The P.E.A.R.L. Project, which looks to bridge a gap between the public and criminals, was unveiled at the Lawrence Arts Center Monday.

The project is intended to help women discuss the realities of being locked up and to imagine what life’s like outside of prison. As a part of the new exhibit, 15 convicts tell their stories.

“It empowers them to begin to share their lives and to think how it could be different, how it could be improved,” said Carol Bradbury, a creative director of the project. “If you can’t dream something, it can’t come to be.”

The exhibit features a series of filmed monologues that the inmates performed last month in front of an incarcerated audience at the Topeka Correctional Facility.

It costs between $20,000 and $25,000 a year to put one female felon behind bars, according to the community-based art project P.E.A.R.L., which stands for Performing to Empower Awareness and Reinvent Lives.

As the prison system strives to do all it can to prevent convicts from returning to prison when they’re released, the new mode of expression is intended to help them re-invent their lives.

“These ladies are human beings, have all the creativity, all the heart, to try to be healed from what they have done,” said So Yeon Park, a creative director of the project.

The film can be seen between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. through Saturday, at the arts center, 940 N.H.

Offenders who are out on parole will perform monologues live at 7 p.m. Friday night at the arts center.

More than one-fourth of female inmates are re-incarcerated within three years after getting out of prison. Prison officials said the inmates must be connected with the community when they’re released, so they won’t re-offend.