Unlocking Justice: The Potential of Pell Grants in Prisons

We are going to talk about experiences that happen inside the prison system , outside of prison systems . We will use language that might be offensive , but we intend to keep it real , and if that's not for you , we totally understand , but please do what's best for your listening ears .

So we'll be back with the Summer Legacy series for you again , starting next week . We've got great guests lineup . Next week you'll hear Jay Love's story , and we've got guests through August and part of September for you as a part of this series . So stay tuned for that . But this week is just kind of an abnormal one .

My voice has been absent for the last few weeks just as we kick off the series , and that's an intentional choice .

For my part , remy has asked me what interviews I want to be a part of , but those are his friendships and his relationships , and it doesn't feel appropriate for me , a person who doesn't have those relationships or trust or whatever put in place , to jump into this very vulnerable interview about what incarceration was like .

That's not my first-hand experience and I don't share memories with those individuals and I want them to feel that they can express what they want to express in their episodes , and so that's why I have stepped back a little bit in the Summer series . It's actually worked out really well for me .

As we've talked about pretty extensively , I'm in the middle of school , I'm working on my doctorate degree and I'm right at the beginning of the start of my candidacy exams , which means that I'm basically in a two-month-long test to decide if I am capable of conducting research .

I'm done with classes and now I'm moving into this next phase , but there is an exam right at the beginning of this phase , so it's actually worked out well . So I appreciate the notes and the texts and the emails that we've received that say hey , where's DJ ? We would love to have her back , those kinds of things .

I genuinely have so much gratitude for those notes . It's nice to hear and I'll be back . I'll be back in full , full swing , but that's the choice , I guess , from behind the scenes , so I'll pop in every now and again , and today is a great example .

So you are with me for the next , however long it takes me to tell you about this , but I'm really excited to kind of talk about this because it's breaking news , and so the topic of our discussion today will be Pell Grants , and Pell Grants are something that is pretty commonly talked about in terms of first-time students attending any four-year , two-year ,

what-have-you university right or college is hey , you may be Pell Grant eligible .

And typically what students hear is oh , I should go and fill out a FAFSA which stands for something about financial aid , I don't know and you go and fill that out and it'll tell you if you are eligible or not for a Pell Grant , which is generally determined based on financial ability to pay first-time student status , how many times you've had a Pell Grant

before , those kinds of factors .

But what you may or may not know is incarcerated individuals have not had that same eligibility for Pell Grants for the last 29 years since 1994 actually , and for the first time in July , incarcerated people , regardless of sentence type , length , conviction will regain eligibility for Pell Grants , which is a crucial , crucial step forward in terms of helping people in

prison who have not been eligible for federal need-based aid to now regain access to college education . So to kind of give this the full understanding , I'm going to do a little bit of a history deep dive and then tell you about what comes next , and you'll have to forgive the voice .

As Remy mentioned , the last several weeks he was fighting a cold and , as spouses do , he then gave it to me . So I'm only up swing at this point . But bits and pieces here and there you might hear that I'm clearing my throat a little bit . So my apologies , I don't have the editing expertise that Remy does . I'm basically a hit record .

Whatever comes out comes out , he's very good at kind of cutting out those pauses . It's going to be real raw today y'all . So what you get is what you get . So Pell Grants , let's talk about them .

Without Pell Grants just like I think , in most first time student worlds or a student who faced financial stress and stuff , most individuals couldn't go to college without a Pell Grant . That same thing holds true in incarceration .

Pell Grants are essential and before the passage of the 1994 crime bill there were more than 770 higher education programs nationwide in prison systems , which is amazing .

But among other provisions in the 1994 crime bill , that legislation stripped people in prison from the eligibility for federal need-based financial aid , which was the primary mechanism in which low-income students pay for college , and it encouraged states to enact longer prison terms and funded new state and federal prison constructions .

So the crime bill was not just a tough on crime kind of passage . It actually had really heavy implications for those who were facing convictions and incarceration . It stripped away a lot of rights . We have talked about the 1994 crime bill a bit on this podcast .

It's kind of one of my soapboxes so you can go back and listen to episodes like education in prison or private prisons , those kinds of things . We tend to dive into the behind-the-scenes component in those types of episodes . So if you're interested in more , go there .

