Lessons Learned & Recommendations from the College-in-Prison Reentry Initiative
Across New York State, the College-in-Prison (CIP) Reentry Initiative has helped state correctional facilities expand access to higher education within their prisons, serving hundreds of incarcerated students from 2017 to 2021. Through the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII), researchers assessed the lessons learned & recommendations from the program, including increasing cooperation among stakeholders and improving the physical spaces in which classes are held.
Decades of research point to the benefits of college in prison — including reduced re-incarceration and improved employment prospects following release. Even for those who remain incarcerated, these programs foster a sense of community and purpose that can lead to safer prison environments. Despite these well-documented benefits, the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 effectively closed off this pathway for the past three decades. This legislation revoked federal financial aid (known as Pell Grants) for incarcerated students. Many states, including New York State, followed suit by making these students ineligible for equivalent state financial aid programs. Within New York State, the total number of college-in-prison programs dropped from 25 to four.
Thankfully, the funding landscape for college-in-prison programming in New York State has improved in recent years.
Since 2016, the federal Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative has supported incarcerated students in at least 13 New York State prisons.[1]
The 2017 launch of the College-in-Prison Reentry (CIP) Initiative[2] invested $7.3 million in postsecondary education in New York State correctional settings as part of the Manhattan District Attorney’s Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII).[3] The CIP Initiative has substantially increased access to college education for individuals in DOCCS facilities.
The signing of the FAFSA (Free Application for Federal Student Aid) Simplification Act in December 2020 reverses the 1994 ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students, thereby making these funds available for college-in-prison programs to cover costs associated with providing postsecondary education. This new legislation is likely to substantially increase the number of students eligible to participate in college-in-prison programming as well as the number of programs themselves.
Renewed commitment to reinstate Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) eligibility for incarcerated students could further scale access to more two- and four-year programs; discussions to extend TAP eligibility to part-time students, and expanding early release opportunities for higher education enrollment, would further facilitate college credentials and aid reentry for people incarcerated in NYS prisons.
The partners behind the CIP Initiative, given its many achievements, are well positioned to offer practitioners recommendations for implementing college-in-prison programs. ISLG’s evaluation of the CIP Initiative has sought to better understand implementation of CIP by documenting the CIP model over time, including: how programs are established and how they operate in correctional facilities, the challenges programs experience and how they navigate those challenges, and the successes programs experience in achieving the aims of the Initiative. Additionally, the evaluation has assessed CIP’s efforts to implement statewide reforms related to curricular and instructor standards, transfer agreements, and reentry support, in order to inform college-in-prison efforts beyond this Initiative.
Drawing from its evaluation, ISLG provides recommendations in this brief that can help Education Providers (i.e., colleges and universities) consider how best to prepare for and carry out their missions to provide high quality postsecondary education to students in prison. These recommendations are grouped into three substantive areas and address to the following topics:
Coordination among Stakeholders
Buy-in among facility staff for college-in-prison programs
Coordination between corrections agencies and Providers around student eligibility requirements, planned transfer, and releases
Standardized application and enrollment processes across Providers
Systems and capacity to expedite the transfer of prior credits
Staffing resources to track performance and manage grant/reporting requirements
Data-sharing and security protocols
Quality of Instruction
Physical spaces and resources that are conducive to learning
Up-to-date library and college-level reading materials
Faculty-student relationships that mimic on-campus learning
Faculty recruitment and preparation for the realities of teaching in carceral settings
Academic preparedness among students
Student Reentry
Coordination and systematized reentry policies and practices between Providers and corrections
Practical reentry support
Coordination with postsecondary institutions to support re-enrollment after release
The future is a promising one as the forthcoming restoration of Pell Grant eligibility, and with it, the potential return of the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP), will allow programs to serve more students than ever before. College-in-prison programming is well positioned to increase access to high quality, post-secondary education for record numbers of historically underserved students, and as a result, can ameliorate longstanding inequities while simultaneously providing the foundation for greater public safety for the broader community.
For more on the Lessons Learned & Recommendations of the College-In-Prison Reentry Initiative, see this brief.
[1] The Second Chance Pell Initiative will be expanded for the 2022-23 academic award year such that it will allow an additional 69 colleges and universities to participate. This increases capacity from the current 131 institutions offering prison education to a maximum of 200. See: Gravely, A. (2021, August 2). ‘Best of Both Worlds.’ Inside Higher Education. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/08/02/second-chance-pell-will-be-expanded-2022-academic-year#.YXskmZqukLQ.link
[2] CJII was made possible through a partnership between Governor Andrew Cuomo, Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), and the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (ISLG).
[3] Seven Education Providers were funded vis-à-vis the CIP Initiative. These Providers are: Bard College, Cornell University, Medaille College, Mercy College, Mohawk Valley Community College, New York University, and SUNY Jefferson. The Institute for Justice and Opportunity (IJO) and the State University of New York (SUNY) were funded together to serve as Education and Reentry Coordinators.
Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash.