Alabama Prison Arts + Education Program

Prison education program gives inmates something new to think about. April 9, 2015
John Johnson stood in front of a room of fellow inmates and several journalists Thursday and made a case for directing more money toward educational programs in prisons.
The 65-year-old prisoner at the maximum security St. Clair Correctional Facility in Springville, AL is to spend the rest of his life in prison.
Johnson announced that “today is my birthday” to the several reporters in the visiting room inside the facility, before reading a poem he’d written as part of a previous writing class through the program.
Johnson was one of 16 prisoners in a class on media and writing on Thursday, one of many taught in 10 Alabama prisons by the Alabama Prison Arts + Education Project at Auburn University.
Kyes Stevens, director of the program and a poet, started the project in 2001. In the years since the program has taught more than 183 semester-length college-level classes, hired nearly 190 teachers and taught more than 2,500 students. (Eddie Burkhalter, Anniston Star)
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Some info on the inmate Dudley Wayne Kyzer featured in the second story:
The longest jail sentence passed was in the United States - 10,000 years for a triple murder. Dudley Wayne Kyzer was jailed for 10,000 years by a court in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, in 1981 for murdering his wife. He was then sentenced to two life terms for murdering his mother-in-law and a college student.
Another article states: . In 1981 a Alabama man named Dudley Wayne Kyzer was sentenced to death for murdering his wife, his mother-in-law, and another man. The sentence was overturned, and Kyzer was retried. “He doesn’t need mercy. He showed no mercy with the murders he committed. The time is long past in this case for Wayne Kyzer to be shown mercy,” the prosecutor told the jury, and the jury apparently agreed: They gave Kyzer two life sentences plus 10,000 years in prison. Though the sentence was touted for its potential deterrent effect on future offenders, its effect on Kyzer was almost entirely symbolic; Alabama state law maintains that inmates become eligible for parole “after serving one-third of the sentence or 10 years, whichever is less.”