But today I'm just going to kind of give you a brief history that leads to this specific component of the 1994 crime bill .

So , as I said , without Pell Grants most incarcerated folks could not afford post-secondary education and the law was rooted in crime policy that was prevalent in the 1980s and 90s as an ideological form of deterrence and incapacitation and retribution .

So this kind of came off of the cusp of the civil rights struggles of the previous decades , which led to many advances in employment and voting rights , housing other areas . Many consider the turn to tougher sentencing laws and reductions in rehabilitative services as a reaction to those gains .

Let that sink in that the civil rights era led to so many gains for people of color , of course , right and other marginalized communities that people in power felt like that was too much and so , as a result , we turned to tougher laws , tougher sentencing , widened what was considered illegal , particularly in drug usage and those kinds of things , just to kind of

counter those gains . The consequences for people of color , of course , were disproportionate and severe , the amount you know .

I have to pause myself because I could get on a really big soapbox here . Y'all have heard it . I care very deeply about the number of which we disproportionately incarcerate black and brown individuals in comparison to white individuals for lesser crimes . The evidence is astounding . But this is when it all kind of came to a head was the 1994 crime bill .

Now , a number of states had already reduced services in prison at this point . But , following the federal government , some states also restricted public funding to adult basic education and or vocational training programs in prison , which limited funds for other kinds of programming and correctional facilities .

So as the century began , this tough on crime era resounded throughout the country and crime rates started declining in the early 2000s .

But from 1970 to 2008 , the number of people behind bars had increased 700 percent , which reached a completely unprecedented unprecedented , my goodness 2.3 million people accounting for one in every 100 adults in the US , and we all know , then , what happened in 2008, .

Right , the recession hit and it was the deepest in nearly 70 years which led to shrinking state revenues . Because criminal justice was not immune to that recession no industry was and threw into a stark relief the enormous cost of what it takes to operate correctional institutions to house populations . They weren't intentionally created to house .

So , as we've discussed and as you may or may not know , basically facilities were created to hold a specific amount of people , but as this tough on crime era kind of expanded and this population grew as I mentioned , 700 percent facilities were forced to figure out ways to house more and more people , even though it wasn't designed to do so .

So , infrastructure wise , overhead wise , hiring wise , housing wise and safety wise , these institutions weren't meant for that , yet they continued to pile people in , basically , and there was just so much wrong with all of that , and 2008 pretty much kind of made that very glaring to the public .

So policy makers then connected with researchers and practitioners at that point to develop some interventions to reduce recidivism . That was then the big focus after the 2008 era was how do we reduce recidivism ? So that's when a lot of our departments changed their names .

Here in Ohio we have the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction , right , so there is now a focus on rehabilitation . I would argue in 2023 that most of our rehabilitative and corrections departments focus much more on punishment still than they do on rehabilitation .

But this effort started around 2010-ish , after the recession hit heavily , because they realized these spaces weren't meant to hold the people that they were holding and they didn't have the infrastructure in place to sustainably make any of that work . So they wanted to fix future arrests and convictions that would return people to prison after they'd been released .

So there was a lot of work to join researchers to say , okay , okay , tough on crime maybe is not the way to go . What evidence-based pieces do you have to help us fix this ? The significance of this move to evidence-based approaches is really big because it came after 40 years of policymaking and prison operations based on the quote . Nothing works .

End quote findings of 1970s sociologist Robert Martinson and others . This is a flawed kind of policy trend . It's kind of one of those things where it's an anomaly of a study but everybody for some reason , latches on to it and it becomes law . Right ?

I just read this , I'm going to put this in here and it maybe is not the best parallel because it comes from the medical community , but I just read this article last night when I couldn't sleep , so it's fresh in my mind . We have this mentality in the medical community labor and delivery that women shouldn't be able to have anything by mouth .

Npo is the acronym for that , for nothing by mouth . I'm not sure why it's NPO somebody from the medical community chime in but nothing by mouth during labor , because there is a chance of aspiration . That all comes from a study that was done several decades ago again , with not a lot of updated things to it , that we continue to latch on to that .

