Prison Education Initiatives Face an Uncertain Future Amid Coronavirus Pandemic

For several weeks now, in the face of the rapid spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19), educational systems worldwide have been put on hiatus. Universities, schools, and learning centers at all levels around the world have canceled classes and evicted students after the release of emergency health warnings in their regions. The moving from face-to-face to online sessions has been the most viable alternative for many institutions. Although the shift to virtual platforms is a complex challenge in itself, this scenario is more so for those in a state of greater vulnerability. If to this context, we add the persistent stigma and indifference assigned to spaces such as educational programs in prisons, then the access to learning opportunities for those imprisoned becomes exceptionally uncertain.

Acknowledging these students in educational systems lost in the abyss, for which learning online is not an option, means recognizing a lack of empathy because of the social status that has been pre-assigned to them. Even with empathy, however, one particular obstacle facing these educational initiatives is the lack of data and resources available.

How do prison education initiatives in the United States and Mexico work?

Second Chance Pell, an educational program for prison systems in the United States and one of the few organizations in this field, estimates from available data that, of the 2.2 million people incarcerated, only about 11,000 are receiving some kind of education. For more than 20 years, Bard Prison Initiative, a program led by Bard College, has given hundreds of prisoners in the state of New York access to a college education at no cost. The documentary College Behind Bars follows several students in the program who combine classes and assignments in the middle of prison life. Directed by Lynn Novick, the documentary offers a glimpse into prison life and how the rigor and structure of education can help people survive their time in prison and then get ahead once they get out. “A friend of mine forced me into the [Bard College] program. It’s probably the kindest, most loving thing anyone has ever done for me,” confesses one of the inmates.

In Mexico, data becomes even more inaccessible, given the different structure in which it is established. According to the INEGI, of the 229,000 people deprived of liberty, only 11% are engaged in formal learning activities. It is important to note that in the United States, most jurisdictions do not have the mandate to support higher education in prisons. In Mexico, the budget allocated to this area is only 1%, which is five times lower than that intended for the purchase of electrical materials or lamps.

The benefits of access to educational opportunities in prison systems

Investing in futures examines the positive effects of improving access to educational opportunities at prisons. The study mentions that with greater access to education in penitentiary systems, previously imprisoned people would re-enter the labor market with competitive skills and qualifications, leading to higher employment rates and greater profits. Also, companies in expanding industries would subsequently have a larger group of potential job seekers. The study estimates that the state would save a large amount of money due to the lower recidivism rates that these programs of higher education would produce.

“Studying saved me from the abyss. It gave me the chance to excel.”

As an ideal example, we have Norway, with prisons that have areas of study, recreation, and open common spaces. It is no surprise that this country has the lowest rate of criminal recidivism in the world (20%), while in the U.S., 76% of people who leave prison return in the following five years.

“Authorities in the U.S. and UK perhaps should wonder what happened to the millions of dollars and sterling pounds that they have spent locking people up behind all those wires and walls,” says Eberhardt, prison director on Bastoey Island to BBC News. Likewise, the socialization aspect is an essential resource that face-to-face learning offers to students. The interaction with teachers and the information from the outside world build a healthy prototype that the individual is expected to maintain while in this stage of rehabilitation. Affirmations like the following say a lot about what results from these types of interpersonal relationships among incarcerated students:

“Before I came to this facility [jail], I had been in [federal prison] for so long that I forgot how to communicate with people from the outside. But being in the college program, I am getting used to it again by interacting with my instructors and [external] speakers that come in. Before, it was as if I had forgotten how to have a conversation where I am treated like a human. Interacting in discussions with teachers, who actually care about me, is socializing me to be at a point where I can talk to you today and feel comfortable,” comments a student for New America.

“There are many ways to escape from prison,” explains Ethel Flores Castillo for the Indigo Report, “but the best way I found to free myself inside the jail was reading and beginning a formal study process. Immersed in the textbooks, I tried not to feel like a prisoner; I tried to shout to the world, from my cell, that despite everything, there I was, that I was still alive, that I was hanging onto myself.” 

“We prisoners are murderers,” says Roberto Solís, from the Mil Cumbres prison in Morelia, Mexico, “because every day we wake up with the only purpose of killing time. We have no other purpose than to live day-to-day, and we find a thousand ways to do that, from putting ourselves into the swirl of our thoughts to pretending that we love each other, that we care about ourselves, and that we dedicate ourselves to study. In prison, we try to be what we didn’t do when free.” 

“Study saved me from the abyss,” says Félix Cerda. “It gave me the chance to excel. It removed me from the state of having a stigma.”

How are these educational programs responding to the COVID-19 pandemic?

Limitations on educational programs become even more evident amid the health crisis that we are experiencing. Internet access in most prisons in the United States is prohibited, so the use of this resource during this period is ruled out. In addition, all materials, such as texts, notebooks, or pens that are used during the sessions, must be approved by different committees at the beginning of the semester, leaving a minimum margin to add or change the structure of the courses in case of unexpected situations like this one. In Mexico, in addition to all these restrictions, we have other conditions present that further hinder the creation of solutions for the students. Mass incarceration is one of the major conflicts. In most of these centers, there are not enough spaces for sleeping, not to mention the thousands of cases of human rights violations in a penitentiary system that is continuously deteriorating.

All of these impediments, in conjunction with the COVID-19 epidemic, have resulted in that most of the educational programs in prisons have ceased giving classes. These sessions were abruptly stopped,
and the teachers had no opportunity to communicate with their students. Currently, many students are in the dark about when or if their classes will resume.

“For our students, coming to class is the highlight of their week because they get to engage and interact. My concern is that removing us from prisons will take away this opportunity.”

Some of the measures that individual prisons have taken include remote learning through correspondence. Still, because of the stipulated regulations, this has become a frustrating and quite slow process for most teachers. The materials and content, such as the readings and teaching exercises, must be packaged in individual envelopes and, being objects that come from outside the prison, must be kept quarantined for several days before being reviewed in minute detail and then, finally, delivered to the students.

On the other hand, in some installations with specific, more advanced technical configurations, synchronous sessions have been chosen via videoconferencing. This, even though it is the ideal scenario for these students, represents a significant loss in the progress of higher education within prisons. Eliminating what constitutes for the students the only type of human connection with which they have contact means a setback in the vital process of rehabilitation that should be followed by them.

“For our students, coming to class is the highlight of their week because they get to engage and interact. My concern is that removing us from prisons will take away this opportunity. And if this extends into months, it is going to have a serious impact on not just our students but also the culture of the facility. Having us come in weekly changes, not only the students but also the prison culture. But if this persists for months, I’m afraid the prison culture will change for the worst,” commented one of the professors for New America.

In addition, the redirecting of reading and educational plans to remote processes that are easier to manage for government institutions raises fears in the community that the way the programs respond in the current crisis will set a precedent for distance education in the future. The concern continues, given that for now, all the efforts directed to these communities are going toward prioritizing the alternatives that will have to be activated in the area of health services and contagion prevention right in these very vulnerable areas.

It is hoped that the disruption being experienced will open more doors to learning opportunities for this vulnerable population, to improve the distribution of education in prisons. Increased access to information and technological resources, the organization Ithaka SR says, would give programs much greater flexibility in the future and provide students with a richer and more equitable educational experience. At this time of crisis, it is an excellent opportunity for prison systems that do not have an established educational model to drive the search for proactive educational solutions for this part of our community.

Paulette Delgado

Share

This article from Observatory of the Institute for the Future of Education may be shared under the terms of the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0