Education Behind Bars:
Part II of a Series
Interview with Dr. Michelle Fine
By Nazneen Malik
“College in prison is a powerful intervention and relatively
cost effective,” says Dr. Michelle Fine, Distinguished
Professor of Psychology, Urban Education, and Women’s
Studies at the Graduate Center of the City University of New
York.
In a recently published report, Changing Minds, Dr.
Fine, in collaboration with women in prison at the Bedford
Hills Correctional Facility (BHCF), found that college in prison
programs radically reduced recidivism rates from 30 percent
for women who did not attend college while in prison to 7 percent
for women who did. A cost-benefit analysis further revealed
that providing inmates access to higher education is fiscally
far more efficient than incurring the inflated rates of re-incarceration
and diminished employability. Specifically, the report estimated
savings of about nine million dollars for every 100 prisoners,
over a period of four years.
In addition to fiscal
savings, however, college in prisons programs have far-reaching
implications that extend well beyond the inmates themselves. “The best predictor of a child’s
education is his or her mother’s education,” says
Fine, and “educating [incarcerated] mothers is one way
to dramatically interrupt the cycle of imprisonment of the
next generation.”
Instability is an enormous assault on child development, says
Fine. Children with incarcerated mothers are in need of tremendous
support because not only are their families disrupted but many
children, especially those of elementary school age, are bounced
between foster homes and have to deal with the stigma of a
parent in prison. College in prison programs allow inmates
to set a positive role model for their children in spite of
their circumstances or environment.
Furthermore, college
in prison programs provide inmates with “a
kind of intellectual stretching” and community building
which enables them to have confidence in themselves, their
abilities, and to become functional members of society. Some
of the women Dr. Fine interviewed, post-release, described
their college in prison experiences as teaching them “to
recognize their own intellectual signatures, to persist, revise,
and imagine a world bigger and more interesting then the one
they had been accustomed to, and to face their weaknesses.”
However, not all inmates come to prison with a sufficient
educational background that allows them to jump into college
level courses. In fact, the average inmate has about 10.6 years
of schooling with the Math and English proficiency of a sixth
grader.
There are a disproportionate number of high school drop-outs
in prison, says Fine. The number of men and women without high
school diplomas or GEDs ranges from 50 to 80 percent depending
on the prison. She also mentions a growing concern that high
stakes testing may result in an increase in drop-out rates
thereby limiting the economic and social options available
to young people and potentially increasing their involvement
in criminal activities.
Although many prisons
do not offer college programs to inmates, they do offer basic
adult education and literacy, GED classes, and vocational
programs. “Evidence of vocational training
is certainly better than no education,” says Dr. Fine, “but
it is not as powerful as a liberal arts education and I think
that is true particularly for women.” We need federal
and state funds for college in prison and pre-college programs.”
The program at BHCF
serves as a model for other colleges that are considering
developing programs with other prison facilities. Bard College,
for example, has already initiated a similar consortium with
a set of men’s prisons and there is a
consortium of colleges in New Jersey that aims to work with
the women’s prisons in their area. Therefore, the climate
seems to be changing, and although progress is slow, it is
progress nonetheless.#
