Resource Community Higher Education in Prison

Ithaka S+R designed a playbook to help correctional education leaders center student learning as they navigate the education technology landscape. The guide, created with support from Ascendium Education Group and in dialogue with several correctional education leaders, provides decision-making tools and frameworks to assist leaders as they consider how to implement new education technology in prisons. 

The playbook includes:

• A framework to help correctional leaders clarify goals and objectives for implementing education technology
• A downloadable set of tools and interactive exercises to guide strategy and strategically plan decision making
• Considerations about the benefits and drawbacks of using different technologies for education
• Ranges of technical specifications to help leaders compare devices

Our aim with the playbook is to provide strategies and approaches that will make it easier to incorporate new education technology to improve educational outcomes, educational equity, and student educational experiences. While the playbook was designed with correctional leaders in mind, we hope it will be of broader value to the higher education in prison field.

While end-of-course surveys are standard in most colleges and universities, they’re often designed for traditional students and overlook the unique needs of incarcerated students and the educators who serve them. This guide bridges that gap, offering evaluation questions tailored to the prison education context. Developed with input from students enrolled in prison education programs, it’s a tool to help ensure course evaluations are both meaningful and relevant. 

This guide was developed in collaboration between the Formerly Incarcerated College Graduates Network and Doug Walcerz, the Provost and Vice President of Academic and Student Affairs at Lee College. 

On 9/30/2024 Ithaka S+R released a new research report exploring how colleges and community organizations partner to provide reentry services. 

The following text was posted on the Ithaka S+R blog to announce publication.

When revised federal Pell Grant regulations went into effect in July of 2023, one of the provisions stipulated that college in prison programs would be obliged to document how they provide reentry services or what organization(s) they partner with to do so. Ithaka S+R’s new report, Exploring the Landscape of College and Community Reentry Partnerships, examines how colleges and community organizations can best partner to deliver effective services for reintegrating students. This report represents the first findings from a multi-year project made possible with funding from ECMC Foundation.

Because there is a large body of scholarship on reentry needs and services, and it can be overwhelming to find a point of entry, we’ve designed this report to help professionals working in colleges, universities, and postsecondary education in prison programs begin to navigate the space. The report provides key takeaways from existing research and highlights from case studies of how postsecondary institutions serve their reintegrating and formerly incarcerated students.

The report also briefly highlights some of the ways that reentry programming and student basic needs programming overlap, an issue that will be important to consider in future research. Moreover, colleges and universities that serve, or plan to serve, substantial populations of nontraditional students would do well to consider whether their programs are designed and staff are trained to reach and serve students impacted by the criminal legal system.

Below we offer key findings. See the full report to explore case studies of the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons, Emerson Prison Initiative, Washington University in St. Louis Prison Education Project, and the College Gateway Program at Red Rocks Community College.

Key Findings

• The field of providers serving the needs of returning citizens is at once large and disaggregated.
• Contextual factors such as education, and employment; family and social support networks; state, local, and charitable service and program offerings; and college support services all influence individual reintegration needs and priorities.
• Reintegration needs, therefore, must be individually assessed and prioritized for each student on a case by case basis.
• Colleges employ a variety of partnership structures and service coordination strategies to ensure that reintegrating students have their needs met. While there is no one-size-fits-all solution, it is clear that cross-departmental and cross-organizational collaboration—both within and beyond the university—communication, and coordination are important to aid successful transition to college on the outside.

The Office of Correctional Education was created through an Act of Congress in 1991 to oversee and coordinate prison education programs as a way to reduce recidivism (Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act, 1990). However, correctional education completion rates are extremely low. Therefore, we used secondary data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey to show that students in prison would benefit from developmental and student supports. Survey data represented 1,319 prisoners and 8,670 from the household population. We used descriptive analysis, chi-square tests, and Welch’s t-tests to analyze survey data. We conclude that those in the prison sample had a greater potential need for student support programs than the household sample and would benefit from increased developmental and student supports.

Full article available as an attachment. 

This research paper examines the development and administration of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, an in-prison college program run and staffed primarily by its own formerly incarcerated graduates. This paper also explores the impact of lived experience on managing and teaching in the program, as well as strategies for academic partners looking to best support interventions led by those who are closest to the problem and, in turn, closest to the solution.

The State University of New York's (SUNY) annual newsletter that details SUNY HEP programs and degrees, an interview with Chancellor John King Jr., graduation highlights, and alumni and faculty highlights. 

