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Nanette Shaw
(New York) Inmates who take college classes while in prison are four times more likely to remain out of prison once released, according to a groundbreaking study conducted by The Graduate Center of The City University of New York. Changing Minds: The Impact of College in a Maximum-Security Prison --- the first study to examine the impact of college in prison since government funding of such programs was withdrawn in 1994 --- shows that college prison programs can save taxpayers millions of dollars in reincarceration costs. The study is also the first to go beyond recidivism rates and qualitatively examine the effects of college on the women in prison and after release, on their children, and on the prison environment. Changing Minds was conducted at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility (BHCF), New York's only maximum-security women's prison. Reincarceration data were supplied by the New York State Department of Correctional Services (NYSDOC). The complete Changing Minds report is available under "research studies" at www.gc.cuny.edu/folio/index.htm. The most striking finding shows that only 7.7% of the inmates who took college courses at Bedford Hills returned to prison after release, while 29.9% of the inmates who did not participate in the college program were reincarcerated. Further, former inmates who attended college classes while in prison were dramatically less likely to violate parole (1.1%) than those who did not attend college classes while in prison (17.8%). The study calculates that the reduced reincarceration rate saves approximately $900,000 per 100 student prisoners over a two-year period. Projected onto the entire New York State prison population of more than 70,000, the savings in tax money of providing college courses to inmates statewide would be enormous. But the benefits go beyond tax savings, the report says. Utilizing in-depth interviews with current and former prisoners and their families, Changing Minds concludes that education heightens an inmate's sense of personal and social responsibility and promotes successful transition out of prison. "It made me take responsibility for my crime. 'I did it. I did it,'" said Tanisha, a 28-year-old graduate of the college prison program and mother of two who served eight years. "I always knew I did it, but that was followed by, 'because ...' and a whole bunch of names and excuses," she added. "But I know that I can't explain it away that way. Education allowed me to have my own mind and think for myself. So now I can recognize that it wasn't all those other people and things. It was me. I did it." Additionally, the report says that higher education inside alters the prison environment, rendering it safer, more manageable, and characterized by fewer disciplinary incidents. Interviews with prison administrators, correctional officers, women in prison, and college faculty confirm that the presence of a college program enables the prison to run more smoothly on a day-to-day basis. The need for educating inmates has been wholeheartedly endorsed by Janice Grieshaber, whose daughter's murder in 1997 led to the passage of "Jenna's Law" restricting parole for violent offenders. She currently serves as Executive Director of The Jenna Foundation for Non-Violence. "Educating the incarcerated is not an exercise in futility," she said, "nor is it a gift to the undeserving. It is a practical and necessary safeguard to insure that those who have found themselves without the proper resources to succeed have those needs met before they are released. We are not turning the other cheek to those who have hurt us. We are taking their hands and filling them with learning so that they can't strike us again." In 1994, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act made persons convicted of felonies ineligible for Pell grants, the needs-based federal tuition assistance for low-income persons. The prison education program accounted for only one-tenth of one percent of the entire Pell grant budget, but elimination of that crucial source of funding forced almost all 350 college prison programs across the nation to shut down. New York State, like most other states, soon withdrew public support for college prison programs. In advocating support for college in prison, Changing Minds does not argue that inmates deserve special treatment, only that all of society would benefit by allowing them access to educational resources available to everyone else. At Bedford Hills, college in prison was reintroduced in 1997 by a consortium of private colleges and universities, involved community members, the superintendent, and a dedicated inmate committee. Since 1997, there has been an annual graduating class with degrees conferred by Marymount Manhattan College. Area colleges and universities donate faculty time to teach the inmates. The study was directed by Professor Michelle Fine, who is on the faculties of the Ph.D. Programs in Psychology and in Urban Education and the Women's Studies Certificate Program at the CUNY Graduate Center. "Educating prisoners is significant and cost effective public policy," said Professor Fine. "Participation in college while in prison significantly reduces reincarceration rates and crime." The Changing Minds research team grew out of a Social Science Methods course taught at BHCF by two doctoral students working with Professor Fine: Rosemarie A. Roberts from The Graduate Center and Melissa Rivera from Harvard. A number of the inmates who took the class participated in the study as researchers, thereby applying what they learned in class about sociological research toward examining their own world. In addition to Professor Fine, the research team included Graduate Center doctoral students Maria Elena Torre, Rosmarie A. Roberts, and Debora Upegui; plus Kathy Boudin, Judith Clark, Donna Hylton, "Missy," and Pamela Smart, inmates at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility; and former Bedford Inmates Iris Bowen, who has since been transferred to Albion Correctional Facility, and Migdalia Martinez, who has been released. Changing Minds was funded by the Leslie Glass Foundation and the Open Society Institute. Funding was coordinated by the Center for Human Environments at The Graduate Center. The findings complement a four-year study just released by the U.S. DOE showing a 23% lower reincarceration rate among former inmates who participated in any educational program during their incarceration. The DOE study encompassed around 3200 inmates in correctional education programs operating in the states of Maryland, Minnesota, and Ohio. A copy of the DOE report can be obtained from the CEA website at ceanational.org or by sending an email to Steve Steurer at ceaoffice@aol.com. The Graduate Center is the doctorate-granting institution of The City University of New York. The only consortium of its kind in the nation, The Graduate Center draws its faculty of more than 1,600 members mainly from the CUNY senior colleges and cultural and scientific institutions throughout New York City. According to the most recent National Research Council report, more than a third of The Graduate Center's rated programs rank among the nation's top 20 at public and private institutions, nearly a quarter are among the top ten when compared to publicly supported institutions alone, and more than half are among the top five programs at publicly supported institutions in the northeast. Further information on The Graduate Center's programs and activities can be found on its website at www.gc.cuny.edu. |