Jule Hall was incarcerated at age 17 in 1994. He saw firsthand how the 1994 Crime Bill, which banned Pell Grants for incarcerated students, impacted prison education. Without federal funding, the number of prison higher education programs dwindled. He remembers seeing former students idling in the prison yard, watching television, feeling “a lack of direction in their day-to-day lives.”
“I saw the desolation and despair and the lack of inspiration, frankly, that was left in the wake of removing these academic programs for people in prison,” Hall said.
Now he’s the program officer of post-secondary education in prison at Ascendium Education Solutions. He ultimately completed his bachelor’s degree in German studies with the Bard Prison Initiative, captured in the documentary series “College Behind Bars.”
And with the restoration of the Pell Grant to incarcerated students, a measure included in Congress’s December stimulus package, he hopes students like himself will have more opportunities to learn.
“I truly believe that education is transformative in any setting but in particular in the prison setting,” he said.
Hall shared his story in a Zoom panel on Wednesday, hosted by Prison Fellowship, a Christian nonprofit that works with inmates and their families and advocates for criminal justice reform. Panelists discussed the impact of ending the ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students.
“Our prisons can be bootcamps of criminality, which they become just left to their own devices, or they can be centers of restoration,” said James Ackerman, president and CEO of Prison Fellowship. “This is why we at Prison Fellowship have advocated for over two decades for the restoration of Pell Grants for incarcerated men and women.”