"Perspectives on Higher Education in Prison," a series of essays from the State University of New York (SUNY), showcases the stories of SUNY students and others connected to higher education in prison—stories that inspire, challenge, and enrich their communities. By sharing these lived experiences, SUNY aims to illuminate the broader significance of prison education programs and garner the support needed to expand SUNY's exceptional offerings, ensuring equitable access to higher education for all incarcerated individuals.

This research report offers findings to guide discussions with program administrators, faculty, and formerly incarcerated students on how to improve student access, curriculum choice, retention, and completion. To see how SUNY programs serve people in New York prisons and after they leave incarceration, SUNY’s Office of Higher Education in Prison (SUNY HEP) created a longitudinal data system that links regularly collected student data from the SUNY Institutional Research Information System (SIRIS) and the National Student Clearinghouse with individual-level corrections data from DOCCS. This report, the third in a series (Gais, et al. 2019; Gais, Grace, and Wilner 2021), draws on these data to analyze incarcerated student enrollment, diversity, course subject areas, retention, and completion.

This resource brief explores the limitations of recidivism as a measure of reentry success and why other outcomes should be measured. It identifies alternative outcome measures and data sources that reentry programs can use to gauge program effectiveness and participant progress in areas relevant to their respective programs. It also discusses the importance of engaging people with direct reentry experience—either as program participants or staff—in defining meaningful outcome measures.

This book finds that the current measures of success for individuals released from prison are inadequate. The use of recidivism rates to evaluate post-release success ignores significant research on how and why individuals cease to commit crimes, as well as the important role of structural factors in shaping post-release outcomes. This book highlights the unique and essential insights held by those who have experienced incarceration and proposes that the development and implementation of new measures of post-release success would significantly benefit from active engagement with individuals with this lived experience. 

This brief from the Evaluation and Sustainability Training and Technical Assistance (ES TTA) team at RTI International and the Center for Court Innovation discusses best practices in protecting and ensuring the confidentiality of participant data.

This brief also provides tips that are relevant to reentry practitioners seeking to protect client data as well as to research partners who are collecting or working with data as part of their evaluation.

This resource brief from the Evaluation and Sustainability Training and Technical Assistance (ES TTA) Project at RTI International and the Center for Court Innovation provides guidance on key decisions that need to be made when undertaking primary data collection with reentering populations for reentry program evaluation.

The brief helps evaluators determine what data need to be collected, from whom, when, and how, and summarizes best practices in designing your data collection instrument and developing and implementing data collection protocols.

Participant satisfaction surveys help behavioral health-criminal justice programs assess the quality of service being provided and their impact on individual outcomes, as well as help them to determine if there are disparities in program and service delivery. This brief presents important considerations when developing these surveys for people with behavioral health needs in the criminal justice system and ways to integrate survey feedback meaningfully.

This brief sets forth guiding values and recommendations for grounding prison research in principles of racial equity. These values are intended to help researchers more accurately capture and measure racial biases, and design and conduct research that can elevate and disrupt systemic biases.

This brief is part of a larger research agenda for the Prison Research and Innovation Initiative, a fiveyear effort to leverage research and evidence to shine a much-needed light on prison conditions and pilot strategies to promote the well-being of people who live and work behind bars. The forthcoming research agenda aims to change the national narrative on corrections so that it embodies data-driven transformative innovations for reform and inclusive research approaches to build transparency and accountability for safer and more humane environments for people confined and working in them. 

 In this column, political scientist and historian Kaneesha Johnson traces the changing form and content of prison data and questions how and why different communities and institutions collect the data they do. In particular, she compares the data gathered about crime and incarceration by the U.S. government with data gathered by incarcerated people and their communities in part to show that what we measure, collect, and count is always a reflection of the world we are trying to create. 

This paper discusses researcher emotional experiences evoked while conducting narrative interviews in a research project that explored the rehabilitation experiences of 18 incarcerated women. 

This resource details key elements of successful strategies in proposing and conducting jail-based research.

Getting the approval for the technology and equipment necessary to operate high-quality postsecondary education in prison programs can present challenges. The steps in this resource from Jobs for the Future can help postsecondary and corrections education leaders develop a strategic approach to gaining buy-in for, implementing, and growing the use of technology to enhance and expand opportunities for quality postsecondary education in facilities. 

