By Buried Alive, a California prisoner
Not too long ago professors from the nation's colleges and universities made the intrepid sojourn into America's vast prison system to educate those of us who needed it the most. This was a different era, just before the heavy-and of justice came down on deviance like Inquisitors on heretics. Being an incarcerated undergraduate at the time, the very idea of canceling such a program seemed to fail every test of logic.
"The debate over barring inmates from receiving federal Pell educational grants baffles me. Howe is it that both sides of the political spectrum, apparently fervently opposed to crime, are considering discontinuing funds for a program that lowers the rate of repeat offenses," I wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on May 23, 1994.
In the name of public safety, the population wholeheartedly bought into the proposition draconian sentencing laws and a myriad of ruthless measures would sanitize society. It didn't work. Utopia couldn't be brutalized into being.
The Gulag
More than a decade later, with roughly 7 million people either locked-up or under some form of court-ordered supervision, the citizenry has lost faith in the $200 billion a year crime control industry. Because this "war-on-people" is an open-ended engagement with no exit strategy, unrestrained support for perpetual incarceration is no longer viable.
Here on the West Coast, the California Department of Corrections (CDC), the largest prison system in the country, exemplifies the American Gulag Archipelago with roughly half a million men, women, and children in or on prison, jail, parole and probation. For their dogmatic belief in the principles of internment, Californians are rewarded with astronomical rates of recidivism and malignant incompetence at all levels of the department.
The Schwarzenegger administration promises to restore the public's confidence in a prison system plagued by weak management and a powerful guard's union who are blamed for transforming the agency into a quagmire of dysfunction. The CDC is the epitome of the failed American prison experiment.
Pendulum
While the outlook on corrections is dismal, a recent development holds tremendous potential. Approximately 60 prisoners from California Correctional Center (CCC) and High Desert State Prison (HDSP) are the lucky participants in a ground-breaking program offered by Lassen Community College (LCC). Funded by Extended Opportunity Program and Services at LCC, these fortunate felons have embarked on a two-year pilgrimage to earn an AA degree in Liberal Arts.
One such inmate is 35 year old Thomas Wallen from Kern County. He proudly displays vocational certificates, bible college diplomas, and documentation of completing a number of self-help seminars. Despite all this, the potential to earn a college degree is an unexpected development.
"It's a wonderful thing to be given such an opportunity to further my education," Wallen said. "This program has given me a chance to truly seek rehabilitation."
In a volatile environment with an unconstitutional segregation policy the Supreme Court said exacerbates the violence, a diverse group of 29 students have come together at CCC. A member of this academic-collective is 30 year old Michael McDonald from LA. With his own exhaustive resume of institutional accomplishments, he understands the importance of this program.
"We're excited about the opportunity. We realize this is a rare occurrence, and very grateful for it," McDonald said.
Federal Pell Grants
During the civil rights movement, Congress passed the "Higher Education Act of 1965." Later named after the law's sponsor, Sen. Claiborne Pell, Pell Grants offered financial aid to those who could prove financial need -- this included prisoner.
Pell resulted in an academic migration into the nation's prisons. By 1973, 182 colleges participated in wide-range of prison programs. The last official count was conducted in '82, and roughly 350 institutions of higher learning took part.
While a number of studies marked the achievements of providing post-secondary education to prisoners, the statistics varied from source-to-source -- all of them excellent. A 20 year study reported 20 percent of those who earned an AA degree recidivated, compared to the national average of 70 percent. Even greater were the numbers when a prisoner received a BA degree or higher.
Despite a plethora of impressive data, tough-on-crime lawmakers viciously attacked PSCE. In the "Omnibus Crime Bill of 1994," a bi-partisan measure approved by President Clinton, prison college programs became the object of intense scrutiny.
"Pell grants were sold (to Congress) to help low- and middle-income families to send their kids to college," said Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, R-Texas, who in '94, led the fight against PSCE. "They were not sold for prison rehabilitation."
To justify slashing an effective crime fighting tool, the proponents of the heavy-hand advanced a false doctrine. Inmates were accused of taking educational opportunities away from law-abiding students. This wasn't true because Pell doesn't turn away anyone who qualifies. Furthermore, the program awarded $6.3 billion in aid to 4.3 million students, while only $35 million went to 30,000 inmates -- less than one percent of Pell's expenditures.
Even though providing higher education to inmates produced tangible results, warehousing and punishment, recidivist-friendly policies both, became the nation's official correctional methodology.
Post-Pell and the Palo Verde Model
The CDC used to offer an interesting array of college programs. Some consisted of a few classes, while others offered both Associates and Bachelors degrees. However, Congress's actions in '94 signaled the demise of PSCE. By the end of the '90s about a dozen colleges found a way to survive.
In San Quentin, Patten University (PU), a Christian College in Oakland, extended a privately-funded volunteer program. Beginning in '96 and recently coming to an end, PU awarded more than 40 AA degrees and maintained an enrollment of 200 students. Whereas Boston University's Prison Education Program offers a Bachelor of Liberal Studies to Massachusetts state prisoners, funded entirely by the university.
Down from a previous high of 350 colleges, these examples come from a very short list. However, at least in California, attempts to reduce crime by providing higher learning appears to be making a comeback.
With each passing week the students in the pilot PSCE program in the CCC and HDSP break new ground. However, this in-cell study concept, which uses few institutional resources, derives from what some correctional educations call the Palo vErde Model.
In 2001, Edward Alameida, then-Director of the CDC, who has since been fired for his role in a perjury cover up in Pelican Bay, allowed Palo Verde Community College to start instructing at Ironwood State Prison (IRP) in Blythe. Fifty-three inmates began in '01, and eventually 30 earned AA degrees in '03.
Since its inception, post-secondary education has spread like wildfire at ISP. The Palo Verde Model is a tremendous success. Hundreds are enrolled with an enormous waiting list. One of the prerequisites is a good behavior. This is a powerful penological tool for prison administrators with few behavioral-incentives at their disposal.
Moreover, the prison guard's union, a Machiavellian political force who generally fight anything that decreases recidivism and threatens job security, unsuccessfully lobbied against the program when it first started. Ironwood Warden James E. Hall, who is the program's most vociferous advocate, insisted the logical approach to public safety is educating prisoners.
"If someone who buys a house next to me happens to be an ex-felon, I'd rather have one who's college-educated and making something of himself," said Hall.
While the future of college programs remain experimental, Gov. Schwarzenegger's promise to reform corrections must include PSCE. Most of the governor's critics question how corrections can be rectified when he approved cuts of $95 million in education and drug programs from the agency's budget. Nonetheless, if CCC and HDSP manage to emulate ISP's achievements, the CDC might be able to break their spiral of uncontrolled recidivism and institutionalized ineptitude.
Immediate Impact
Deep in the mountains of northern California, on the mainline of CCC , one of 32 state prisons, the college program has made an immediate impact. Inmates discuss thesis statements and college curriculum as casually as their free-world counterparts. This elevated vernacular is a welcome relief from the usual rhetoric of the oppressed, distinguished by hopelessness and despair. Higher education provides a chance where none existed.
Whether the pendulum is actually swinging, or the methodologies are coming full circle, there's a metamorphosis taking place in the CDC. With mid-terms having come and gone in CCC, and an impressive 27 of the original 29 are still hanging tough, these would-be scholars are growing comfortable in their new skin. Every one of them have a new found sense of self.
"This is one of the best things to happen to me in my entire life," explained Wallen, who has consistently turned in above-average work.
I can see the changes taking place before my eyes. Education is power.