Val Cole

For 33 years, a college professor from Southern California escorted more than 1,000 students on 113 weeklong tours of prisons across the state. He also created numerous programs that he administered within those prisons. In each program, students came face to face with thousands of incarcerated men and women in ways that opened students' eyes and minds in dramatic and unpredictable ways. In a word, students found humanity in people and places where they had previously imagined none to exist. Those lessons inspired that professor to craft a poem, called "Sinners," to capture what those experiences meant to thousands of students. "Sinners" is read against the backdrop of illustrative scenes from Sutton's many award-winning prison documentaries.

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