It’s early on the morning of April 4, 2024, as people arrive at Farmington Correctional Center in southeast Missouri. They show their IDs and walk through scanners as a guard lets them into the prison.
Inside the large recreation gym, hundreds mill about looking at artwork made by inmates and learning more about programs within the institution.
Half of the people gathered wear everyday, nondescript clothing, and the other half wear the dark gray uniforms identifying them as inmates.
Suddenly, a lone figure walks on stage as the lights dim and the room quiets.
Mark Powell, the emcee of the event — and who is incarcerated himself — welcomes guests to the first ever TEDx event held in a Missouri prison.
“Rules of the house,” Powell said. “I will ask that all of our outside guests, if you have managed to bypass the complimentary pat searches provided by the Department of Corrections, please make sure that you have turned in all of your keys, your phones and your shanks at the front. You can't have those here, not allowed."
The crowd laughs as he sets the stage for the rest of the day - three blocks of TEDx presentations, including speeches, poetry, original songs and even an interview between Powell and Warden Teri Vandergriff.
The theme of today’s event is “What’s Love Got To Do With It,” and the two dozen speakers include incarcerated residents and staff.
"I have to say that this is the most support we've ever gotten from the Department of Corrections," Cohen said. "And in this facility, at Farmington Correctional Center, they have a reentry center that is amazing, state of the art."
Delia Cohen is one of the event organizers. Her non-profit, Proximity For Justice, works with prisons across the country to set up TEDx events.
“Half the audience is incarcerated, and half are people from the outside communities that we invite in to attend and spend a day together of ideas worth spreading,” Cohen said. “Focusing on our shared humanity and what unites us rather than the things that separate us.”
She said it took about a year to get this event organized and it cost about $60,000 to put on, but all the costs were covered by her non-profit.
She added the participants spent months writing and perfecting their presentations.
“There's so much talent behind these walls, which you can see in the art that's being displayed, in the quilts that have been made and the stories that are being shared, in the music that's going to be played,” Cohen said. “I wish everybody could spend some time in prison and see who's incarcerated here, and then I think they'd be more likely to help them reenter society successfully, because it's really hard to do that after being in prison for a while.”
“What’s Love Got To Do With It?”
"I was able to share my truth with everybody else in the world, and, hopefully, I laid out those tools that we all possess — the power of love and forgiveness," Stotts said. "And I hope it resonates with people, and they utilize it because I was forgiven for something horrible, and we shut people out of our lives for much less."
The topics of the presentations varied wildly – some reflected on wanting to be a better father, the importance of education, how working with dogs has impacted offenders, overcoming suicidal ideation, and even how gaming helps inmates connect to each other.
Kenneth Stotts, the first presenter of the day, has struggled with substance use disorder in the past and shared about killing his own father. He said love and forgiveness from his mother and uncle “saved his life.”
“It was amazing. It was cathartic. It was healing, and I'm hoping to bring that same healing to the rest of my family that's still not on board,” Stotts said. “I'm sorry for what I did, and I can never change what I did, but I'm a new man now. I'm the person that they used to know before the drugs and alcohol.”
He said he hoped his presentation inspired attendees to forgive people in their own lives, as well as – perhaps – help reshape the way they view incarcerated people.
"We want to break that stigma, the stereotypes that gamers are x,y and z, or even that incarceration is x,y and z," Render said.
“If people open their minds and their hearts, they would see past their preconceived notions and ideals that the world paints – they paint a bad picture of incarcerated individuals, and it's not always like that.”
Samuel Render and Antwan Guthrie are friends who shared about the way gaming can help foster connections between people in prison.
They said they appreciated the fact that staff were involved in the TEDx event, and added that it helped remind everyone of their shared humanity.
“A lot of people don't feel – especially in prison – don't feel seen, and this is the way to be seen, as a way to let people know who you are, what you're into, and kind of give you a feeling of self-importance,” Guthrie said.
Sabrina Buddemeyer also shared. She’s a transgender woman who’s been incarcerated for 16 years – since she was 19 – and spoke about transitioning and falling in love in prison.
“If I hadn't gone to prison, I wouldn't be standing here, and I wouldn't have been able to have the time out that I needed to discover who I was, I wouldn't have had the time to realize that I can't hate myself for the rest of my life,” Buddemeyer said. “And then I wouldn't have met the amazing people that helped me become comfortable with who I am."
"There are a lot of people in prison who are great people and having that chance to understand that and get to know them, to be around them and experience them, you know, is is a great thing," Buddemeyer said. "I have family here, and I literally mean family, not biological, but people that I trust with my life more than I trust anybody else in my biological family, and I hope one day that you can enjoy that and come to know that."
She said organizing the event brought the inmates closer together and gave them all a shared purpose. But, almost more importantly, she added, participants got a change of pace – even just for a day.
Speakers got to wear “real” pants — khakis with a non-elastic waistbands — got to have Subway catering for lunch and spend time with people from outside prison without barriers or bars in between.
“I know it sounds really weird and monotonous, but it reminds us that we're human, it reminds us that we're not those terrible monsters that someone decided to lock in a closet,” Buddemeyer said.
LARGER MODEL OF REENTRY
"I think that you're gonna see more and more coming from the Department of Corrections that just sort of launches us — not just as somebody who's doing reentry, but a national model," Warden Teri Vandergriff said. "And that's my goal for Farmington, is that we're a national model for reentry."
While the event was just one day, Warden Teri Vandergriff said it fits within the larger culture shift within the Missouri Department of Corrections where the focus is on rehabilitation and transformation of inmates prior to reentry.
“It’s so important that people understand what's really going on inside the prison walls, and this has that opportunity for us to showcase that we are so much more than what people are led to believe or what society wants us to think is going on,” Vandergriff said. “And this is the opportunity to change people's thoughts about that.”
Vandergriff said Farmington Correctional Center has already made lots of changes to help people grow and develop. They recently opened a new Reentry Center where offenders can learn computer skills, take the driver’s license written test, and start preparing for future employment – like logging hours toward a commercial driver’s license on the facility’s truck driving simulator.
Travis Crews, the deputy warden of offender management, said reentry has become a “major focus” at their institution, and across the Missouri DOC.
“They're going back into the communities, they're going to be your neighbors, you know, they're going to be involved in community events with you,” Crews said. “We'd like to give them the best tools possible to make sure that they get the best chance when they get out, and a lot of times, it's just kind of a rewiring in their head.”
According to the Missouri DOC, more than 95 percent of the people incarcerated in the state will be released back into their community.
As the day winds down and the last speakers take their seat. Emcee Mark Powell again takes the stage. He thanked the audience for attending and presented prison leadership, as well as Delia Cohen from Proximity for Justice, flowers and thank you notes.
“We want to thank you all, again, so much for being a part of this. Residents, guests and staff alike, we really, really, really appreciate it,” Powell said. “And while this concludes our program, the work is just now beginning.”
He added that, once people are released, more is still needed from the audience – more housing, jobs and opportunities for people who are formerly incarcerated.
“You can use your voice, go out and tell people what you experienced here today, share with the world the needs and the hopes of the incarcerated,” Powell concluded.
For a full transcript of the broadcast version of this story, click here.