0.15% of the 45,000 women in that study who gave birth aspirated . 0.15% of 45,000 women . It's very , very small , but because there is a chance of aspiration . The recommendations of that researcher were we can prevent this by only giving fluids intravenously and not letting women eat during labor .

But tons of studies have been done since then that say that women who are low risk should have the ability to drink some clear liquids and eat smart food under the care of a dietitian right who was also in the hospital .

All of these studies have been done to counteract that and yet that's the one we still hold on to and so it's still common practice in the medical community . This to me feels the same , and that Martinsen had this thought that nothing worked to rehabilitate . He basically posited that nothing could be done to reduce recidivism among people leaving prison .

If they were going to offend , they were going to re-offend . It was really the mentality was once a criminal , always a criminal .

And because that was the mentality , even though tons and tons of studies and research groups and think tanks and scholars and just you know people I mean look at Remy's story , people who can go to prison and then come home and lead these very huge lives were doing an entire legacy series this summer on exactly that right .

So these first hand accounts also exist to coincide with evidence based research . Yet it wasn't enough to counteract this 1970 sociologist study , and so that policy trend also supported myopic focus on reducing corrections costs by cutting programming and otherwise enhancing the punitive nature of the incarceration and maximizing its dehumanizing effects . This is quite evident .

We talked about how we're just kind of packing people in , but kind of on the cusp of this understanding from Martinsen incarceration systems , policymakers who control those things , people who hold the dollars for the criminal justice system . All said well , if nothing works , why are we spending money on it ? Why would we have programming ?

Why would we offer these basic needs like deodorant and all these just things that we force incarcerated folks to buy ? Because if nothing's gonna work , then what's the point ? What are we spending money on , especially taxpayer dollars , right ?

So in recent years , at least 35 states have passed laws and many more have adopted practices that build on evidence about effective interventions , research reestablishing that people in prison and on supervision are capable of futures that look very , very different than their pasts . That's why we wanted to try to do this legacy series .

We know we have focused heavily on the punitive nature of the justice system at this point in the podcast , but we really wanted to highlight the change that can happen in the directions that people's lives can go , and when we forget to focus on hope , we lose hope .

When we forget to recognize that everybody changes , then we kind of tell people what they can and can't be .

This comes up a lot and work that I do , and I'm sure I've said this quote before , but you know there's a scholar out there named Stuart Ablon and he has this kind of mentality with kids about collaborative problem solving and I'm not going to get into that .

But he says this one quote in his TED Talk where he says if you call a dog a name , long enough it will come to it , and that always sticks with me and resonates with me . If we tell people what they are capable of and what they can be , that's all , they will become right , because they don't see another option .

When we continue to call them by whatever name , that is right . If we tell them they can't change , then they don't think that they can .

So , as correction agencies have reshaped their practices in response to this evidence , a consensus has emerged that education should be a part of this forward-looking approach . If we really are focusing on reducing recidivism , then we have to get rid of punitive thought processes . We have to get rid of calling dogs by a specific name .

We have to accept that people can change and we need to see their potential rather than tell them what their potential is . But you know , in kind of thinking back to education , the first time that these programs were shut down as a result of the 94 crime bill was 1997 .

And there were only a limited amount at the beginning , right 770 , I think , is the number that I gave you at the top . It's a crucial note to know here that at 1997 , only eight remained . So it was a devastating blow to incarcerated folks , and one that also has impacted families , communities and the society at large .

More than 95% of people in prison return comb , which is great . But college education makes it more likely that they're going to secure a well-paying job , they're going to build a stable livelihood and it's going to reduce the odds that they'll return to prison if they have those stability pieces in place .

Access to education in prison lowers the odds of recidivism by 43% and increases the likelihood of employment by 13% . That benefits all of us . I , you know , can't begin to tell you , if we were to take this to the bottom line right Of the economy , that every dollar invested in post-secondary education in prisons yields five dollars in taxpayer savings .

Every dollar invested yields five dollars in taxpayer savings from reduced incarceration costs , and lower incarceration rates can cut the cost of state prison spending by about $365 million every year . Those are really big numbers that we can't continue to turn away from .

Research shows us that , when it's done right , access to education for those behind bars makes communities safer , it saves money and it offers additional benefits . So we estimate that about 610,000 people return to their community from state and federal prisons every year .

