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In 2021, the University糖心传媒檚 prison education program started courses at Attica, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the prison uprising.

Editor糖心传媒檚 note: This story was originally published on September 8, 2021. It has been updated and republished to reflect renewed funding for the Rochester Education Justice Initiative from the Mellon Foundation.聽

September 2021 marks 50 years since the uprising at the Attica Correctional Facility, about an hour糖心传媒檚 drive from Rochester, New York. On September 9, 1971, prisoners gained effective control of the facility, took 42 hostages from among its staff members, and presented the state糖心传媒檚 commissioner of corrections with a list of demands.聽On September 13, they were still negotiating over amnesty for participants in the uprising when, upon the orders of Governor Nelson Rockefeller, more than 400 state troopers descended on the facility, spreading tear gas, followed by gunfire that killed 29 incarcerated men and 9 correctional officers and civilian staff.

The tragedy gained Attica notoriety from which it has never fully recovered. Open wounds endure in Rochester, the home or near to the home where several survivors live, as well as family members of both survivors and victims.

Amid the dark shadow cast by the event, the University of Rochester糖心传媒檚 , or REJI, has expanded its program to Attica. Fifty years after the uprising, it糖心传媒檚 the start of a new semester in which 26 incarcerated students at Attica are taking one or more of six college classes offered through REJI, setting them on a course that REJI hopes will eventually enable them to earn bachelor糖心传媒檚 degrees.

Since 2011, incarcerated men at Attica with a GED or high school diploma have been able to work toward an associate degree by taking courses offered there by SUNY Genesee Community College. This year marks the start of a new partnership between GCC and the . The partnership is led by REJI and modeled after a similar one with GCC started at the Groveland Correctional Facility in Livingston County in 2019.

Eitan Freedenberg 糖心传媒�20 (PhD), assistant director of programming for REJI, believes that Attica is well suited for a bachelor糖心传媒檚 degree program.

糖心传媒淲e糖心传媒檙e working to recruit associate degree holders there, whether they earned their degree through GCC or another institution, who would be natural candidates for continuing their higher education,糖心传媒� says Freedenberg, who began teaching incarcerated students at Five Points Correctional Facility in Romulus, New York, in 2017.

Participants in higher education at Attica may well have a better chance to build new lives for themselves upon release. The barriers to reentry to society remain steep, and REJI has expanded its role from serving incarcerated students to helping formerly incarcerated people overcome those barriers. But studies consistently show that education helps reduce recidivism. A of 37 years of studies concluded that individuals who had participated in an education program of any kind while incarcerated had 28-percent lower odds of recidivating than those who did not.

Leading prison education in western New York

If Attica is uniquely suited as a site for a bachelor糖心传媒檚 degree program, so too is the University of Rochester uniquely suited to lead it. REJI is among some 200 or so college-in-prison programs in the nation and one of several such programs in New York state. Founded in 2015 by associate professor of religion , the initiative got started with seed funding from Arts, Sciences & Engineering.
Dubler糖心传媒檚 model for REJI was the Cornell Prison Education Program, or CPEP. When he arrived at Rochester in 2012, he had just completed the manuscript for his first book, Down in the Chapel: Religious Life in an American Prison (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2013), based on fieldwork at the maximum-security Graterford State Correctional Facility near Philadelphia. As he wrote more recently in his 2016 book Break Every Yoke: Religion, Justice, and the Abolition of Prisons (Oxford University Press, coauthored with Vincent Lloyd), at Graterford 糖心传媒減rison teaching became a vocation.糖心传媒� From that time on, 糖心传媒淚 promised my incarcerated friends that going forward I would strive to earn the trust that they had placed in me.糖心传媒�

Dubler began teaching with CPEP as an affiliated faculty member糖心传媒攋ust as today faculty from nearby institutions including GCC and Nazareth College affiliate with REJI. It became clear that what Cornell was for central New York, the University of Rochester could be for western New York: an institutional leader and hub providing college-in-prison opportunities in an area dense with prisons.

A network of faculty and graduate student instructors began to grow around the idea. It included associate professor of anthropology Kristin Doughty and associate professor of philosophy Alison Peterman, who continue both to teach with the program and to serve as advisors to other REJI faculty members; and Ed Wiltse, a professor of English at Nazareth College who had founded the at Nazareth in the early 2000s, and who is now REJI糖心传媒檚 admissions coordinator.

