What pressure are prisoners under as they enter the parole process? Due to recent legal reforms and pressures to reduce the prison population, the Board of Parole Hearings has been far more active in overseeing the release of long-term offenders. Based on first hand observations and transcripts of parole board hearings, Dr. Kimberly Richman analyzes the role of what she calls “Program Speak”—the name prisoners give to the specialized language learned in prison rehabilitative programs—in the parole process. She finds a mutually reinforcing pattern of purposive language acquisition, designed to signal—and possibly induce—over-responsibility and extreme culpability. This has profound consequences for the prisoners and their parole process. Join us as Dr. Kimberly Richman explains how prisoners are being pressured into responsibility and remorse in levels that may be harmful to them.