Giving Compass' Take:
- Jennifer Molina introduces a new EdSource documentary which tells the stories of four California men earning degrees in prison.
- What is the role of funders in expanding higher education access for incarcerated people across the country?
- Learn more about key issues in education and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on education in your area.
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Samual N. Brown, Allen Burnett, Charlie Praphatananda and Dara Yin have stories to tell about their journeys earning degrees in prison.
Their time behind bars was shrouded by their reality. Three of the four were charged with murder and sentenced to life without parole. It’s what one of them, who entered prison at 20, describes as death by incarceration.
Taking college courses had been going on for decades in California prisons, but in 2016, California State University Los Angeles became the first college to offer incarcerated people the chance to earn a bachelor’s degree in prison.
Now, eight of the state’s 34 adult prisons have started or are soon to begin partnerships that award four-year degrees, making California a leader in expanding college degree programs into the state’s prisons.
The trend of earning degrees in prison touches only a sliver of incarcerated people, however. While California incarcerates about 95,600 people in its prison system, about 230 enrolled in the fall in a bachelor’s degree program. For the four men whose stories are told in this documentary, just the chance to earn a degree in prison made it possible for them to see themselves living a different life outside. Three ultimately got their sentences commuted. The fourth was paroled.
Transcript: Four Men Share Their Experiences Earning Degrees in Prison
"I was living a criminal lifestyle and I did not see at that time how going to college was going to ease my circumstances in my community and in my household. It wasn't in my heart and shortly after graduating high school I wound up in the penitentiary. I failed kindergarten and I failed eighth grade so by the time I went to the ninth grade, I was a gang member."
"At that point, I was ashamed, already feeling like the class that I was in was already in 10th grade which made me feel like I was a failure. There are stereotypes you hear about Asian kids being super smart. I was not one of them and so that kind of really messed me up. I felt that the only path for me was to be a criminal."
Read the full article about earning a degree in prison by Jennifer Molina at EdSource.