Jeff Smith was blown away by some of the brilliant business ideas he heard while spending 366 days in prison between 2009 and 2010.

“[Prison] was teeming with smart, ambitious men whose business instincts were in many cases as sharp as those of the CEOs who had wined and dined me six months earlier when I was a rising star in the Missouri Senate,” says Smith in today’s talk, filmed during the TED@NewYork stop of the TED Talent Search. “Ninety-five percent of the guys I was locked up with had been drug dealers on the outside … They talked about it in a different jargon — but the business concepts they talked about were not unlike what you’d learn in a first-year MBA class at Wharton.”

In this talk, Smith shares that he made just $5.25 per month in prison, working in a warehouse. And yet, he had to navigate an underground economy of majorly marked-up goods. As Smith shares—in prison, a cigarette costs $3, a flip phone goes for $300 and a dirty magazine can fetch the upwards of $1000.

“We learn to hustle,” says Smith of the prison experience. “One of the defining aspects of prison life is ingenuity, whether it was concocting delicious meals from stolen scraps from the warehouse, sculpting people’s hair with toenail clippers or constructing weights from boulders in laundry bags tied onto tree limbs.”

The tragedy, says Smith, is that none of this creativity and business acumen is harnessed. In this talk, Smith posits the idea: what if we trained inmates in business basics like how to write a business plan? Could this change the startling statistic that 2 out of 3 released prisoners reoffend within five years?

“I lied to the Feds. I lost a year of my life from it,” says Smith. “When I came out I vowed that I was going to do whatever I could to make sure guys like the ones I was locked up with didn’t have to waste any more of their life than they already had. The best thing we can do is figure out ways to nurture the entrepreneurial spirit and tremendous untapped potential in our prisons.”

Smith’s powerful talk begs a few question: what was the lie he told and how did he end up in prison? Below, a look at how Smith got there, as well as a look at the writing and political commentary he’s been doing since his release.

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In the This American Life episode “Mortal vs. Venial,” which aired in April of 2012, Smith shares the story of how a relatively small sin compounded into three big offenses that led not only to the end of his political career but also to his incarceration.

In 2004, Smith — then a 29-year-old political science professor — ran for the U.S. Congressional seat vacated by Dick Gephardt. Smith built a grassroots campaign to challenge front-runner Russ Carnahan in the Republican primary. While he ultimately lost the primary, his vibrant campaign was chronicled in the documentary, Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?.

As Smith tells This American Life, during the course of this campaign, he was approached by a media consultant who offered to send out an anti-Carnahan mailing as an “independent expenditure.” Smith’s campaign staff provided this man with information for the mailing. This is a violation of election law — as those funding independent expenditures, which are exempt from campaign finance limits, are not allowed to coordinate with candidates.

Russ Carnahan noticed that Smith’s campaign seemed to be in cahoots with the mailing, and filed a Federal Election Commission complaint. While Smith did have loose prior knowledge of the mailing, he signed an affidavit saying he didn’t.

Years later — after Smith had been elected to the Missouri state Senate and formed a reputation as a force to watch in the legislative body — the incident came back to haunt him. To hear exactly how a strange series of coincidences, and a wiretap, lead to Smith pleading guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, listen to the episode.  It’s a truly fascinating story — and one that highlights the complexities of running for political office.

Since being released from prison in 2010, Jeff Smith has rebooted his life — he’s now a  professor of politics at The New School in New York City and actively campaigns for the prison reform he outlined in his TED Talk. At the same time, Smith has been writing prolifically as a political commentator and advice columnist, while also working on a memoir. Here, a selection of his recent works, all of each which seed more of his powerful story.

Some of Smith’s recent columns from website The Recovering Politician:

• Jeff Smith: 7 Things Republicans Must Do, published November 13
• Jeff Smith: What Sandusky Can Expect In Prison and What The Washington Post Doesn’t Understand, published October 17
• Jeff Smith’s New Beginning at The New School, published October 11

Some selections from Smith’s “Do As I Say: A Political Advice Column,” on City & State NY:

• Does direct mail still work?, published November 12
• How do you ask for money?, published October 8
• What should I do if I’m considering a run for office?, published September 5

And Smith’s recent posts from Politico’s commentary space, The Arena:

• Should House speaker Boehner watch his back?
• Mitt Romeny lacks big bucks?
• Do oil companies deserve tax breaks?

