“We must accept the reality that to confine offenders behind walls without trying to change them is an expensive folly with short term benefits — winning battles while losing the war. It is wrong, it is expensive, it is stupid.” United States Supreme Court Chief Justice Warren Burger Prison education is the most cost-effective method
Image courtesy vimeo.comBy Emily Aronson, Office of Communications
Two years ago, Reginald Murph was in prison for the second time. Today, he is a sophomore at Rutgers University. He credits Princeton University’s Prison Teaching Initiative with helping give him a second chance.
The Prison Teaching Initiative (PTI) offers credit-earning college courses to inmates at three New Jersey correctional facilities. More than 70 Princeton faculty, staff, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and alumni volunteer to teach classes in English, mathematics, science and other subjects spanning the liberal arts.
Since the program began eight years ago, nearly 500 inmates have earned college credits by taking PTI classes. Credits may be transferred to any community college in New Jersey as well as a handful of public colleges and universities in the state.
“The Princeton classes made me feel like a student. And feeling like a student in prison was a really good feeling,” said Murph, who is studying social work at Rutgers-New Brunswick. “To sit at my desk and really focus on writing an essay. To step outside of myself for an hour and feel like a somewhat normal person.
“I was doing something in prison. I didn’t lose my hope. A lot of people in prison can go backwards, or stay the same. Or you can propel forward,” Murph continued. “Education is necessary to propel forward.”
PTI’s mission is to reduce incarceration and recidivism rates in the state, especially among poor and minority communities, by providing inmates with the education and skills they need to lead productive, intellectually engaged lives while in prison and when they get out.
As its website attests, the Lionheart Foundation “provides education, rehabilitation, and reentry support to incarcerated men and women in prisons and jails throughout the United States.” Their prison-based initiatives are one of the cornerstones of this foundation, but Lionheart also supports youth-at-risk programming as well as programming for teen parents. The hub of the program
By Max Kenner Dear Readers, Twelve and a half years ago, I spent the summer driving across New York State, from prison to prison, looking for some good news and partners to help establish Bard Prison Initiative. Those were the bad old days. Just a few years before, the federal government eliminated funding for college
By CapeCodToday.com Photo courtesy Barnstable County Correctional Facility In a effort to help make a better transition to life outside the bars, the Barnstable County Correctional Facility (BCCF) offers re-entry skills courses for inmates. Among those classes is a financial literacy class taught by Patricia Walsh and Kathy Moorey of Cape Cod Five. “Having financially savvy
America’s prisons are quickly becoming a drain on local, state, and federal budgets. It’s estimated that as many as 30% to 40% of federal prisons are now over-capacity — a number that some believe will exceed 50% within the next 10 years — with state prisons suffering from similar problems. Many believe this overcrowding is
Studies indicate prisoners who complete educational programs while incarcerated have a significantly better chance of finding a job and staying out of prison than those who don’t. Since 1974, Ohio University’s Correctional Education has provided an opportunity for incarcerated students to study, through print-based courses, to earn college credit and/or an Ohio University degree.
Student Information Image courtesy dispatch.com
Students can request to receive information in the mail about OHIO Correctional Education. Requests can be submitted online (using the online request form on the right), by e-mail at [email protected], by phone toll free at 800.444.2420, or through the mail to Ohio University Correctional Education, 102 Haning Hall, 1 Ohio University, Athens OH 45701.
After a student is admitted to the University, he or she will receive a personalized welcome packet from the student’s academic advisor. Some of the information from the student welcome packet has been included below:
By Olivia Niland As California Gov. Jerry Brown continues to emphasize a commitment to shrinking state prison populations and reinvesting in California’s flagging K-12 public school system, advocates on both sides of the issue are calling for a reevaluation of the state’s funding priorities. Despite its dwindling prison population, the state’s correctional system budget has
Prison Education News, Prison Law Blog’s sister website, is in the process of updating a text which profiles various correspondence education programs that prisoners can enroll in. The text — “Education Behind Bars,” which I authored — has been substantially revised and will be published in a different form in 2014 by Middle Street Publishing.
We have profiled every prison within the Federal Bureau of Prisons.
Learn about each prison’s location, security level, educational and recreational offerings, and much more.
Elizabeth Franklin-Best P.C.
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