When Congress banned Pell Grants for people in state and federal prisons in 1994, I was beginning my nearly 20-year sentence at the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, California.
I remember the day I heard the news. I was crushed, and I was not alone, not by a long stretch. Many of the women incarcerated with me at FCI Dublin were taking college courses funded by Pell Grants. I was in my first semester, and I was enrolled in sociology, English literature, and psychology. And now they were taking that away. I was barely out of the gate, and they were already sending me back to the starting line.
Recently, I’ve been thinking a lot about getting that bad news. Late last year, Congress passed the First Step Act, a bipartisan criminal justice reform bill that aims to transform the way we sentence defendants and treat prisoners. It’s a great first step, but there’s so much more to be done. That ban on Pell Grants for people in prison, for example, is still in effect, even though college-level education for prisoners is a proven reducer of recidivism.
I’m part of that proof. After the Pell money went away, I was lucky to secure scholarships through the UNICOR work program and nearly completed my B.S. in social science. When I was released, I struggled but eventually found work as a hotel room attendant and a factory worker. Finally, I landed at FAMM, a leading sentencing and prison reform organization, where I was recently named deputy director of storytelling and family outreach. In my job, I rely on several of the tools I learned from my time as an incarcerated college student, including administration, communications, and working with computers.
My college education, however, was about so much more than developing a specific skill set. Those classes taught me about organization, for one, not just in terms of keeping track of my papers and homework, but also in terms of my confidence and how I looked at the world. For the first time, I began to chart out my life and realize that I could have a future not defined by my past mistakes. Being challenged in those college-level classes, so different from “Cross Stitch for Beginners,” a typical class offered by the Bureau of Prisons, gave me a confidence I’d never had. In that one semester, I read thick books about people and places I’d never heard of. In my sociology class, especially, I began to see how I could live a responsible life with purpose.
In passing the First Step Act, Congress has shown its support for rehabilitation in federal prisons. The new law requires federal prisons to offer more and higher quality programs to federal prisoners, 95 percent of whom will be coming home someday. Congress should now take the next step by approving the REAL Act, introduced last Congress by Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii. The REAL Act would restore Pell Grant eligibility to everyone trying to better their life through education, even if they are doing so from a prison.
My story is not the exception, but rather the rule. Increasing access to college education in prisons has been proven to reduce recidivism rates, lower correctional spending, and improve safety both inside and outside of prisons. A study from the United States Sentencing Commission of all federal prisoners released in 2005 found that the recidivism rate was much lower for those who obtained a college degree. Furthermore, a 2013 analysis from the RAND Corp found that education programs have a 400 percent return on investment over three years, saving taxpayers four to five dollars for every dollar spent.
At the end of that one semester during which I was studying with the help of a Pell Grant, my sociology teacher extracted a promise from the class: Keep going, she told us. When you get out, I want you to keep learning and stay out of trouble. I like to think that I’ve kept that promise. And I know that I couldn’t have done it without my education.
Debi Campbell is the Deputy Director of Family Outreach & Storytelling at FAMM.
