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From Convicted Felon to Prison Education Advocate

At the time, when he agreed to murder his friend’s allegedly abusive father, Sean Pica thought he was doing the right thing. Although his conscience lashed at him for what he felt he needed to do, he accepted cash from a friend to complete the hit and carried it out. The teen was sentenced to

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A Historic First for the Center for Prison Education

It started as the Cheshire Reformatory in 1909. The goal of the Reformatory was to keep male prisoners aged 16-24 out of the adult prison population. The Reformatory evolved over the years, and now it’s Connecticut’s Cheshire Correctional Institution, where male adult offenders carry out long sentences. It’s a level four facility with protective custody

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President Trump’s Prison Education Plan – Is it Enough?

On August 9, President Trump sat down with governors and state attorneys general to discuss prison reform and prisoner education. The majority of America’s prison population is held in state-run facilities and given that America has the highest incarceration rates in the world – the meeting was an important step in addressing these issues. Or

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New Prison Education Program Presented by an Oklahoma Library

Famous author J.K. Rowling once quipped, “When in doubt, go to the library.” Ray Bradbury was also a library fan, exclaiming, “Without libraries, what do we have? No past and no future.” Why do we hold libraries in such high regard, especially in this age of digital innovation where reams and reams of paper can be

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Prison Education Programs Must Keep Pace with the Changing World

Prison education programs work. Numerous studies backed up that fact. For prison education to be effective, it must keep pace with the changing world. Thankfully, in many States, this is the case. For example, the Maryland Department of Corrections (MDC) now uses tablets for its inmate GED program. Not only is the GED no longer

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Sitting Pretty: Vocational Prison Education Preps for Life After Prison

Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, has a beauty salon. It started as a vocational prison education program in 1996 when the facility was for women only. Although it’s a men’s prison now, the salon, and the esthetician program, remain in place. It’s a unique way of learning job skills in the prison system, and

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Online Education in Prison Benefits the State and the Student

Prison education programs benefit everyone. The RAND Corporation, a non-profit global policy think tank, notes that offenders who have participated in prison education programs cut their risk of recidivism by 43 percent. Education programs focused on vocational training also raise their employability by 13 percent. “Our findings suggest that we no longer need to debate

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Female Inmates in Georgia to Learn Coding and Technology

Thanks to a partnership between Code/Out and Arke, women in the Georgia prison system are getting a unique learning opportunity, thanks to a collaboration between Code/Out and Arke. Code/Out is a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing recidivism and poverty among incarcerated women in the Georgia penal system. Code/Out addresses this by teaching female inmates how

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Arkansas Cooking Program Good Example of Prison Education Helping Recidivism

By Christopher Zoukis Like many states in America, Arkansas is plagued with the problem of recidivism. More than half of the people released from Arkansas jails – 51.8 percent – are back behind prison walls within three years. The causes of recidivism are vast, but all have an underlying thread. Disenfranchised persons (through poverty, low

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