# The Case for Bringing TEDx Into Georgia’s Prisons > A structured public-speaking and leadership program — culminating in a TEDx event inside the prison — that builds leaders, lowers risk, and costs the state nothing. Georgia can be the first Southern state to host one. **Published**: 2026-06-07 **Source**: https://gps.press/the-case-for-bringing-tedx-into-georgias-prisons/ **Author**: Dovie Watson --- *A program that builds leaders, lowers risk, and reflects well on the institutions brave enough to try it.* --- The Georgia Department of Corrections defines its own mission in two parts: operating secure facilities and providing opportunities for rehabilitation. The first half is fully resourced. The second half is where Georgia has the most room to grow — and the most to gain. There is a program model that requires no new construction, no large state appropriation, and no relaxing of security: a structured public-speaking and leadership curriculum that culminates in a TEDx event held inside the prison. The nonprofit Proximity for Justice has run this model since 2013, producing 18 such events across facilities including San Quentin and Attica, reaching millions of viewers. It is now actively planning to expand into Southern states. Georgia can be first. ## What it actually is The visible part is a one-day event. The substance is a year-long coaching program. Incarcerated participants are trained in professional public speaking — narrative structure, preparation, delivery, and composure under pressure. These are the same skills employers, parole boards, and reentry programs look for, taught to a professional standard most people on the outside never receive. The training is the rehabilitation. The event is simply where it becomes visible. ## Why the evidence supports it Structured, skills-based programming is among the most reliable tools corrections systems have for reducing future crime: - Cognitive and reasoning-based programs such as Reasoning and Rehabilitation reduce reoffending by roughly 14 percent across multiple international studies. - Thinking for a Change participants reoffended at 23 percent versus 36 percent for a comparison group in a federal evaluation — a substantial, measurable gap. - Education and structured-program models reaching incarcerated people report some of the lowest return-to-prison rates documented (programs such as Bard's college initiative and arts-based programs at Sing Sing report return rates under 4–5 percent; these are program-reported figures, but the pattern across the field is consistent). Georgia already posts a comparatively low three-year reconviction rate of roughly 25–27 percent. A program like this protects and improves that number rather than risking it. ## Why it works *for* the institution This is not a concession to people in custody at the expense of the agency. It is a program a forward-looking administrator can own: - **Low cost to GDC.** Proximity is an independent nonprofit funded by foundations and donors. It produces and promotes the events. The institution provides space and cooperation, not budget. - **Low security risk.** Events are co-planned by administrators, officers, and incarcerated participants together. Security leadership shapes every parameter. - **Visible, positive proof of mission.** These events have drawn business leaders, academics, and public officials inside prison walls and changed how they talk about corrections afterward. A warden who hosts the first one in Georgia is demonstrating exactly the rehabilitative mandate the agency already claims. - **A model that scales.** Prove the speaker-training component at one facility, document the outcomes, and the agency has a replicable program it built — not one imposed on it. ## A natural starting point A facility close to Department leadership, under a warden who came up through counseling and care-and-treatment rather than security alone, is the logical place to pilot. Proximity for Justice is looking for Southern partners now. The opening exists; it needs an administrator willing to do something uncomfortable and worthwhile. Georgians are safer when people leave prison better prepared than when they entered. This is a low-cost, evidence-aligned, reputation-building way to make that happen — and to show the public that the Department's stated commitment to rehabilitation is real. --- *Georgia Prisoners' Speak is an investigative and advocacy project of The GDC Accountability Project, Inc. For more on the rehabilitation record and reform models referenced here, contact GPS.*