Ep 10: Teaching in the DC Jail (Tiffany Simmons)

This episode of the Inside-Out Podcast features Professor Tiffany Simmons, who serves as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at both Howard University and American University.  Her areas of study include criminology, criminal justice and law. Ms. Simmons also serves as the Inside-Out Program Coordinator for American University. Currently, she is the Special Assistant/Chief of Staff to the Deputy Director of College and Career Readiness, Professional Development, and Special Projects for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections. In this role, Professor Simmons has administrative oversight of the education, training and professional development of the inmates and staff.  She previously worked as an educational advocate/attorney with a focus on assisting many at-risk youth with their educational needs. Professor Simmons is a graduate of Texas Southern University, Thurgood Marshall School of Law and she earned her B.A. in political science from Johnson C. Smith University.

The Inside-Out podcast is hosted by Dave Krueger from The Inside-Out Center, the international headquarters of The Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program at Temple University’s College of Liberal Arts. To learn more about our Inside-Out Instructor Training Institutes, click HERE. To support the expansion of Inside-Out activities around the world, please make your contribution HERE. 

Episode Transcription

David Krueger: In this episode of The Inside-Out Podcast, I speak with Professor Tiffany Simmons, who teaches as a Lecturer and Adjunct Professor at Howard University and American University. Her areas of study include criminology, criminal justice and law. She also serves as Special Assistant to Deputy Director of College & Career Readiness and Professional Development for the District of Columbia Department of Corrections in Washington DC. Professor Simmons completed the Inside-Out Instructor Training Institute in 2016 and has taught classes combining students from American University and the DC Jail. In this interview, Professor Simmons discusses her work to increase access to education for incarcerated people and she also shares her desire to see more historically black colleges and universities involved in prison education, and specifically, Inside-Out education. 

Tiffany Simmons:  It is imperative. And I say this as a person who is a two-time HBCU graduate getting ready to earn my third certification from the Howard University School of Business. And I also speak as a person who had a brother who was incarcerated. The narrative right now being told in the United States is that The majority of the people in prison, in jail and carceral spaces in the U.S. are African-American. And why It's important for the HBCUs to get involved in the conversation in prison education, one to act as role models, to