The Bard Behind Bars

Mike Fender, National Geographic

These students have memorized their lines. They discuss what they've read and recited with insight and respect, comparing Shakespeare's characters to more recent personalities, from Gen. Patton to Bonnie and Clyde to Col. Jessup in A Few Good Men. These students are maximum-security prisoners being taught by Indiana State University in Terre Haute English professor Laura Bates. "Shakespeare has the power to educate convicted killers and help them examine the choices they made that landed them here," she says, "and how to avoid making those choices again": http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/innovators/2014/04/140428-innovator-laura-bates-prisons-solitary-confinement-shakespeare/