Alabama prison education programs strong on access and services, says report

A prison corridor in Holman Correctional Facility in 2019. (File)

Alabama’s two prison education programs do well in providing staff, services and gender equity, according to a report published last month by the Vera Institute of Justice.

The Vera Institute, an independent nonprofit national research and policy organization specializing in criminal justice, gave the state high marks across several categories for a prison bachelors’ program administered by Auburn University and career and technical programs offered through J.F. Ingram State Community College.

“What our report is showing is that they are seeing strong faculty, equitable access for men and women, good library services and parity in prison programs versus those offered in other places,” said Ruth Delaney, director for the Unlocking Potential initiative at the Vera Institute of Justice.

The report studies the effect of making Pell Grants — which help low-income students attend college — available to the incarcerated. The U.S. Department of Education made the grants available to incarcerated people last year, lifting a 30-year ban .

The study notes Alabama needs to improve aspects of the program, including enrollment in the program and academic advising to credit transfers.

The Auburn University program offers incarcerated people a Bachelor of Arts in interdisciplinary studies. The program focuses on business, leadership, human development and family studies.

The analysis included the vocational and technical training offered to incarcerated people by J.F. Ingram State Technical College, which had about 3,000 students enrolled in 2023 .

“There are dedicated staff who pay attention and care quite deeply about things like faculty qualifications and library resources,” Delaney said. “They are effectively running a college within a college in some ways, making sure the services get to the students who are in prison.”

Samantha Rose, public relations coordinator for Ingram State Technical College, said their focus was “meeting the needs of Alabama’s employers.”

“We operate around a ‘prison to workforce pipeline’ model that trains individuals for high-demand jobs to support those priorities,” she said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

Since the data was analyzed, Ingram State Technical College stopped using Pell Grants for funding its education program for those incarcerated, so that will not be considered moving forward.

Messages seeking comment were left with Auburn staff who oversee the prison credentialing program.

According to Vera, the bachelor’s degree program placed well in terms of quality, earning the highest marks in terms of instructor credentials, academic research and library access, and mode of instruction.

It also did well in terms of equity.

“One of the things I would point to as something that other folks could learn from at Auburn is their success in enrolling people who are representative of the racial demographics of the prison population as a whole in their programs,” Delaney said. “And working with their students through completion.”

The program was rated as inadequate across some of the rating criteria when it comes to how many people are enrolled in the program. The study found that fewer than 5% of the students who are eligible are enrolled in the program.

“This is a result of having just one program,” Delaney said. “You have a really large prison system with just a program that is going to be offered at two facilities. You are not going to see a lot of enrollments at that rate.”

Authors rated it as “developing” in terms of the availability of programs, because there is a single offering, credential pathways and completion.

“This sometimes happens when you have a prison system that is overcapacity. You have too many people for the space they have available to house them. You might start seeing people moved across different facilities for various reasons throughout the length of their sentence. That disrupts education.”

The Second Chance Pell program began in 2016 with then President Barack Obama, and has expanded with each successive administration, potentially allowing those incarcerated to take advantage of a Pell Grant to use for their education even while incarcerated.

Auburn was one of the initial cohorts of colleges and universities eligible to offer incarcerated individuals such an opportunity.

That is part of the reason, Delaney believes, it garnered a relatively high rating.

“I think with having this long history and having been able to troubleshoot different approaches to offering different kinds of college services, they have put together really good strategies for making these things happen, and that is what is coming through in our data,” she said.

“They have had time to develop expertise,” Delaney added. “They have been able to try a couple of different approaches and find the one that works.”

Delaney said that  about 95% of those incarcerated will eventually be released, and that education programs in prison facilities help to reduce recidivism, which makes communities and people in the community safer.

It also provides a safer environment for people working at the facilities.

“There are fewer violent incidents in facilities that have higher education programs,” she said. “This means they are safer places to live for incarcerated people, but also a safer place to work for correctional staff, which is a very important aspect of thinking about the safety of our communities.”

The post Alabama prison education programs strong on access and services, says report appeared first on Alabama Reflector .