Week 6: The Education Crisis Behind Bars
Summary
Mass incarceration costs upwards of $182 billion dollars each year. Although I recognize my role as a social science researcher, creating this series as a way to provide accessible criminal justice information, I implore you to think about, reflect, and analyze how billions of dollars can be redirected and utilized within communities, education, and subsequent job training.
As reported by the Prison Policy Initiative, people who serve time in prison are often held back from educational opportunities, making it impossible to earn the credentials deemed necessary for success following release.
The conversation surrounding education, its connection to incarceration and more broadly, criminal justice, is best explained when divided into three categories: the school to prison pipeline, the relationship between incarcerated persons and access to Pell grants, and re-entry into communities.
The School to Prison Pipeline
In 2016, the Department of Education released an analysis, indicating that over the course of three decades, state and local spending on prisons and jails increased three times the rate of K-12 public education funding during the same time-frame.
Over the past 20 years, advocates, educators, researchers, and students, have relied on the term, “school to prison pipeline” (STPP) to describe harsh school disciplinary and law enforcement policies that, according to the Justice Policy Institute, “feed young people into the criminal punishment system.”
Researchers at the Justice Policy Institute found that excessive suspensions, expulsions, and reliance on school resource officers (translation: police) lead to negative outcomes for students. Following numerous suspensions, students are more likely to drop out of school — and research has indicated, time and time again, that high school dropouts are more likely to be incarcerated than those who obtain their high school diploma.
The STPP has created a national system that criminalizes rather than educates students deemed to have disciplinary issues. The school to prison pipeline has resulted in the mass criminalization and subsequent incarceration of students of color, particularly Black students. More information can be found here.
Incarcerated Individuals & Pell Grant Restrictions
From a crime prevention standpoint, there is an overwhelming consensus among public officials that post-secondary education is the most successful and cost-effective method of preventing crime.
The Federal Pell Grant program was created in 1972 to provide funding to students who lack the resources to pay for higher education, including incarcerated individuals. As mentioned in an article by The Intercept, by 1982, there were over 350 post-secondary education programs in prison. By the 1990s, there were approximately 800 programs among 1,300 correctional facilities.
In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, increasing the nation’s prison population while simultaneously blocking incarcerated persons from accessing Pell grants. This action resulted in increased unemployment rates following one’s release and is said to have contributed to re-incarceration rates.
Since the Pell grant ban was initially implemented, the number of prison-based education programs has rapidly declined. According to the GCPI, at present, “60% of individuals in prison will not get any in-prison educational opportunities beyond a GED.”
“In an age when college is increasingly unaffordable, spending money on college-in-prison programs is still unpopular.” — Kritika Agarwal
Bipartisan lawmakers are, however, seeking ways to restore Pell eligibility for incarcerated persons. In 2015, the Obama administration introduced Second Chance Pell, a pilot unlocking Pell grants for 12,000 eligible incarcerated persons in partnership with 67 colleges. At present, the program is primarily privately funded.
In January 2019, the Vera Institute of Justice found that expanding Pell grants to incarcerated persons would result in higher earnings when they’re released, saving states over $365.9 million each year in incarceration costs. It’s worth asking — how can we be more effective with our money?
Education, Re-Entry, and the Public’s Reliance on Recidivism Data
We’ve spent a considerable amount of time discussing the high volume of individuals going into prisons and jails; however, we’ve spent significantly less time examining those who are released and return to their communities.
It’s getting increasingly difficult for formerly incarcerated people to compete in the skilled labor market. One’s lack of access to education while incarcerated can lead to increased unemployment rates upon release. Policy Analyst, Lucius Couloute, found a 27% unemployment rate among formerly incarcerated persons indicating, “those with low levels of formal education face even higher unemployment rates.”
Performing research on college admissions among formerly incarcerated people, Couloute found most in-prison college programs to be inaccessible. He also pointed out the fact that numerous colleges and universities include questions about one’s criminal history on their applications, a practice that often deters students from even completing the application process (often a result of concern about discrimination based on criminal history).
Following the introduction of the Second Chance Act of 2007, RAND Corporation published a study titled, “How Effective is Correctional Education and Where Do We Go From Here?” Conducting a meta-analysis, they ultimately found that individuals participating in correctional education programs had “43% lower odds of recidivating or committing more crime, than incarcerated individuals who did not participate.” The study ultimately concluded that correctional education is a cost-effective initiative, stating that every dollar spent on education could save approximately $5 spent on re-incarceration costs.
