How Does College in Prison Impact Safety and Employment in New York State?
By Pavithra Nagarajan, Senior Research Associate, and Neal Palmer, Research Project Director
Early findings from an outcome evaluation of the College-in-Prison Reentry Initiative demonstrate that students who participated in CIP had 66 percent lower risk of reconviction following release.
A wealth of research nationally underscores the benefits of college in prison – including reduced reconviction and reincarceration, improved employment outcomes and overall public safety.[1] Even for those who remain incarcerated, college-in-prison programs can contribute to a greater sense of community, purpose, and increased safety in prison environments.[2]
Despite the benefits, demand for these programs far outpaces the availability of programming and the capacity of institutions to meet student needs.[3] Much of this gap stems from decades-long bans on financial assistance such as Pell Grants and the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) for incarcerated individuals; in the 1990s, before the prohibitions, New York State (NYS), offered 70 higher education programs across its prisons. After the loss of Pell and TAP funds, the number of programs across NYS dropped to just four. [4]
In 2017, the Criminal Justice Investment Initiative (CJII)[5] launched the College-in-Prison Reentry Initiative (CIP) to expand access to postsecondary programs across NYS.[6] From its inception through 2022, CIP invested $7.3 million in postsecondary education in NYS correctional settings, ultimately serving 931 students from seven higher education institutions and in 17 prisons statewide. CUNY ISLG managed the Initiative while concurrently conducting a process evaluation of it, with its final report forthcoming this winter.
See more about the Goals & Achievements and initial Lessons Learned in our Smart Investment for New York series.
The Vera Institute of Justice is conducting an outcome evaluation of CIP to assess the benefits of college-in-prison participation for NYS students who were enrolled in the expanded programming across the state. The initial findings of this evaluation are presented in Vera’s report The Impacts of College-in-Prison Participation on Safety and Employment in New York State.[7] After adjusting for compositional differences between participating students and a comparison group, Vera assessed the impact of participation in associate and bachelor degree programs on the following key outcomes: reconviction, in-facility behavior (i.e., misconduct incidents), employment, and income after release.[8] [9]
From its inception through 2022, CIP invested $7.3 million in postsecondary education in NYS correctional settings, ultimately serving 931 students from seven higher education institutions and in 17 prisons statewide.
Key findings of Vera’s outcome evaluation:
Reconviction
Participation in CIP significantly reduced the risk of reconviction for a new offense following release by two thirds, or 66 percent. Specifically, students who participated in CIP had lower risk of reconviction following release at both six months and 12 months. In line with previous findings, most new convictions for the sample occurred within the first six months of release.[10]
In-facility Misconducts
There were no statistically significant differences in misconduct counts between CIP students and non-students—a finding contrary to the existing literature on the effects of prison education programs.[11] Notably, the eligibility criteria that prohibited individuals with many recent misconduct violations[12] from participation in CIP may not have allowed for further reductions in misconducts, as students (and comparable non-students), on average, had few, if any, misconducts prior to enrollment.
Employment and wages
Students experienced a 30 percent lower probability of obtaining formal employment within six months after release, when compared to non-students. This finding is contrary to most existing literature. No significant difference, however, was found in employment rates between students and non-students at one year following release. It is possible that the lower probability of initial employment could be due to students deferring their job search to complete their education, although this was not possible to examine with the available data. It is also possible that if students were more likely than non-students to be self-employed, these employment rates would be underestimated given that self-employment data are not reported by the Department of Labor. In addition, despite similar employment rates at the first year post-release, students earned nearly $3,900 less in total wages when compared to non-students over the same period. These findings may have been further affected by the lack of available pre-incarceration employment and wage data, which may have led to poor matching between students and non-students in the analysis, potentially biasing the results of this study.
Vera’s final outcome evaluation report, expected in the second half of 2024, will elaborate on and extend the analyses of the impact of college-in-prison participation on in-facility behavior, reconviction, reincarceration, employment, and wages. The final report will include updated analyses for students and comparable non-students for the entire period of implementation. Lastly, the final outcome evaluation report will also include an analysis of the costs of the program relative to its benefits.
For more on The Impacts of College-in-Prison Participation on Safety and Employment in New York State, see the Vera Institute of Justice’s full report, executive summary, and fact sheet.
[1] Bozick, R., Steele, J., Davis, L., & Turner, S., “Does providing inmates with education improve post release outcomes? A meta-analysis of correctional education programs in the United States,” Journal of Experimental Criminology, 14 (2018): 389-428.
[2] Pompoco, A., Wooldredge, J., Lugo, M., Sullivan, C., & Latessa, E. J., “Reducing inmate misconduct and prison returns with facility education programs,” Criminology & Public Policy, 16, no. 2 (May 2017): 515–547. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12290
[3] Avey, H., Farhang, L., Purciel-Hill, M., Santiago, F., Simon-Ortiz, S., & Gilhuly, K, Turning on the TAP: How Returning Access to Tuition Assistance for Incarcerated People Improves the Health of New Yorkers (Oakland, California: Human Impact Partners, 2015), https://humanimpact.org/hipprojects/turnonthetapny/.
[4] Jacobs, A. & Bond, M, Mapping the landscape of higher education in New York State Prisons (New York: Prisoner Reentry Institute, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, 2019), https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED594766.pdf.
[5] CJII was made possible through a partnership between Governor Andrew Cuomo, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), and the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance (CUNY ISLG).
[6] CIP funded seven Education Providers (Bard College, Cornell University, Medaille, College, Mercy College, Mohawk Valley Community College, New York University, and SUNY Jefferson) to begin or expand programs throughout NYS facilities. CIP additionally funded the Institute for Justice and Opportunity at John Jay College and the State University of New York (SUNY) to serve as the joint Education and Reentry Coordinator of the Initiative.
[7] For full list of data sources and methods, please refer to Vera’s full report.
[8] Data used in this report were obtained from: the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS), the New York Department of Labor (DOL), and from the seven Education Providers.
[9] Using propensity score matching and regression analysis,, Vera compared these outcomes for CJII-funded students and comparable non-students, covering their eligibility[9] for CJII-funded education, employment and wages, and criminal legal system history
[10] Previous findings support that reconviction tends to occur, if at all, soon after release. See Baumann, G., Vegetabile, B. G., Remi, L., Kalra, N., & Bushway, S. D. (2022). Also, Durose, M. R., & Antenangeli, L. (2021). Recidivism of prisoners released in 34 states in 2012: A 5-year follow-up period (2012–2017). Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics
[11] Amanda Pompoco, John Wooldredge, Melissa Lugo, et al., “Reducing Inmate Misconduct and Prison Returns with Facility Education Programs,” Criminology and Public Policy 16, no. 2 (2017): 515–547, 541, https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12290
[12] To qualify for CIP, students were required to meet the following criteria: (1) be between 1.5 – 5.5 years from their estimated time of release (ERD) at the time of initial enrollment; (2) have completed a high school degree (or equivalency), but not yet obtained a college degree; and (3) have been free of any Tier II or Tier III misconduct for the past 6 and 12 months prior to enrollment, respectively.
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