Greetings to all my brothers and sisters on lock-down and on the outside
fighting the struggle against oppression everywhere. This is from your
hardcore revolutionary brotha in South Georgia. With great respect and
love. I want to share this information with you in the hopes of you
doing the same.
Education is better than incarceration!
Something we can all
support!
I’ve learned in the hardest way possible that in the United $nakes of
Amerikkka every felony conviction – no matter what the judge officially
assigns in months or years – results, quite literally, in a life
sentence. As a strong proponent of decarceration, I am encouraged by the
efforts toward sentencing reform which will get some people out of
prison sooner. But I am painfully aware that release from prison will
present new challenges for those individuals whose futures have been
made permanently fragile by their status as convicted criminals.
The lifetime consequences of a criminal conviction are evident in the
diminished social status and in the devastation of poor communities and
communities of blacks that have been hyper-policed, hyper-prosecuted and
hyper-punished for decades.
Individuals from these communities are punished not only by virtue of
the time they actually spend in prison, on probation, or in an
alternative program, but because of the additional punishments that are
inflicted for a lifetime. The consequences of a felony conviction
include periods of voter disenfranchisement, travel restrictions,
restricted access to public housing, restrictions of federal educational
benefits, barriers to certifications and licensure of certain
professions, and an irreversible stigma that permeates every aspect of
life.
For those who spend time in prison, release is stressful even under the
best of circumstances. People are released with a small stipend that
barely covers the cost of living for a day or two. Without adequate
assistance, many understandably fail to find meaningful employment,
build healthy relationships and integrate successfully into a community.
Having been released to a militaristic system of supervision that
provides few services, imposes conditions that almost guarantee – and
often expects – failure, many parolees end up right back in prison. I
have been down that road, and I make no excuses. Those who do manage to
successfully stay out remain stigmatized by the requirement that they
continue to identify themselves on legal documents, job and school
applications, and in numerous other places as a person who has a
criminal conviction, no matter how long ago the original crime occurred.
These types of punitive responses to people who have made serious
mistakes – but have already repaid their debts to society – do nothing
to solve the problems. Like unemployment, which leads to crime, and
hinders rather than promotes rehabilitation and successful integration
into the community, it is difficult to understand why there would be any
policy in place that would make it more difficult for people to come
home from prison and do the right thing. I’m assuming the perspective of
the mainstream in that doing the right thing means, at the very least,
becoming self-supporting and living within the boundaries of the law. It
has been argued that many of the barriers that are in place to restrict
convicted people from certain jobs, from public housing, etc. are there
to protect the public. However, the stronger arguments demonstrate that
such barriers are purely punitive and that in being punitive to
individuals we are actually causing further damage to society.
Unsurprisingly, there is now strong evidence to show that by failing to
provide convicted individuals with the tools needed to succeed once they
leave the criminal justice system, growing incarceration has
significantly increased poverty in the United $tates.
Among the most absurd punitive policies making it difficult to succeed
after conviction are policies that restrict access to higher education.
I say absurd because, at this point, even those on the most conservative
side of the public dialogue about prison reform agree that “prisoners
should be provided free education in order to reduce crime and
recidivism.” This is a direct quote from former Speaker of the House
Newt Gingrich during a meeting of Right on Crime in Washington, DC a few
years ago.
At the same time that living-wage employment has required higher skill
levels, education – particularly higher education – has increasingly
become the most under-appreciated, underused and under-supported tool
offered inside correctional facilities. This has happened despite the
numerous studies proving that education is the most reliable predictor
of reduced criminal recidivism. Educational attainment, besides being a
worthy goal in itself, also increases one’s prospects for securing
meaningful employment, enabling individuals to support themselves and
their families. While country-wide 43.3% of formerly incarcerated
individuals are likely to return to prison within three years of
release, the likelihood drops to 5.6% for recipients of a bachelor’s
degree.