*Disclaimer: I do not agree with relying on recidivism rates to create/support policies surrounding criminal justice because they rely on determining the “likelihood” that someone who has committed a crime will re-offend. Often times, issues of recidivism fail to account for social context and individualized behavior. Despite this, I recognize that recidivism rates are one of the primary factors driving lawmakers and advocates in creating progressive policies. More on what has shaped my opinions regarding recidivism can be found here.
Statistics to Know
- As reported by the Prison Policy Initiative- Unlike the general public, people who have been to prison are more likely to have GEDs than they are to have traditional high school diplomas. Three-quarters of those GED certificates are earned in prison.
- According to the same report by the Prison Policy Initiative, while those in the general public have a 1 in 3 chance of attaining a college degree, a formerly incarcerated person’s chances are less than 1 in 20.
- Incarcerated individuals in state and federal prisons, aside from limited exceptions, are ineligible for federal Pell Grants and federal student loans.
- The Federal government has placed significant barriers to financial aid. As mentioned on the Federal Student Aid site, students who have been convicted of a drug offense while previously receiving federal aid are ineligible for aid even after serving their sentences.
In addition to the broad categories that have been chosen to best explain the education crisis while behind bars and upon re-entry, one must note the disproportionate impacts by race, gender, and time since one’s initial release. The Prison Policy Initiative — sited heavily throughout this week’s lesson due to their increased efforts to bring attention to issues of higher education within jails and prisons — has performed ample analyses for those interested in taking a deeper dive into such data.
Terms & Definitions
Pell Grant: a federal government sponsored subsidy for students to pay for college. These grants were first made available to incarcerated individuals in 1965 during the Johnson Administration administration and were subsequently revoked in 1994 (a provision in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act) under Bill Clinton.
Second Chance Act of 2007: an act to reauthorize the grant program for reentry of “offenders” into the community, to improve reentry planning and implementation, and for other purposes. Signed into law by George W. Bush, it expanded services to formerly incarcerated persons and their families for reentry into society.
Transformative Justice: a philosophical strategy for responding to conflicts. It is concerned with uncovering root causes of crime and comprehensive outcomes. In theory, transformative justice attempts to treat an offense as a transformative, relational, and educational opportunity for the incarcerated and other members of the impacted community.
Who to Follow
Clint Smith III, writer, teacher, and Harvard PhD Candidate studying incarceration, education, and inequality. He teaches in correctional facilities and is known to reflect on his experiences via Twitter.
NYC Books Through Bars, an all-volunteer-run group that sends free, donated books to incarcerated people across the nation*
Prison University Project, a San Quentin State Prison-based initiative providing increased access to higher education for incarcerated people. As stated on their website, they hope to “stimulate public awareness about higher education access and criminal justice
*I have personally volunteered with NYC Books Through Bars and attest to their collaborative nature, kindness, and willingness to go the extra mile in order to connect incarcerated individuals with proper resources
Additional Resources
Investing in Futures: Economic and Fiscal Benefits of Postsecondary Education in Prison, Vera Institute of Justice
A ‘Second Chance’ After 27 Years in Prison: How Criminal Justice Helped an Ex-Inmate Graduate, New York Times
Crisis Behind Bars: Building More Jails a Poor Solution to the Crime Problem, Los Angeles Times (1988)
Education behind bars: why university students are learning alongside prisoners, The Conversation
From Prison to Ph.D.: The Redemption and Rejection of Michelle Jones, New York Times
Getting Back on Course: Educational exclusion and attainment among formerly incarcerated people
Inside Higher Ed: College-in-prison programs flourish, but for how long? American Historical Association
How the Federal Government Undermines Prison Education, The Intercept_
Education as Crime Prevention: The Case for Reinstating Pell Grant Eligibility for the Incarcerated, Bard Prison Initiative
GED Classes in Prison are a Joke — The Fault of Prisoners or Teachers?, Prison Writers
How the School to Prison Pipeline Works, Justice Policy Institute
Candice is a graduate student studying incarceration and human rights at Columbia University. She holds dual degrees in Criminology and Communication Arts and Sciences from Penn State and abides by a personal motto, “change the narrative.”
