Prison Education Programs
The First Step Act: A Good First Step Indeed!
If it passes, the First Step Act will dramatically change life for thousands of inmates in America and will tackle, head-on, some of the problems that lead people to prison and keeps them there. There are many long-overdue items on the Act that includes banning the shackling of pregnant and postpartum women (was a woman…
Read MoreWhy Teach Liberal Arts in Prison?
Liberal arts. Anyone studying this subject is frequently acquainted with an eye roll followed by, “and how are you supposed to get a job with that?” Liberal arts has a bad rap, and that is very underserved. The truth is, liberal arts is among one of the oldest courses of study in the world! While…
Read MoreWhat is the Prison Studies Project?
The Prison Studies Project (PSP) is an initiative that created a nationwide directory of higher education prison programs in the United States. The index was completed in 2008 and is updated regularly. The project was completed in partnership with the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice. According to PSP’s website, “PSP aims to…
Read MoreNew Grant to Support Prison Education in New York State
The Cornell Prison Education Program (CPEP) provides college degree courses for persons in upstate New York prisons. Believing that “any person can find instruction in any study,” the leaders of CPEP see this education as a fundamental part of any successful re-entry program. CPEP launched after an act of Congress and the resulting legislation ended…
Read MoreCongress Weighs Future of Second Chance Pell Grants
In 1994, as part of the Clinton-era tough on crime Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, Congress stripped from the Higher Education Act of 1956 (HEA) prisoners’ eligibility for federal Pell grants for lower-income students. But in July 2015, the Obama Department of Education (DOE) created a pilot Second Chance program under a different HEA…
Read MoreSitting Pretty: Vocational Prison Education Preps for Life After Prison
Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California has a beauty salon. It started as a vocational prison education program in 1996 when the facility was for women only. Although it’s a men’s prison now, the salon, and the esthetician program, remain in place. It’s a unique way of learning job skills in the prison system, and…
Read MoreFlorence McClure Women’s Correctional Center Celebrates First Graduating Class
In 2017 a prison education pilot program was launched at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas. In 2018, the Center celebrated its first graduating class. One graduate who gave a speech at the ceremony said something very poignant about her new view of the world: “When I go out there, I don’t…
Read MoreWill Congress, Administration Let Inmate Pell Grants Expire This Year?
The Higher Education Act of 1965 created the Pell Grant program, designed to help low-income students afford college; an amendment to that law in 1972 explicitly made inmates eligible to apply for Pell grants, now the federal government’s largest educational assistance program for college students. But a provision added by Congress to a 1994 crime…
Read MoreShould Prisoners Be Eligible for the Pell Grant?
By Christopher Zoukis The connection between education and the likelihood of prisoners returning to prison upon release is clear. According to various studies, prisoners who become educated stay crime-free in the community longer than those who don’t, and the higher the education received, the less the chance of recidivism. However, there is one major issue…
Read MoreFemale Prisoners Learn How to Code
By Christopher Zoukis Historically, careers in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math have been overwhelmingly held by men, but in recent years there has been a continued push to have women take notice of these careers as well. Known as STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics), these positions require higher education and advanced…
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