That number comes to us from the Vera Institute and with 610,000 people re-entering our workforce and our society every year , we would love for them to be able to then contribute right . The wealth of evidence to support college and prison has led to sustained bipartisan cooperation at all levels of the government .

If you are into politics at all , and even if you aren't into politics , you know that there is a heavy , heavy , heavy partisanship that exists , and so when you have something that is bipartisan , you know that that's important . When people on both sides of that fence are willing to come together at state , local and federal levels , that's a really big deal .

So this policy change is the result of joint efforts , of a lot of programming and think tanks and researchers throughout the last 29 years to kind of figure this out , and I will make sure that we link a kind of this packet . I guess I would call it a packet . It's really long .

It's a report that does come from the Vera Institute , from the Pathways from Prison to Post-Secondary Education Initiative that they started as a result of the 1994 crime bill to try to push for this reinstatement and they call it the second chance Pell .

So the second chance Pell Experimental kind of initiative was prelude to the complete reinstatement that we're seeing now in 2023 . And in the program's first years the first six years to be exact more than 40,000 students enrolled in post-secondary education at 200 participating colleges . Most of the programs had really long wait lists , which showed that people wanted it .

I mean , they wanted this education . And Now they are among the more than 760,000 incarcerated people who are set to become eligible now that the Pell Grant ban is lifted , to make good on the victory of the Pell Re-In statement .

We have to continue to commit to pushing this forward because while the Biden administration's Department of Education has taken really important steps to prepare for this Re-In statement , there's really a long way to go .

Thinking about the Federal Bureau of Prisons , which we have talked about to you on this podcast before , you should know that they are working really hard at expanding college in prison , but it's been a really disappointing working really hard .

They're the largest network of prisons in the country and currently just 12 of their 122 facilities provide access to Second Chance Pell and only 14 colleges offer post-secondary education programs for those students . So it's one thing to create legislation that lifts the ban .

It's another that we then implement it , because without a plan for programming , it continues to be underrepresented in this opportunity and thousands will be denied the chance to earn a degree because of lack of implementation , lack of infrastructure , lack of programming and curriculum .

So this inaction doesn't just shortchange the people who can enroll , it costs families , it costs communities , it costs employers and taxpayers across the board who would otherwise be benefiting from more people using their education to secure employment and contributing to the community .

Thinking about the state level , so that was the federal Bureau of Prisons , so let's move to the state . Only 10 state corrections departments have issued applications to invite colleges to teach in prisons under the new regulation . Other states need to act to expand the number and type of colleges , given the program's proven benefits .

Planning and executing a plan to recruit colleges often requires a lot of forefront coordination , but everyday states delay the release of their applications and it marks another day that colleges can't launch programs . So essentially , the states are holding the opportunity and while colleges feel ready . So in the state of Ohio we have Ashland University , ohio University .

There are others , but those are two of the really big ones that have programming within prisons in Ohio and they can't expand what they're offering until the state releases those applications , because colleges have to apply . They have to .

It's kind of like writing a proposal for a grant right , you have to show that you can use those dollars in a way that makes sense . So it's kind of like trying to get a loan for a business or lots of other things . You have to apply and you can't apply if the application isn't open .

So it's really in the hands of the state at this point to provide the opportunity . But colleges are ready . I was just having a conversation , let's see , yesterday Time is very relative as a concept , y'all .

I was just having a conversation yesterday about this with somebody from one of the universities here in central Ohio , one of the colleges here in central Ohio , and we were talking about that .

They have wanted to put learning opportunities in prison systems close by for years , for years , but they've been unable to do so because they can't demonstrate that they have the funding to make that happen , because they would have to encumber a lot of those funds to put students through it , because Pell grants weren't an option .

So now that this ban has been taken away , as of July , they're ready . They've had a proposal ready for years . They just couldn't figure out the dollars to make it work . But until the state says they can apply , they're kind of just sitting on it and they were really hoping that the states would enact on it a little bit sooner .

Sorry , states would act on it a little bit sooner because they were hoping to have students by the fall , as fall semester is coming up here in just a month and a half .

