By Aimee Rawlins / 12newsnow.com Tablets and text messages. To the general public, they might seem standard, but for a prison system, they could be revolutionary. At least that’s what Philadelphia hopes. The city recently signed contracts with two startups to help educate inmates while in prison and keep them connected once they’re out. Traditionally,
By Corrections One Staff / CorrectionsOne.com Sentenced to some time behind bars, but don’t think you can hack it? Try a prison coach, a consultant who’s survived behind bars and can teach you to do the same. USA Today reports that Bill Doane, a former New York prison inmate who served 26 years for stabbing
By Dianne Frazee-Walker Scott Holman discovered he had a passion he didn’t know he had when he accepted the offer of teaching the extended studies program with Adam’s State University. Holman accepted a rare opportunity to help prisoners earn college degrees through a unique correspondence program. ASU is located in Alamosa, Colorado, where Holman graduated
By Lila Panagides / Springfield News-Leader There has been much talk about national security lately, focusing mostly on the Middle East. Here at home, we are facing a serious national security crisis that, fortunately, is getting some attention — but perhaps not enough from the public. This crisis developed over the last 20 years due
By Katherine Sellgren / BBC News Image courtesy bbc.uk.co Inmates are allowed 12 books in their cell but new privileges regulations, introduced last year, stopped them receiving parcels, including books. The Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET) is urging ministers to improve access to books and materials to assist learning. Prisons minister Andrew Selous said he was
By Dianne Frazee-Walker Kevin McCauley is a medical doctor and recovering alcoholic/drug addict. He has spent the last ten-years studying addiction and the theories behind the causes of addiction. He imaginatively uses the backdrop of some of Utah’s most beautiful state park scenery to illustrate his analogy of how the brain of an addicted person
By Aaron Schrank Wyoming’s prison system boasts the second-best recidivism rate in the country. Twenty-five percent of offenders in the state will return to prison for a parole violation or new crime—compared to 40 percent nationally. The Wyoming Department of Corrections credits its education programs—including a mandatory G.E.D course for all inmates without a high
By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy www.prisoneducationproject.org-
A National Network of Prison Education Programs
The 1980s were a period of expansion for prison education programs. Through the vehicle of federal financial assistance, inmates were able to enroll in vocational and college courses in their prisons, programs offered through community colleges and state universities alike. For a period, prisoners had a meaningful chance at learning a quality trade or even earning an associate’s or bachelor’s college degree during their term of imprisonment. Over 350 in-prison college programs flourished, with professors teaching classes “live,” in the prisons.
The Collapse: Congress Slams the Door on Education in Prison
All of this came to a screeching halt with the passage of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994. The Act, a component of the anti-prison education agenda pushed in Congress and the Senate, imposed a ban on inmates receiving any form of federal financial aid to assist them in the pursuit of an education. With the slashed funding, nearly every externally supported prison education program in the nation shut down, and the result was an increase in prisoner unrest, violence, and recidivism. Colleges, prisoners, and prison administrators alike objected, and loudly so, but their pleas fell upon deaf ears.
Advocates for eliminating Pell Grants and other need-based financial assistance for prisoners claimed that those incarcerated shouldn’t be given government funding to pursue education. They advanced an agenda asserting that prisoners were taking funding away from traditional college students — a patently false assertion — and that offering college to inmates was a reward for crime. Some even had the gall to suggest that people were committing crimes in order to go to prison, where they could obtain a college education. It was a political firestorm like no other, and one based on emotion, not fact, logic, or empirical research.
Enrolling in college from prison is no easy task. There is bureaucratic red tape to overcome, an endemic culture of failure, and prison staff members who are more interested in punching a clock than engaging in any form of actual work. But fear not, with persistence, dedication, and a bit of planning, a college education