WASHINGTON — Up until now, much of the talk about the Obama Administration’s Second Chance Pell Pilot Initiative has been about the merits of providing higher education to individuals behind bars.
But at the inaugural convening of the initiative Tuesday, representatives from the 69 colleges and universities selected last month to participate in the pilot began to delve into the nitty-gritty of how the program is supposed to work.
Topics at Tuesday’s event — convened by the New York-based Vera Institute of Justice — ranged from how to disburse financial aid within a correctional setting (not directly to the inmates, one official said) to criteria of what offenses might preclude a prisoner from obtaining a Pell Grant. There were also practical warnings about how cookies may constitute contraband (they could send diabetic inmates into a diabetic coma, one correctional officer said) and how to deal with “love notes” from inmates.
Despite prior research that shows inmates who enroll in correctional education programs are less likely to reoffend, one of the most important topics discussed at Tuesday’s convening was the need for rigorous evaluation of the Second Chance Pell Pilot programs in order to establish an evidence base for what works.
“Policymakers need a more sophisticated understanding of how certain programs work or don’t work,” said Johan Uvin, acting assistant secretary in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education within the U.S. Department of Education.
Among other things, Uvin said there is a need for more information about what kind of employment participants in correctional education secure upon their release from prison and what kind of money they earn.
