The idea of using college course in Arts, Humanities, Natural and Social Sciences as a tool for prison reform can be seen as progressive, but when the same classes are being taught by prisoners to the inmate population as a way of creating a liberating learning community that is committed to reform, it becomes more that progressive it becomes revolutionary!

TEACH was created in 2013 as a college program that started off offering college level classes like world literature, biology and college math at Clallam Bay Corrections Center. TEACH, which is an acronym for Taking Education And Creating History, was created by the Black Prisoners’ Caucus because the sentiment among prisoners was that the Department of Corrections wasn’t doing enough to help incarcerated people return back to society and assume the role of responsible tax paying citizens.

Education is a symbol of social liberation and has always been an opportunity for those seeking to overcome the social obstacles that exist for any one living at the bottom of the social rung. And classrooms have always been the space that possesses the power to answer any question that can be conjured up by the mind as long as those present maintain a strong willingness to find what they seek.  For years people have always looked at education as an immeasurable opportunity that has the ability to transform a person’s life for the better. But why are prisoners, the ones who could benefit the most, being denied their rights to a quality education? It is because the remnants of the fourteenth amendment restricts those that are incarcerated to the level of slave; or is it that society refuses to support a prisoners access to something that many people in society are struggling to afford themselves? The answers will surely vary but none will be good enough to satisfy the two plus million incarcerated across the country, or the families and the communities anticipating their return home. “Everyone has the right to education” we would assume. These are the same words written in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 26. But what makes prisoners the exception to that universal right?

The steps to eliminate prisoner’s access to college level education began 20 plus years ago when congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act restricting access to Pell grants for incarcerated men and women across the country. A year later Washington State passed a law (house bill 2010) prohibiting the use of public money to support higher education for the incarcerated beyond Adult Basic Education (ABE), General Education Diploma (GED) and English as a Second Language (ESL). But due to the political uproar over immigrants and their access to U.S. resources (ESL) funding was cut and now all immigrants are denied access to education programs due to their immigration status. For the last twenty years Washington has been standing in support of this legislation which can also be seen as one of the leading causes of high recidivism rates among prisoners today. Most of today’s society may perceive prisoners as un-worthy of the resources needed to provide a college level education and some may even question their competency, but we cannot overlook the evidence that had been provided by years of research that tells us that prisoners who have access to post secondary education will cut their likelihood to re-offend and return o prison in half by 50%! That is the evidence, not an assumption based off of speculation. If those are the numbers then what is the motive for the legislature and the department of corrections to overlook such an important element to safer communities? Why support a policy that argues against the mission of public safety?

In Washington 8,000 prisoners are released back into the community every year, and 90% of all prisoners will be returning back to the community at some point. So making sure that all prisoners receive some help that can get their life back on track should be the goal of any conscious thinking criminal justice system. But for the last few decades that has not been the case and prisoners have become fed up with waiting around for the criminal justice system to adjust to the facts and that is the reason many prisoners have become proactive in creating these opportunities themselves.

Victor Hugo once said, “Not even an army can prevent an idea whose time has come.” And the radical push for post secondary education among prisoners has begun to spawn many different types of learning programs that are facilitated by prisoners and being held at no cost to the tax payers. Now these programs are attracting a growing number of supporters from various colleges and the community. At the Washington State Reformatory (WSR) and Clallam Bay Corrections Center (CBCC) the Black Prisoners’ Caucus had become a loud voice for prisoners to become hands on in the push for programs, services and policy changes that may benefit them and their personal growth. That led to two college programs, University Beyond Bars (UBB) at WSR and T.E.A.C.H. at CBCC. Other college programs have also sprouted up at other facilities such as Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) at Washington Corrections Center for Women (WCCW) and the college program at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Not all of these programs have prisoners designing curriculum, facilitating classes, organizing board meetings and teaching, but the ones that do have some of the best courses that could be taught at any well to do university. Inmates may always be looked at as convicted felons but the actions of these men speak of people who not only value education but who realize that something as simple as a classroom can allow a person to utilize their critical thinking skills. It also supports their ability to become whole and feel normal gain. College level education may not be the magical combination to eliminate crime and miscreant behavior but whether we want to admit it or not, education has the power to save lives. Change isn’t just something that we can just wish for; we have to work to create the change we want to see and it has to be something that is tangible that can only be seen with the eyes but also touched with the hands. For many of these prisoners taking college courses for the first time change came to them in the form of a college math book. Most of them realize that as prisoners they may always be looked at as the scoundrels of the earth but regardless of how they are viewed some are using TEACHING as a way of leaving behind a legacy that is slowly transforming prisoners into something other than what society expects them to be – college educated students.

Kimonti Carter

Black Prisoners’ Caucus – Clallam Bay / TEACH