What follows comes from a recent email to me from The John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity. I have been advocating for education and mentoring for prisoners since May 1998.
The John Jay College Institute for Justice and Opportunity is excited to share our latest publication, Reflections on Building a Partnership with Corrections: A Resource Guide for College-in-Prison Programs.
New York has been a leader in education in prison since the 1800s. At its peak in the 1990s, when incarcerated people were eligible for federal Pell and New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP) grants, New York had 70 higher education programs operating in state prisons. In the mid-1990s, when legislators revoked Pell and TAP for incarcerated people, the number of students dropped from 3,445 to 256. In December 2020, after a 26-year ban, congress reinstated access to federal Pell grants for incarcerated students. Now, with 67 new programs receiving Second Chance Pell status, we are disseminating this publication to help providers cultivate and improve relationships with their corrections partners.
This guide is part of an effort to provide college providers with the necessary tools for developing programs that are responsive to the unique environment of correctional facilities. While designed specifically for college programs that operate in New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) facilities, this guide may also be useful for organizations and colleges outside of New York that wish to establish or enhance college-in-prison programs.
Reflections on Building a Partnership with Corrections grew out of our work operating the Prison-to-College Pipeline, our college-in-prison program at Otisville Correctional Facility, and our Technical Assistance work to seven college-in-prison providers throughout New York State. It includes information on the history of college-in-prison programs in New York state, foundations for productive partnerships, the structure and legal authority of DOCCS, policies and procedures relevant to college-in-prison programs, job descriptions of key facility staff, and insights informed by our collective experiences working with DOCCS.
Click here to read the guide.
We would like to thank the staff and partners who contributed to this project. We would also like to express our sincerest gratitude to the District Attorney of New York's Criminal Justice Investment Initiative and the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance for funding this project.
For more information, please contact Taylor DeClerck, Technical Assistance Coordinator, at tdeclerck@jjay.cuny.edu.
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