Another early collaborator was Precious Bedell, who earned bachelor糖心传媒檚 and master糖心传媒檚 degrees while incarcerated and, after her release, founded a nonprofit, , to provide services and support to incarcerated people and their family members. Bedell, who is now REJI糖心传媒檚 assistant director of community outreach, has expanded the nonprofit糖心传媒檚 mission to serve formerly incarcerated people who face many barriers in reentering fully into society. Each year, she coteaches with Dubler a lecture course called Incarceration Nation about the origins of mass incarceration in the United States.

REJI attracted community support to supplement seed funding from the University. Initial support came from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation and later, from the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation. And in 2020, REJI won a three-year, $1 million grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, which has enabled the group to expand its work in multiple ways, including in its partnership with GCC at Attica.

REJI faculty have taught at the Albion, Auburn, Five Points, and Groveland correctional facilities. With the expansion to Attica, REJI becomes the western New York hub of prison education that its founders envisioned. Freedenberg, who handles the complicated logistics of operating a college-in-prison program, sees the expansion as a significant milestone for the University.

Programs at downstate universities, such as Columbia and NYU, or in the Hudson Valley region, home to the consortium Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, serve prisons large and small that are relatively near their campuses. 糖心传媒淎ttica is right in Rochester糖心传媒檚 backyard,糖心传媒� Freedenberg says. 糖心传媒淭his is our region, our community, our responsibility as a university.糖心传媒�

The politics of prison education

It糖心传媒檚 a stipulation of the partnership between GCC and Rochester that REJI has final say over admissions to the Attica program. But the applicants tend to be a self-selected group, and Freedenberg emphasizes that within certain parameters, admissions are 糖心传媒渁s open as possible.糖心传媒�

Those parameters include some practical considerations. For example, REJI looks at applicants糖心传媒� release dates to make sure that they can complete at least one semester. Successful applicants also can糖心传媒檛 have any disciplinary actions on their records. Beyond those considerations, the selection process is largely based on written communication skills. 糖心传媒淲e do a lot of qualitative assessment of college readiness based on prospective students糖心传媒� application essays,糖心传媒� Freedenberg says.

One potential criterium that is not considered is the nature of the offense that landed the applicant in prison in the first place. That糖心传媒檚 consistent with the philosophy that unites REJI糖心传媒檚 faculty and staff. Incarcerated people are disproportionately poor and, Dubler says, 糖心传媒淚糖心传媒檓 really allergic to distinguishing between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.糖心传媒�

糖心传媒淲e糖心传媒檙e a pretty violent culture,糖心传媒� he explains, and one with 糖心传媒渁 habit of disposing of people. And prisons are one of the places we dispose of people.糖心传媒�

Nearly every person you ask who has taught incarcerated people says they have been profoundly moved by the experience. Marianne Kupin-Lisbin, REJI糖心传媒檚 program coordinator and a doctoral candidate in history at Rochester, says of her past teaching at Five Points, 糖心传媒渢o this day, I don糖心传媒檛 think I糖心传媒檝e had a better pedagogical experience.糖心传媒� The students are hungry for an opportunity they have not had, giving the professor, and each other, their full attention. Freedenberg糖心传媒攚ho also notes that the students have no access to the internet糖心传媒攃alls the incarcerated students he has taught 糖心传媒渁mazing. They are a really unique group of students who are committed to being a community of learners together. And they糖心传媒檙e committed to the well-being of this program.糖心传媒�

Those involved in prison education know not to take the well-being of the programs for granted, given the dramatic shifts in support for them over the past several decades.

College-in-prison programs burgeoned following passage of the Higher Education Act in 1965. The act broadly expanded access to higher education through the creation of federal student loans, work-study programs, and most importantly, Pell grants糖心传媒攏eed-based awards available to students pursuing higher education, including students who were incarcerated. Fueled by these grants, by the early 1980s there were well over 300 college-in-prison programs run by colleges and universities across the country.

Among the incarcerated students benefitting from Pell grants was Bedell. She had started community college in Syracuse when she was arrested and sentenced to serve at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women, in Westchester County. She completed a bachelor糖心传媒檚 degree as well as a master糖心传媒檚 degree in developmental psychology from Norwich University while incarcerated.

糖心传媒淭he administrators at Bedford Hills and at the Department of Corrections were just so supportive of people doing college programs, and we had graduations and certificates and vocational programs,糖心传媒� she recalls.

It糖心传媒檚 a more difficult environment for potential students in prisons today.