They were really , really hoping to have a first class of students and they had different levels to this proposal in which students , scholars , basically from prisons could come on site , supervise and , of course , through whatever rules that the prison has in place , but similar to kind of day programming , where they would get to leave the facility during the day for

these specific work hours . They're considering education like work . So they've been really excited about this for years , for years , and have a thorough and well thought through proposal , and yet there's nowhere to put it because states continue to delay , because they don't see how the implementation is going to work .

So it's really important that we continue to push this conversation forward , and it includes figuring out how academic advising is going to work and career counseling and financial aid services , and all of those are really cumbersome efforts . But again , main college canvases are ready . They are making every effort to support formerly incarcerated students .

So the Biden administration has something called the beyond the box guidance , which offers recommendations like refraining from collecting criminal legal information in admissions , accommodating parole and probation requirements and proactively offering support for securing housing , including on campus , food , employment and mental health services and financial aid . And so I love that .

I love this concept . I love this idea of really not making it a separate kind of consideration where , yes , you're going to college but it's not the same , but creating this quote beyond the box and quote experience where individuals can have a similar college experience while they're figuring out their time .

So , despite holes in implementation , we are seeing some encouraging signs . I did a little bit of research around who has done what in preparation for the band lift , because we kind of knew it was coming . We saw that it was in the various stages for a minute now . Really exciting that it came out this soon .

But states have worked at trying to reverse some of these things . State legislators have introduced innovative measures like in Colorado , some incarcerated people who pursue an education can reduce their prison sentences so they can use that time similar to like a good days type of spectrum .

And then , following recent successes in New Jersey and Michigan , oklahoma is considering a law to grant people in prison access to state financial aid , separate of the Pell Grant system , which is really cool that that worked in New Jersey and so Michigan replicated it . Now Oklahoma is doing the same . That's a noteworthy kind of collaboration as well .

Speaking of collaboration , tennessee , colorado and Georgia are among a handful of states with consortia made up of colleges , formerly incarcerated people , corrections departments and reentry organizations that work together to support incarcerated people as they enrich their role in college , complete the degrees and secure jobs .

That is a real , equitable and sustainable change with far reaching positive public safety implications . So together those states are working to create this from beginning to end type of experience and helping see people through that , which I think is incredible .

So those are some huge signs of hope that I wanted to kind of leave us off on as we kind of wrap up in talking about this . Just to conclude , reinstating Pell Grants behind bars . It upholds human dignity , I mean bottom line sure . It creates safer , stronger communities . Yes , it saves taxpayer dollars and all of these other things .

But thinking about just the individual , human level , we are providing people with an opportunity that they deserve . They deserve to illustrate change . They deserve to have the opportunity to show it . They deserve the human dignity to move that forward .

So we owe this we owe this to incarcerated folks , to ourselves , to the futures of the communities that we share to demand from our public leaders to work urgently to remove barriers and actually put implementation plans in place that develop infrastructure necessary to support these ambitious goals .

It's a really proud moment , right , it's a proud moment that we're here after 29 years , but there's still a lot to do to make sure that we provide high quality post-secondary education to folks who need it and deserve it , and give them additional support they need in completing those programs so that they can thrive when they come home .

Thanks for letting me talk about that . Before we leave today , I want to make sure that I give you some recommendations . This comes up sometimes in our emails of what would you recommend that I read next , or what are some I can't get enough . I want more . Who should I listen to ?

So put together a little bit of a what to read , what to listen to , what to watch type of a list here , and so hopefully you find some stuff in here that is helpful to you and is what you need . So I have already recommended American Prison by Shane Bauer .

This is a 2014 book where Shane Bauer , who is an investigative journalist , is hired to work at a private prison in Louisiana and then he writes this expose for Mother Jones , and while the book talks mostly about his experience , it also does some dives into history for for-profit prisons in the US and their roots in slavery .

So highly recommend it's a great book .

Also going to recommend All Our Trials , prisons , policing and the Feminist Fight to End Violence by Emily L Thuma . This book is about women's activists who fought gender violence and incarceration inside and outside of prisons .

It is a really great intersection of feminism and racial and economic justice , so if you're interested in that , I highly highly recommend that book .

