Education Justice Project (EJP) leadership feels compelled to address the damaging misrepresentation of research in the recent Inside Higher Ed (IHE) article, “Prison Education May Raise Risk of Reincarceration for Technical Violations.” EJP, a unit of the College of Education at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, has for eighteen years successfully hosted a college-in-prison program at an Illinois state prison.
The article is based on an unpublished working paper by Romaine Campbell and Logan Lee that exposes systemic issues caused by prison power structures and post-release surveillance that can lead to increased technical citations for people in work-release programs and reincarceration. The article, however, suggests that higher-education-in-prison (HEP) programs increase recidivism. It clouds the insights that could be gained from the study in question, puts undue emphasis on recidivism as a meaningful metric and reason for providing higher education, and fails to consider the established body of research that illustrates the benefits of HEP programs.
Before the article even begins, the ambiguity of its title sets a misleading tone by suggesting that HEP programs may cause recidivism. The study in question makes no such claim. In fact, its authors unequivocally state that their study “confirms no relationship between education and reincarceration,” and that “[t]hese surprising findings on reincarceration reflect unexpected interactions between education and the broader correctional system, rather than the direct impact of education itself.” In fact, the study concerns the over-surveillance of post-release supervision programs and carceral power structures, both of which can lead to increased technical violations. It sheds light on correctional officers’ animosity and the carceral system’s mechanisms for stripping formerly incarcerated people of their autonomy and freedom; it does not argue that there is a causal link between education and reincarceration.
In fact, a robust body of research (alongside our eighteen years of experience in HEP) show that HEP programs have profound positive impacts on students, and in their unpublished paper on their ongoing research, Campbell and Lee even state that “[c]rucially, we do not think that this research should be used to retrench prison education in the U.S.” Per the Vera Institute of Justice, HEP program participants were 66 percent less likely to have another conviction within 6 months, 1 year, and at any point after release. An often-cited RAND study found that “incarcerated individuals who participated in correctional education were 43 percent less likely to return to prison within three years than prisoners who didn’t participate in any correctional education programs.” Improved reentry outcomes are further reinforced by a 2023 study showing that those who participate in an HEP program while incarcerated are 10.5% more likely to find post-release work. Beyond outcomes, RAND also monetizes these gains, stating that “for every $1 investment in prison education programs there is a $4-5 dollar reduction in incarceration costs during the first three years post-release of a prisoner.” We present this evidence to highlight how poorly this article has framed the research around HEP programs; we do not, however, consider recidivism rates an adequate metric of HEP success.
By presenting recidivism as the sole meaningful measure of the value of HEP programs, the IHE article has clouded an important conversation around why we should offer college in prison. As Campbell and Lee’s research suggests, HEP programs cannot control the social forces that await their students upon reentry. At EJP, we recognize this limit, and we offer college in prison because we believe education is an inherently valuable experience and a human right. We do not aim to produce bodies that can perform labor upon release, but rather to allow our students to learn more about themselves and their relationship with their history, community, and society. We aim to help our students to develop the tools for self-empowerment. To apply recidivism rates as a metric to such an essentially human endeavor is to reduce the humanity of our students.
HEP programs provide a pathway to liberatory thinking while unlocking new perspectives on the world and emancipatory understandings of self. By publishing work that distorts the research in this field, IHE harms students’ emerging and fragile access to these benefits. As explained by the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison in their own letter to the editors of Inside Higher Ed,
The 1994 repeal of Pell funding collapsed prison education for nearly 30 years; as a result, the U.S. went from having 772 [HEP] programs to eight. […] This material threat is further amplified by the article’s premature conclusions about a field that has only recently—as of 2022 with the reintegration of Pell—begun to rebuild.
This misrepresentation of ongoing research and of the work that EJP and similar organizations do is both irresponsible and reckless, potentially impacting crucial funding and political support.
In a separate letter, leadership for the Center for Alternatives in Community Justice and the Restorative Justice Initiative and Social Justice Fellowship at Pennsylvania State University remind the editors of Inside Higher Ed that “How research findings are framed matters, especially when research enters public discourse…. Sensationalist articles with misleading headlines like this one prioritize clicks and undermine decades of hard-won progress expanding access to college in prison.” In publishing this article, IHE has misrepresented research in a way that misrepresents the benefits of higher education and threatens programs’ access to funding and resources.
We understand and embrace journalism’s obligation to report on new research, including findings that challenge conventional wisdom. However, this obligation must be informed by the responsibility to provide full context and accurate interpretation, especially when vulnerable populations are at stake. Every misleading implication and distorted headline is a vote against our students’ humanity. If you’re reading this, please read critically, follow links to primary sources, and join us in our demand for accurate, humane coverage of higher education in prison.