Prison Education
Mission
Our mission is to offer transformative education inside local jails and prisons to empower incarcerated students to define and achieve their educational and career goals and to make our community safer by breaking cycles of poverty and inter-generational violence.
Programs
– College 100, a one-week, one-credit course that covers educational pathways, mindset, smart goals, and reentry planning
– College Fair in collaboration with other local community and technical colleges
– Resume writing workshops
– Outreach
Student Testimony
“This class (college 100) changed conversations in the pod, changed mindsets of us, changed actions, changed what we talked about, changed everything.” – College 100 T.A.
“I use the information I learned in class to help my peers. I use it in everything I do.” – College 100 grad
“This class was the first time in jail that I got help and resources, so that I don’t keep coming back.”
“Jail is not the end. I can do something with the rest of my life. I don’t have to come back.” – College 100 grad
Partners
SCORE (South Correctional Entity) is a jail in Des Moines, Washington, serving the cities of Auburn, Burien, Des Moines, Federal Way, Renton, SeaTac, and Tukwila and a number of contract agencies.
Federal Detention SeaTac is an administrative security federal detention center in SeaTac, Washington.
Why Education in jail?
Education inside correctional institutions has been shown to decrease recidivism, save state and local government money, transform lives, and lead to safer neighborhoods and communities (College in Jail Toolkit 2018; Davis et al. 2013; Taliaferro, Pham and Cielinksi 2016). According to Davis et al. (2013), participating in a prison education program can reduce recidivism by 43%, which can save taxpayers $4-5 for every dollar spent on education. Education inside correctional institutions is also an issue of equity: people of color, low-income communities, and people who have a low level of educational attainment are more likely than others to be incarcerated (Western 2006). Providing education inside jails and prisons can help to rewrite historic and systemic racism and oppression, break cycles of inter-generational poverty and violence and lead to transformative individual and community change.
In the past four years, there has been renewed investment in providing education inside correctional facilities. Yet much of the investment has been focused on prisons, and neglected jails, even though jails incarcerated more than 25% of the U.S. prison population in 2017 (Wagner 2018). Prisons incarcerate people with long sentences, whereas jails are only supposed to incarcerate people for up to one year or while people are awaiting trial.
Given the effectiveness of correctional education and the number of people who cycle through local jails, short-term education programs inside jails represent an untapped opportunity to give people a pathway to success, reduce recidivism, rewrite historic and systemic racism and oppression, save money, and make our communities safer.
Want to learn more about Prison Education? Contact the Program Manager for Prison-Based Education, Mary Weir.