Schools Behind Bars:
Prison College Programs Unlock
the Keys to Human Potential
By Gillian Granoff
In 1994 the government issued a federal crime bill, which
made inmates ineligible to receive Pell Grants that had provided
scholarships for prisoners to earn a bachelors degree while
incarcerated. By mid-decade, just 6 percent of the $22 billion
that states spent on prisons was being used for in-prison programs
like vocational, educational or life skills training, according
to an Urban Institute Study. Funding for prison college programs
were eliminated, leading to the closing of some 350 such programs
nationwide. Many states, including New York, barred inmates
from taking college extension courses. Even secondary education
programs suffered.
Statistics have indicated that the cost of keeping a prisoner
in prison for one year exceeds the cost of educating prisoners
for one year by a 10 to 1 ratio. Despite the obvious advantages,
the movements away from prison reforms that educate and rehabilitate
have been cut severely in the past ten years. The concept of
prison reform has been replaced by policies that are punitive
and in favor of permanent incarceration.
In spite of this, passionate defenders of criminal justice
have been the architects of some groundbreaking partnerships
with colleges to restore educational opportunities to inmates
and provide them with tools to reenter society and become productive
members of the community.
1. At Boston University in the Prison Education Program, founded
in 1972, more than 160 Bachelor of Arts degrees and fifty Master
of Arts degrees have been granted to inmates at MCI-Norfolk,
MCI-Framingham, and the Bay State Correctional Center. Courses
are taught at each site by Boston University faculty. Qualified
students receive tuition, texts and supplies. In spring 2001,
ninety students participated in 16 courses. Boston University
interns help hundreds of educational, human services, and charitable
institutions. Often working at professional levels, students
are placed by Sargent College School of Social Work, Goldman
School of Dental Medicine and the Bard prison initiative. Max
Kenner, who graduated from Bard College in 2001, set up the
Bard program.
2. At Harvard, Janet
Reppert Rice, a graduate of the Harvard Divinity School was
assigned, as part of her fieldwork, to work with a nonprofit
called Partakers on a program entitled the College Beyond
Bars program. Rice was deeply affected by the College Beyond
Bars (CBB) program in 2000 that gave “families,
congregations, and other groups the opportunity to provide
financial, emotional, and educational support to prisoner scholars
earning college degrees. As a class project at the Kennedy
School of Government, she developed a project to pair prisoners
with sponsors to support their studies in Boston University’s
program.
3. In 1987 Wesleyan University created the Wesleyan Prisoner
Resource and Education Project. Students in the program held
a book collection for prisoners last spring, to donate books.
The goal is to implement college-in-prison programs where Wesleyan
professors teach courses in prisons. The students would receive
Wesleyan credit toward a bachelors degree. Faculty members
would receive a stipend for their work. WesPrep plans to start
with students and moderated seminars based on lesson plans
generated by students. With the approval of the University
and the Connecticut Department of Corrections (DOC) WesPrep
hopes to include the college in prison program by next spring.
4. Max Kenner, who
graduated from Bard College in 2001, set up the Bard prison
initiative. The Bard Prison Initiative addresses the great
need for college-level instruction in the state prison system.
BPI Programs Bard Degree Program (Eastern Correctional Facility)
In partnership with Episcopal Social Services, Bard is developing
a program that will return college opportunities to male
prisoners in New York State. The program was begun at Eastern
Correctional Facility in Napenoch, New York, with the Bard
College Courses in the Humanities. It will eventually include
a full degree program. The courses provides the foundation
for a liberal arts education by offering college credit for
introductory courses in philosophy, history, literature, art
history, and writing. Poetry Workshop (Beacon Correctional
Facility) Students prepare lesson plans and facilitate weekly
90-minute poetry sessions at this women’s correctional
facility. At the end of each semester, the women’s writing
is published in an anthology and celebrated with a public reading
of their work.
In the GED Tutoring Program (Beacon, Hudson and Eastern Correctional
Facilities) students provide one-on-one assistance to inmates
working to acquire the General Education Diploma. At Eastern,
the program is in Spanish. Education in the Community BPI sponsors
speakers, workshops and conferences at Bard on topics relevant
to prison life and the prison industry in NY.
5.
At Georgetown University Professor Patricia O’Conner an Associate Professor
in Georgetown English Department, founded the Prison Outreach
Program. She and Georgetown students taught inmates at Lorton,
a D.C. Department of Corrections maximum-security prison in
Virginia for 16 years before it closed in 2001. Now she and
her students teach at a detention facility across the Potomac
in Arlington, VA. O’Conner teaches courses in Critical
Reading and Writing, Narrative Discourse and Appalachian courses
in Critical Reading and Writing, Narrative Discourse, Appalachian
Literature and Prison Literature. Prison Outreach offers members
of the Georgetown University community opportunities for collaborative
learning with inmates in Washington D.C. area jails and prisons.
As both teachers and learners, we are dedicated to education
in the prison community and in the Georgetown community, and
to the successful re-entry of incarcerated individuals into
society. For more information, contact Patricia E. O Connor
at 202-687-7622.
In addition to college prison education programs, many non-profits
have organized arts programs and creative writing programs
to nurture self esteem and provide rehabilitative projects
of inmates. The response to these programs has been met with
enthusiasm by the inmates themselves and has shown a proven
means to reduce instances of violence within prisons.
Studies have clearly
shown that “participants in prison
education, vocation and work programs have recidivism rates
20-60 percent lower than those of non-participants (The Nation.
March 4, 2005.) However, support for these programs is rapidly
diminishing. If the trend continues, prisons are likely to
become merely overcrowded holding cells which release inmates
without alternatives and tools and skills to apply for jobs,
and become legitimate members of the community. This trend
more then likely guarantees these inmates become repeat offenders
and return to prisons reinforcing the cycle of crime and punishment.#