While correctional institutions provide orientation and training sessions to help instructors navigate the logistical and security aspects of teaching in such facilities, these efforts often have limitations. Notably, they tend to lack comprehensive guidance for instructors on effectively engaging students from a diverse range of cultural backgrounds and tailoring their pedagogical approaches to support students as they pursue their studies within the unique context of a correctional facility. 

In response to this identified gap, FICGN has collaborated with Jobs for the Future’s Center for Justice & Economic Advancement to support the development of high-quality postsecondary education programs in prisons that pave the way to economic advancement. Together, they have formulated the following guidance to offer support to program staff members and instructors. The recommendations presented in this resource are designed to enhance the effectiveness of future orientation and training initiatives. Their aim is to ensure that these programs adequately address the needs of instructors and other key stakeholders who will directly interact with students who are incarcerated for the first time.  

The 2023 Colby College Justice Think Tank included 12 scholars from across all 5 Maine prisons selected through a competitive application process and stipended by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison. During 2023, the Justice Think Tank Fellows conducted a research of their own design, supported by Colby faculty and staff ‘walkalongs’ who helped with document access, interview arrangements, and general support. The selected topic for 2023 was on the restorative alternatives that Maine could develop to keep emerging adults out of the criminal legal system, that could reform the Maine Criminal Code to be more restorative and less punitive, and that could support a more restorative pathway to reentry from prison. 

The 2023 Colby College Justice Think Tank offered two public presentations to showcase their research and methodology. The first, From the Inside Out: Systemic Political Transformation in Action, took place on Thursday November 9, at the National Conference on Higher Education in Prison in Atlanta, Georgia. The second, sponsored by the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs at Colby College, was held on November 28 and hosted by the Goldfarb Center Student Executive Board, with introductions by Catherine Besteman, Justice Think Tank Founder, and Ved Price, Executive Director of the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison.

This user-friendly Language Matters Gide builds on Job for the Future's 40 years of experience in the education and workforce ecosystem. The guide offers suggest ions on how to write and speak about people in ways that promote equity, dignity, and a focus on each individual's potential—rather than labeling them based on the systemic barriers they face.

Topics covered include skills and socioeconomic status, race and ethnicity, criminal justice, and more. Because language is fluid, the recommendations will evolve. 

This report from the Vera Institute of Justice provides a snapshot of the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative (SCP) a year after Pell Grants were restored for incarcerated students. Drawing on data collected from surveys to SCP colleges and corrections agencies, the report aggregates individual responses to evaluate the adequacy and the system of education offered to incarcerated people.

Postsecondary education programs in prisons collect data on their students to inform program planning, assess students’ academic progress and outcomes, and meet institution, government, and funder reporting requirements. Also, programs applying to the U.S. Department of Education to become an approved prison education program (PEP) must include documentation in their application showing that their postsecondary institution has entered into an agreement with the oversight entity (typically a state department of corrections [DOC]) to obtain data on the transfer and release dates of incarcerated individuals. This resource walks you through the process of establishing consistent access to relevant DOC data on students who are incarcerated through the use of data use agreements (DUAs), also known as data sharing agreements (DSAs), with their DOC partners.

Investments in education programs for students who are incarcerated have increased, but gender inequities in access persist. Seven women share first-person accounts of the challenges of studying while incarcerated. 

Will Anderson, who is currently incarcerated in Minnesota Correctional Facility-Faribault, offers postsecondary leaders advice about overcoming challenges they may face when launching college programs in corrections facilities.

This article from Jobs for the Future was written by Shaun Libby, who was formerly incarcerated and was enrolled in the Maine State Prison college program.

"Investing in prison education and work opportunities inspires hope, prepares residents for reentry, and reduces recidivism while also fostering positive improvements in prison culture."

Follow Alexa Garza’s journey through the walls of prison education and the maze of reintegration struggles, as she shares insights on breaking barriers and advocating for second chances.

To have consistent access to relevant DOC data on students who are incarcerated, postsecondary institutions should establish data use agreements (DUAs), also known as data sharing agreements (DSAs), with their DOC partners. This brief breaks down the basics of establishing a DUA.

This brief describes the factors to consider when planning an evaluation of a postsecondary education in prison program. Evaluations are critical tools for assessing whether a program has been implemented as intended and equitably, informing program development or improvements, and assessing the effects of a program on student outcomes.

People who are incarcerated have historically been vulnerable to exploitation in research. This brief highlights resources on best practices for researchers to protect the autonomy, privacy, and rights of individuals who are incarcerated.