Some extra credit reading:

• What’s the matter with Missouri?, an essay by Jeff Smith published in The Atlantic on August 24
• Former inmate offers advice for Rod Blagojevich, an NPR radio interview with Smith from March 15

Interested on what life is like in prison and how we can avoid people ending up there? Here, some TED Talks on making prison a more rehabilitating experience:

• David R. Dow: Lessons from death row inmates
• Nalini Nadkarni: Life science in prison
• Damon Horowitz: Philosophy in prison
• Bryan Stevenson: We need to talk about an injustice

Below, find some of the powerful stories from this event about the importance of personal transformation and the strength that comes with community.

David Butler II: The boy next-door
In this talk, David Butler II shares a harrowing story of the path that led him to prison. A truly vulnerable talk, Butler expresses the importance of reaching out to one another — in a way that can prevent acts of abuse and violence.

Gary Mohr: Systematic sense of hope
1 out of 4 the world’s imprisoned population is incarcerated in the United States. This fact struck Ohio’s Director of Rehabilitation and Correction, Gary Mohr. In this talk, he expresses the dire need for reform. He has created a framework that addresses creating a safe space within prison, as well as improving integration into society after release.

Dawud Wilson: Sights and sounds of the ghetto
Using slam poetry, Dawud Wilson evokes haunting images of his neighborhood. This emotive and eye-opening piece addresses the many injustices he saw there — issues that may well ring true for other communities.

Watch many more talks from TEDxMarionCorrectional on YouTube.

Yes, TEDx has been behind bars. Since the birth of the TEDx program in 2009, independently organized events have been held at correctional facilities in at least three countries — at youth and adult institutions, both with speakers and without.

In Spain, organizer Antonella Broglia was determined to bring TEDx to Soto Del Real prison outside Madrid. “They do not have Internet inside the prison,” she explains. “They do not even have the infrastructures to make sure they will have Internet in the future. Bringing TEDTalks inside that huge prison made them known to people who had no idea TED existed. I believe this is our major responsibility as organizers: open new minds, contact new hearts. And I was inspired by a group of volunteers who work to use culture in prison as a tool for redemption. They made me see that a TEDTalk could be a means for redemption—or at least for discussion.”

So far, there have been two TEDx Salon events (where only TEDTalks are shown) in the prison and this month, TEDxSotoDelReal will host its first standard event. Brogila hopes that inmates will not just be audience members, but speakers as well.

Five thousand miles away in the United States, TEDxMingusMountain grew out of another event, TEDxScottsdale. Organizer Bob Diehl explains, “A woman marched up to me, announced that she is a convicted felon and that she has now dedicated her life to helping incarcerated women live full lives in prison, and told me she wants to do a TEDx in [a] prison.” Unsurprisingly, Diehl was intrigued.

This woman, Sue Ellen Allen, took the reins and became the organizer for TEDxMingusMountain, planned to take place five months later in a residential facility for 12 to 18-year-old girls in Prescott Valley, Arizona.

But the journey to TEDxMingusMountain wasn’t easy. Allen says, “The administration was hesitant. They were unfamiliar with TED. While educating them on the concept, we had a change in the director halfway though the discussions.”

Diehl and Allen were forced to push back the event date by almost a year, after an unrelated event put the facility into lockdown.

“We were only told six weeks [before the event] we could have a new date,” says Diehl. “The entire original TEDx team and presenter roster were no longer available, so it was a challenge to get it done in time.”

Still, the show went on.

“The formal TEDxMingusMountain was allowed to take one hour,” Diehl recalls. “The girls’ day was re-arranged to accommodate it. The residential population and their staff assembled in the facility’s gymnasium. There was no air conditioning, and no blackout curtains on the windows. We left Phoenix at 6am to make the 9am start time, and had 30 minutes to set up.”

