College Behind Bars

This is a project of substance and importance, but also remarkably a series that could be watched with the family during the holiday season to spark conversation and instigate a better understanding of a segment of the population that it's easier to stigmatize or just ignore.

[The inmates'] stories are intermingled with the history of the BPI program, and it’s a deliberately slow start (one that, for what it’s worth, feels very on-brand for PBS) that sets a solid foundation for the three subsequent parts. Novick uses the inmates’ narratives as a way to gently enter into big-picture topics like recidivism, mass incarceration, and rehabilitation, parsing through the public politics of prison and revealing the deeply human stories within.

An inspiring, four-part documentary.