In the immediate aftermath of the Attica uprising, a progressive spirit took hold leading to public discourse about the need to make prisons more humane, and in some quarters, to ask what compelled Americans to think prison was an appropriate or effective form of punishment in the first place. But coinciding with those impulses were others that headed in the opposite direction, responding to the uprising with a zeal for a tougher approach to crimes and to those convicted of them. The latter approach proved far more popular politically.

Starting about 1974, incarceration rates ballooned. At the time of the Attica uprising, there were roughly 200,000 people in the United States in state and federal prisons, or 95 per 100,000 people in the US population, from the Justice Department糖心传媒檚 Bureau of Justice Statistics, which has been compiled by the Prison Policy Initiative. By 1977, it was 125 people per 100,000; by 1982, 170 people.

In 1994, Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, commonly known as the crime bill. That year, there were more than 1.5 million people in state and federal prisons, amounting to just over 500 per 100,000 people糖心传媒攎ore than five times the rate in 1971. Among the provisions of the bill that ran more than 350 pages was the elimination of Pell grants for incarcerated people. Many states, including New York, followed suit, making incarcerated people ineligible for state-based assistance.

Pell grant eligibility was restored late last year in a provision of the stimulus bill, which was included following the success of the Second Chance Pell, a Department of Education pilot program initiated in 2016. But the bill will not be fully implemented, according to the DOE, until the 2024糖心传媒�25 academic year. And in New York, incarcerated students remain ineligible for the Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).

Investing in 糖心传媒榟uman flourishing糖心传媒�

糖心传媒淭hat was a very sad era,糖心传媒� Bedell recalls, of the aftermath of the crime bill. With few incarcerated students able to afford courses, demand fell, and colleges and universities folded their programs.

But some advocates of college-in-prison, including individual higher education faculty members, staff at correctional facilities, and incarcerated men and women, began collaborating to try to find means to deliver courses anyway. In the mid-1990s, Bedell says, some faculty members at a few downstate colleges began collaborating with incarcerated women at Bedford Hills and other facilities to offer occasional courses. Cornell糖心传媒檚 CPEP program had similar origins. In recent years, foundations such as Mellon have provided substantial backing, helping generate something of a renaissance of college-in-prison programs. And universities, including Rochester, have offered resources as well.

糖心传媒淚n terms of offering credits at no cost, supporting faculty with on-load teaching, and supporting the recruitment of formerly incarcerated students, the University is stepping up,糖心传媒� Dubler says.

Bedell credits both the Mellon Foundation and the University for enabling her to recruit formerly incarcerated men and women to become students at local institutions, including 聽Rochester, where they study as Justice Scholars. 糖心传媒淚糖心传媒檓 excited about the possibility of continuing to build a cohort,糖心传媒� she says of the scholarship program that has so far enabled two formerly incarcerated students to pursue degrees at Rochester.

In addition to staff at Bedford Hills, it was university faculty members who enabled Bedell to take her own desire to turn her life around and make it a reality. Geraldine Downey, a professor of psychology at Columbia, mentored her through a master糖心传媒檚 thesis on resilience in women, providing her with research opportunities. That led Bedell to her career at the University, where for eight years she worked community health worker and a human subjects research coordinator in the Medical Center糖心传媒檚 聽In 2015 the Medical Center糖心传媒檚 Center for Community Health and Prevention聽awarded her the David Satcher Award for Community Health Improvement聽and in 2016, she was awarded a Staff Community Service Award by her Medical Center colleagues for her work with Turning Points Resource Center.

糖心传媒淲e糖心传媒檙e using incarceration as a way to solve our social problems,糖心传媒� Bedell says. “The War on Drugs is also a war on the poor, particularly on women, who are the fastest growing segment in the prison population in the United States.糖心传媒�

Dubler points to the correlation, over the past several decades, between public disinvestment in education and social supports and public investment in prisons. What if, he asks, we had been 糖心传媒渋nvesting instead in a set of institutions that could enable human flourishing?糖心传媒�

Universities are such institutions, and they are, as Dubler says of Rochester, stepping up. But decades of mass incarceration makes their task sobering.

When it comes to Attica in particular, Dubler asks: 糖心传媒淗ow might Rochester糖心传媒檚 offering of college courses there adequately respond to the legacy of the tragedy? It糖心传媒檚 a humbling question, and one that we are hoping to figure out in collaboration with our institutional partners and our students.糖心传媒