They dress in uniforms, report for counts throughout the day and undergo constant surveillance. But when these incarcerated men and women enter the classroom, they are students in their professors’ eyes.
Universities across the country are realizing the benefits of prison education programs. As an institution in the state with the highest rate of correctional control, it is Emory’s duty to commit to furthering educational programming in prisons.
In the early 1990s, prison education programs were widespread, with almost 800 programs operating nationwide. By 1994, the education landscape in prisons looked a lot different. Armed with bipartisan support in Congress and riding a wave of tough-on-crime policies, former U.S. President Bill Clinton signed the 1994 crime bill into law. The legislation eliminated incarcerated individuals’ access to federal Pell grants, which are available to inmates who want to pursue a college-level education behind bars. In its wake, college-level educational programming in prisons has faded into obscurity. This needs to change, and quickly.
Prison education programs are conducive to safety and productivity in prisons. Wardens and correctional professionals alike note that postsecondary education programs improve the prison environment and reduce outbreaks of violence. The programs’ time commitment causes a reorientation of the students’ mentality; they focus on their life after prison and think in the long-term. By immersing themselves in their studies and working toward their degrees, students in prison are distracted from the day-to-day survival most inmates not enrolled in prison education experience.
Taxpayers, too, benefit from prison education programs. Half of the people who leave prison annually return within three years, but the U.S. Department of Justice has reported that incarcerated men and women with access to education are 43 percent less likely to commit another crime after they reenter society. This reduction in recidivism rates saves states $365 million per year on incarceration costs.
Instead of reentering the cycle of incarceration, education-program graduates enter the workforce and contribute to society. One study determined that formerly incarcerated individuals with an education behind bars are 13 percent more likely to find a job after leaving prison.
Lois Davis, the researcher who spearheaded the largest analysis of prison educational programming in the United States, articulated a defense for a rehabilitative approach to incarceration.
“Regardless of what you think about inmates, what do you want for your community?” Davis said in 2016. “You have to understand that they all come back eventually. If you don’t rehabilitate them, how are they going to successfully rejoin society?”
By Davis’s standards, Georgia is failing its prison population and its society.
In Georgia, only one program affords the 54,000 incarcerated individuals in state prisons the opportunity to pursue associate’s and bachelor’s degrees. The program, known as the Georgia State University Prison Education Project (GSUPEP), serves incarcerated men at four prisons in the state.
But incarcerated women aren’t part of the picture at GSUPEP. In fact, prison educational services in all 50 states operate in a higher proportion of men’s prisons than women’s prisons. The programs that do exist for incarcerated women, particularly in the South, uphold patriarchal gender norms; women enroll in culinary arts and parenting courses. Consequently, incarcerated women are deprived of the tools a prison education supplies, tools their male counterparts are equipped with upon their release from prison.
For what they’re worth, piecemeal efforts to increase educational attainment in prisons for men and women are taking shape. The educational organization Common Good Atlanta brings college faculty into prison classrooms to teach algebra, history, literature, neuroscience and writing courses. At the University of Georgia, the Athens Prison Tutorial provides prisons with tutoring services by pairing college students with incarcerated men seeking their GED.
At Emory, a handful of professors have volunteered with Common Good Atlanta. And pastoral students at the Candler School of Theology have assisted incarcerated women at Arrendale State Prison. But Emory could make more concrete and incremental steps to build a postsecondary education program in Georgia’s prisons, offering both associate’s and bachelor’s degrees to inmates.
With one of the largest endowments in the country, and more than $2 billion allocated toward University operations, now is the time for Emory to get to work and invest in prison education.
Daniel Meek (21C) is from Highland Park, Ill.
