incredible ways. I get to deliver this work to the community. It's really exciting.