Allen said that she was pleasantly surprised by how receptive the audience was.

“After [presenting in prisons] for 2 1/2 years, I can recognize the sounds of the audience,” she tells the TED Blog. “There can be the sound of silence or the sound of rustling. For this event, the sound of silence trumped the rustling. Many times during the event you could hear dead silence as the girls listened intently.”

During the talks, one of the girls was seen “writing furiously,” says Allen. Later in the day, she learned that the girl was writing poems.

“She presented them to each of our performers,” Allen said. “They are unedited, raw and beautiful. This girl has had unspeakable life experiences. “

After such success, Allen plans to continue hosting TEDx events in prisons. “I want to stick with TEDx because it is all about ideas and education,” she said. “If we can bring more of this inside the razor wires of our systems, I know we can impact lives. I really believe TEDx is the vehicle to do it.”

Her enthusiasm matches that of organizer Jordan Edelheit, of TEDxMarionCorrectional in Ohio, who stepped foot into a prison for the first time only five months before her event.

“TEDxMarionCorrectional [was] an opportunity to give a voice to a section of our society who is rarely heard from and often times overlooked and cast aside,” she said. “Although I was confident that our team had put together a thought-provoking event, I don’t think I was fully prepared for the amount of people — both inside and outside guests —to respond with such emotion. At least seven incarcerated men came up to myself and the fellow organizers to look us in the eyes and thank us. Since the event, they have repeated time and time again how TEDxMarionCorrectional created an environment where they ‘felt human again.’”

For the team behind TEDxLipcaniPrison in Moldova (pictured above), enthusiasm was not as easily conjured.

“I never before had to face so much rejection, and indifference,” said organizer Elena Zgardan, adding that her feelings turned around as soon as she met some of the prisoners for whom she was planning the event. “I got to visit the prison and…after having a discussion for almost two hours with more than 10 convicts, I knew that the TEDx event is not only something great and needed, but that the timing was perfect. More than half of the boys I talked to were soon to be released from prison. I think the event gave the youth from the prison a view of an alternative life, a life that may be theirs as well.”

She concludes, “There are a few moments that will remain with me … [but] no matter how high my expectations could be, I could never expect tears in their eyes.”

Stay tuned to the TED Blog all this week for a celebration of TEDx or, if you’re curious, check out the TEDx blog.

An endangered species of butterfly has found an unusual set of champions — the inmates of the Mission Creek Corrections Center for Women in Washington.

While the number of Taylor’s checkerspot butterflies has dwindled in Washington in recent years,  the Mission Creek inmates are working hard to help the species rebound, reports the Nature magazine blog. By breeding the butterflies in a greenhouse outside the prison, the inmates released more than 800 butterflies into the wild this year, while other local prison groups pitched in efforts to conserve the plants that these butterflies prefer to lay their eggs on. So far, the Mission Creek inmates have raised more than 3,600 caterpillars for next year’s release.

The Taylor’s checkerspot butterfly revival is a part of the Sustainability in Prisons Project, the creation of frequent TED speaker Nalini Nadkarni. Below, check out Nalini’s powerful TEDTalks, on researching animals that thrive in rainforest canopies and on bringing appreciation of nature into prisons.

Nalini Nadkarni: On conserving the canopy
In this talk from TED2009, Nalini describes the unique ecosystem of plants, birds and monkeys that thrives in the treetops of the rainforest. She explains how she’s working to preserve these species through dance, art and bold partnerships.

Nalini Nadkarni: Life science in prisons
Yes — prisoners are confined behind bars, says Nalini Nadkarni in this talk from TED2010. But while they don’t get to experience nature firsthand, they still can enjoy thinking about the natural world. Here, Nalini explains her efforts to bring science lectures into prisons in the state of Washington.

The Sustainability in Prisons Project has impressive statistics so far. According to the Nature magazine blog, of the 238 prisoners who attended a single lecture and were later released, only 2 returned to prison within a year — a very, very low rate.