Giving Compass' Take:

• The Crime Report’s Julia Pagnamenta recently spoke with College Behind Bars documentary experts to examine the failures and inadequacies of the U.S. educational system and the “moral argument” that has driven opposition to higher education in prisons, and ultimately the merits of a liberal arts education.

• Why is there such moral outrage on educational programs in prisons? Who are the majority funders of this? 

Click here to find out how the 1994 crime bill affect prison college programs.


The 1994 Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act has been in the news this fall, as Democratic candidates for president debate the pros and cons of a law which some charge was a major driver of America’s mass incarceration crisis.

About one component of the law, which eliminated Pell grants that supported higher education programs in correctional facilities across the U.S., however, there has been little debate about its impact. Thousands of inmates lost the chance to gain the educational skills they needed to help them find employment after release—and to successfully navigate the journey back to civil society.

A few initiatives stepped in to fill the educational void—most notably the Bard Prison Initiative (BPI), founded in 1999 by undergraduates at Bard College in New York State, which supports college-level classes for inmates in six state prisons. As the momentum grows for reviving Pell grants for incarcerated individuals, a new four-part PBS documentary executive produced by Ken Burns, College Behind Bars, examines the achievements of the BPI program.

Read the full article about America's mass incarceration crisis by Julia Pagnamenta at The Crime Report.