Middlesex Community College

About Me: Jean Trounstine is a professor emeritus who teaches Voices Behind Bars: The Literature of Prison at MCC,. She is also a writer, an activist, and a long time professor who has chosen to continue teaching this particular class because she feels it is important for students to learn about incarceration in the United States and beyond through the prism of those behind bars. She worked at Framingham Women's Prison for ten years where she directed eight plays with prisoners (for college credit). Her highly-praised book about that work, Shakespeare Behind Bars: The Power of Drama in a Women's Prison has been featured on NPR, The Connection, Here and Now, and in numerous print publications here and abroad. In addition, she has spoken around the world on women in prison, co-founded the women's branch of Changing Lives Through Literature (CLTL), an award-winning alternative sentencing program featured in The New York Times and on The Today Show, and co-authored two books about the program. She won the Gramsci award and you can read about her and her work at jeantrounstine.com Her most recent book, Boy with a Knife: A Story of Murder, Remorse, and a Prisoner's Fight for Justice was published by Ig Press in April 2016. It is a book about the case of Karter Reed, resilience, and the tragedy of sentencing juveniles to adult prisons. She writes for DIGBoston currently and has written articles for many venues including Boston Magazine, Truthout.org, Commonwealth Magazine, Alternet and many others. You can follow her @justicewithjean.