A biweekly newsletter about the intersection of higher education and criminal justice. Written by Open Campus national reporter Charlotte West.

Short on time? Here’s what you need to know:

• Educators teaching at Rikers, slated for closure by 2027, say there will be an urgent need for education until the very last day the jail remains open.

• The Illinois Department of Corrections has settled two federal civil rights lawsuits filed by people in prison who say their First Amendment rights were violated. Copublished with our local partner WBEZ Chicago. 

• ICYMI: Read about an unlikely friendship between a pre-med student and a man serving life without parole. And don’t miss this first-person essay by Kunlyna “K” Tauch, who returned to prison just two months after he was released—to graduate. 

Rikers is closing, but the need for education remains

When Heaven Benjamin arrived at Rikers Island at the end of 2023, she felt like the legal process just happened to her. She didn’t really understand how to best participate in her own court proceedings.

That changed after she enrolled in a class offered by LaGuardia Community College, where she learned the legal terminology and how to navigate the criminal justice system.

“I learned how to go about my criminal process, how to ask questions, how to file appeals,” she said at an end-of-semester celebration last June. “They brought in people like the DA [district attorney]. They took us through real court cases and the process of grand jury indictments. It was like I was in the courtroom.”

It made a lasting impact on Benjamin, but incarcerated people at Rikers may not have access to such education for much longer. Amid ongoing reports of violence and neglect, at the end of November a federal judge ordered the city to prepare for potential external takeover of the jail system.

New York City intends to replace the Rikers Island jail complex with four borough-based jails by 2027. During the transition, education programs—shown to be a key factor in improving safety and reducing recidivism—are operating in a state of limbo and uncertainty.

Educators teaching there say there will be an urgent need for education until the very last day Rikers remains open. And as the new borough-based jails take shape, they wonder how the new facilities will engage local colleges.  

Read the rest of the story.

Illinois settles two lawsuits linked to prison education programs

The Illinois Department of Corrections has settled two federal civil rights lawsuits filed by people in prison who say their First Amendment rights were violated, according to records obtained by WBEZ and Open Campus.

The department agreed to pay $90,000 to five men who say officials retaliated against them for debating parole reform in front of state legislators. In the other settlement, the state will pay $5,000 to a peer educator fired for teaching about racist Jim Crow literacy tests. Both cases involved prison education programs, and both showed prison officials struggling to respond when those programs prompted incarcerated people to engage with sensitive political and social issues.

The payouts are small compared to other prison lawsuits alleging wrongful death or physical mistreatment, but Margo Schlanger, a law professor at the University of Michigan, said prisoner civil rights lawsuits can drive systemic change by forcing prison officials to examine and justify their practices.

“There are lots and lots of examples where the lawsuits seeking policy change have made a huge difference, including in Illinois, in a variety of situations about solitary confinement and mental health care, medical care and so on,” Schlanger said.

But, she acknowledged, sometimes “governments treat small payouts as just part of the cost of doing business.”

Read the rest of the story. 

Related: An incarcerated teacher taught his students that Jim Crow literacy tests were racist. Then he got fired.

News & views

Ithaka S+R released a new report in January exploring how incarcerated artists create and share their work, and the role of grassroots organizations in collecting, exhibiting, and preserving art created in prisons. The study, based on interviews with incarcerated artists, staff from organizations supporting prison art programs, and corrections officials, found that incarcerated artists face significant challenges in producing their work, including a lack of formal training, difficulty obtaining supplies, censorship, staff hostility, and limited space to create and store art. As a result, most artists rely on self-teaching and peer mentorship. Higher education in prison programs have also played a role in organizing exhibits of incarcerated students' artwork, frequently collaborating with museums to showcase their talent and experiences.
Related: The struggle for artistic freedom

A new report from the Vera Institute of Justice shows that while 72% of jobs will require postsecondary education by 2031, approximately one-third of U.S. adults have conviction histories that often block their access to employment. The study identifies specific career paths that both pay well and have minimal legal barriers—such as diagnostic medical sonographers, information security analysts, and surgical technologists—providing a roadmap for prison education programs to design credentials that lead directly to these accessible, in-demand jobs. 
Related: How training in the trades is helping women succeed after prison

Roadtrip Nation will feature three formerly incarcerated individuals in a documentary where they’ll get to meet and interview inspiring people who have participated in higher ed programs during their time in prison, to learn about how they navigated their paths during and after incarceration. Find out more about the Higher Ed in Prison Storytelling Initiative here (deadline Feb. 2). 

Many people are wondering what the recent executive orders from President Trump related to federal funding mean for prison education programs. While those executive orders were almost immediately held up in court, the administration also clarified that they would not apply to federal financial aid. “​​Students in eligible Prison Education Programs are able to receive Federal Pell Grants and the Department of Education…confirmed that the Pell Grant program is not impacted by the Office of Management and Budget guidance,” said Sheila Meiman, prison education specialist for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “There are, of course, other agency grants that impact the success of higher education in prison, including those from the Departments of Justice, Commerce, and Labor. We do not have direct insight into those. Programs with access to those important philanthropic funds without government origin are in a fortunate position right now.”
 Related: What will a new president mean for prison education?

The Education Department released a new factsheet that provides general information and instructions on how incarcerated students and student loan borrowers can contact the Office of Correctional Education and the Ombudsman Office by mail.

Let’s connect

Please connect if you have story ideas or just want to share your experience with prison education programs as a student or educator. You can always reach me at [email protected] or on Bluesky, LinkedIn, or Instagram. To reach me via snail mail, you can write to: Open Campus, 2460 17th Avenue #1015, Santa Cruz, CA 95062.

We know that not everyone has access to email, so if you’d like to have a print copy College Inside sent to an incarcerated friend or family member, you can sign them up here. We also publish the PDFs of our print newsletter on the Open Campus website.

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Interested in reaching people who care about higher education in prisons? Get in touch at [email protected] or request our media kit.

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