Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison

Lagemann, a former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Distinguished Fellow of the Bard Prison Initiative at Bard College in N.Y., argues that providing prisoners with a college education is good for both prisoners and society. College education helps the formerly incarcerated cope with the shame of having been imprisoned, communicate with their families, and increase opportunities for employment, and such programs also help society by lowering recidivism, incarceration costs, and the crime rate. In response to conflicting research about recidivism, Lagemann argues, persuasively, that these studies were either flawed or based on older, coercive models of prison education. She claims that self-directed programs in which prisoners have control over when and what they learn are effective. There is a particular focus on the Bard Prison Iniative, but other programs are mentioned too, including the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound at the Washington Correctional Facility for Women and the Prison University Project at San Quentin in California. Lagemann includes intensive research, but her most powerful supporting evidence comes from the anecdotes of former prisoners who have become published poets, social workers, and nonprofit leaders. (Feb.)