Also going to recommend the Condemnation of Blackness , race Crime and Making of Modern Urban America by Khalil Gibram Mohamed , and so they are a professor of history , race and public policy at Harvard and also on the Vera board , so this is a biography of the idea of black criminality , revealing the influence of how pervasive this is in our society .

Lastly , I'm going to recommend the New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Color Blindness . It is a main staple in the area of criminal justice . So this is by Michelle Alexander . It is a really great book .

Michelle is a civil rights attorney and activist who talks about how mass incarceration has taken the place , basically , of legal discrimination and is using it as a tool to control people , specifically black people , and denying their rights . So it's a really great book .

The quote in it that I love the most is when she says we have not ended racial caste in America , we have merely redesigned it . It is a huge eye-opener . So that's the one I'm going to recommend , and I said that was going to be the last , but another one just came to my head . That one is called Accompany and it is by Javier Zamora .

Javier Zamora , I had to think about that one . This is a book of poems that I stumbled across recently that I've really , really enjoyed , and Zamora narrates the experiences of migrating from El Salvador to the US at the age of like nine , to be reunited with his parents .

So he makes the journey by himself and he then experiences that in a way through poetry , in this memoir style . It's really , really cool . In the what to Watch section , I've set up four . I'm going to say it again Thirteenth is the best documentary I have ever seen in my life .

It talks about the Thirteenth Amendment that outlawed slavery except as a punishment for crime . It is so well done . It talks about this loophole , about mass incarceration and the big prison boom . It's a really , really good one .

I have also recommended Just Mercy , which is the dramatization of the true story of Brian Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative , who helped win the freedom for Walter McMillan McMillan , I'm sorry who was on death row in Alabama for a murder he did not commit . Also going to recommend when they See Us .

This is a drama based on the true story of the Central Park Five , which are five teens from Harlem who were wrongly accused and convicted of the brutal attack of a jogger in Central Park . They were all exonerated in 2014 . Really really good one as well .

And lastly , I'm going to do I'm going to recommend the Night Of , and this is a dramatic miniseries that illustrates the workings of New York City's criminal legal system through the story of a young Pakistani-American man who is accused of murder . Now in the what to listen to podcasts are the bomb y'all .

And we are not the only folks in the criminal justice arena . We have talked about Ear Hustle on this podcast before . They also do this from the stories of those who have experienced it kind of mentality , but they do interviews on the inside as well .

So it talks about prison life , but from those who are currently living it , not just those who have come home . Also going to recommend Decarceration Nation this is Joshua B Ho's podcast and it talks about radically reimagining the US criminal legal system in a hope to deliver justice .

And I'm also going to recommend Core Civic Unlocking the Truth Calling Bullshit podcast .

This podcast discusses private prisons , specifically Core Civic , the private prison company , and it was created during the war on crime and war on drugs that we just started talking about at the beginning of this episode , when the US didn't have enough prisons to hold the people that were being sentenced to incarceration .

And so now it's a $1.8 billion in revenue a year . Business sketchy . And then Money Bale Freedom for Sale is a podcast about how the Money Bale system in the US has crushed the poor and pressures potentially innocent people to confess for crimes they didn't commit . So those are some of the recommendations .

Hopefully that gave you some spaces to branch out and hear what other folks are saying if you want more information about this system . So that was our episode today . Thank you for hanging out with me and only me this week .

Remy's gonna be back next week with the amazing tale of J Love , a hugely inspirational episode that I'm looking forward for you all to hear . With that being said , I'm gonna sign off and thank you all again for listening . Thank you for continuing to show up and hear us every day . It's every week . It's been great to see this podcast grow .

We only continue to hope to change minds , change paradigm shift , open perspectives and see this system change for the better , and with that I'm

out Bye . The Lockdown to Legacy podcast is proud to be a part of the Buzzsprout podcast community network . Lockdown to Legacy is recorded at Kohatch in their lovely audio file room . Thanks for your scholarship . Audio engineering is done by our very own Remy Jones .

You can reach us with any feedback , questions , comments or share the love by emailing stories at lockdown , the number two legacycom stories at lockdowntoolegacycom . You can reach out there too for a free sticker , and you can find us on Instagram and Twitter with the handle at lockdown to legacy and on Facebook at the lockdown to legacy podcast .

Thanks for listening .