Despite this data, the growing trend is to create post-conviction
barriers for individuals who are attempting to apply to college. The
Center for Community Alternatives found that nearly 60% of colleges and
universities country-wide screen students for criminal records during
the application process. In some cases, applicants are asked whether
they’ve ever been arrested – even if the arrest did not lead to a
conviction. Institutions that request this information often do so
without appreciation for how a criminal record may or may not impact a
particular student’s ability to successfully engage in the educational
process.
For incarcerated individuals who desire to access higher learning
opportunities, yet another barrier exists: they are ineligible for
federal Pell Grants. Established by the late Senator Claiborne Pell, the
grants allowed people – including those inside correctional facilities –
who could not afford college to access post-secondary education.
Incarcerated students were made ineligible for Pell Grants in 1994 under
the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, a contradiction of
Senator Pell’s legacy of helping ensure that everyone could attend
college. After eligibility was removed, the number of higher education
programs in prisons dropped from 350 to 8 country-wide.
For more than 40 years, the goal of the Pell Grant program has been to
provide need-based assistance to students to promote access to higher
education. Funding flows directly to the educational institution, and
eligibility for aid has been based on student need and expected family
contributions. Pell Grants are available to anyone who qualifies; thus,
removing the barrier to eligibility for incarcerated persons does not
diminish the opportunity of any other eligible students who are
motivated to pursue higher education.
As an incarcerated Black man, my incarceration does not define me, but
people with criminal convictions live among us daily. It is up to you to
decide how best to create systems and policies that promote public
safety. Making it difficult for people to access opportunities and
contribute to society is contrary to that goal, and contrary to the
economic health of this country. Help support policy change to eliminate
the 1994 ban on Pell Grant eligibility for incarcerated persons and
re-establish the opportunity for otherwise eligible people in prison to
obtain college financial aid through Pell Grants for post-secondary
education programs.
Straight from the “belly of the beast” on lock-down at Wilcox State
Prison. The struggle continues and I fight on. One of the hardest who
has ever done it. Power to the people.
PTT of MIM(Prisons) responds: It should be clear, from the
evidence this comrade cites, that the criminal injustice system is not
interested in rehabilitation or helping prisoners succeed on the
streets. The restrictions on Pell Grants demonstrates just the opposite:
prisons are a tool of social control of certain (e.g. oppressed-nation)
populations, which are disproportionately targeted for imprisonment.
Getting Pell Grants reinstated for people with convictions would help
reduce recidivism, as shown in this article. And that would certainly be
a good thing for the internal semi-colonies, which are
disproportionately affected by the oppression that comes from split
families and the many other traumas of imprisonment.
At the same time, college education, for people of any nation, is
controlled by the U.$. government, and thus does not teach a liberatory
education curriculum. There’s no degree you can earn in the United
$tates, or any country, that’s going to teach you how to liberate the
majority of the world’s people from the effects of capitalist
imperialism. It simply is just not allowed to exist, and it definitely
won’t be paid for by taxpayer dollars.
All self-betterment, including college education, has its positive
effects. If our goal is to end oppression worldwide and forever, we need
to also build our own independent institutions that can educate people
in what matters for the planet. And we don’t need federal funding to do
this. We can start by creating more study groups behind bars, including
the mail-based study groups supported by MIM(Prisons). We can expand
these educational institutions to include comrades on the streets and
provide ongoing education for releasees. When we control these programs
we can ensure they persist and aren’t at the whims of government
funding.
Our own educational programs are no substitute for a college degree when
it comes to an individual’s earnings. GED programs and college classes
are important opportunities for releasees, which can increase their
abilities to contribute to liberatory projects. We don’t have the
resources to substitute for these institutions yet, and we can help our
comrades use these educational opportunities. Therefore our work around
prisoner education supports the re-instatement of Pell Grants, while
building independent education programs for prisoners and releasees that
are grounded in the needs of oppressed people worldwide.
Individual gain is not our end goal in any education project. We don’t
win unless we all win.
