College-in-prison programs are positioned to expand substantially under the reinstatement of Pell Grant eligibility for people in prison. While this change will enable more students who have been systemically excluded from higher education to attend college, degree completion is rare during incarceration and post-release. Student perspectives can…

This article substantiates the need for consolidated government support and coordination of postsecondary correctional education in the United States. Using the case of New York as a point of entry to critically examine the human right for all to learn and transform with dignity -- including millions of people languishing in prisons under mass…

The Phoenix Players Theatre Group (PPTG) was founded in 2009 by incarcerated men at the Auburn Correctional Facility in Upstate New York. This article explores PPTG's work using Nicholas Mirzoeff's (2011) theory of the 'right to look' in order to understand how prison theatre functions within and against the visual regime of carcerality. This…

Pell eligibility for incarcerated people is a great rehabilitative opportunity, but several challenges remain. This article recaps five of the issues identified by the original research articles in this special issue. It also considers how solutions proposed in these studies may be beneficial across a variety of these issues and gathers…

The United States has gone through two transformations in the meaning of higher education in prison and the value of access for people in prison in the last 50 years and is now moving towards a third. The establishment of Pell grants in 1972 allowed for widespread access to higher education in prison, while the removal of those grants in 1994…

For nearly three decades, the United States of America has been the consistent leader in incarceration rates worldwide. A number of structural social problems have contributed to this reality (e.g., the school-to-prison pipeline, the 1994 Crime Bill, and aggressive surveillance and policing of poor and minority neighborhoods). Recently, a number…

Scholars and policymakers alike have recognized mass incarceration and criminal recidivism as two of the most profound challenges American society faces. For more than half a century, the United States has been the world's most prominent incarcerator, boasting the highest incarceration rate and the third-highest recidivism rate, with analysts…

This resource guide is intended for people seeking assistance pursuing college in the community after incarceration. It identifies resources in New York City, as well as the four upstate metropolitan areas to which most people return: Albany, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. This resource also identifies the Re-entry Task Forces in the twenty…

This chapter explores ways that incarcerated men and women in New York State prisons made use of both formal and informal educational initiatives to transform themselves and build a cadre of leaders who have played a key role in the movement for criminal justice reform--in the process raising questions about the role adult educators can play in…

Through reflection on a longitudinal teaching, devising, and directing experience in a regional prison, as well as subsequent opportunities for collaboration with formerly incarcerated students, this article posits improvisation as a powerful vehicle for inclusivity, pluralism, and humanistic exchange in applied arts settings.

As the novel coronavirus spreads across the country, the pandemic has raged through United States correctional facilities with little regard to the health of the incarcerated. The pandemic also affected access to postsecondary education and adult education in correctional facilities. As a result, prison education programs--including postsecondary…

A composer and project leader tracks the connections between the needs of incarcerated students and a successful music-making studio program design. Central to the work, and applicable to any art form or educational setting, is the informed predicting of students' potentials and the communities transformation of the meeting place--in this case, a…

New York State has long been a leader in education, both higher education and general education in prison, dating back to the 1800s. Following reforms implemented during the administration of Governor Franklin Roosevelt, New York State was later recognized as having the best prison education system in the country (Gehring 1997). At the heyday of…

College-in-prison programs are run by accredited universities and colleges, and allow participants to earn college degrees intended to facilitate positive real-world outcomes outside of the criminal justice system. Reduced rates of recidivism and increased employment opportunities are among the most cited benefits of providing higher education to…

The Phoenix Players Theatre Group was founded by incarcerated theatre artists located in a maximum-security prison with the aim of creating a space where they can be witnessed in order to initiate a process of personal, cultural, and sociopolitical transformation. This article integrates research from trauma theory with theatre and social justice…