Higher Education in Prison: The Palo Verde Model

F or decades, in an example of social responsibility, college and prison administrators worked closely together towards a common goalhigher education.When Congress established Pell Grants in 1965 as part of a national movement to increase civil liberties, prisoners directly benefited from the funding mechanism (Taylor, 1992).By the early 1980s, roughly 350 colleges and universities used Pell grants to fund a myriad of post-secondary correctional education programs (PSCE) (ibid).Research compiled over 20 years showed recidivism rates dropped from 70 percent to 20 percent for those who received at least an Associates degree (Taylor, 2004).The results were greater for those who earned a Bachelors degree and even more impressive for prisoners who received a Graduate degree (Taylor, 1992).However, in the tough on crime 1990s, the ideology of extreme punishment, mind bending warehousing and untreated addiction would replace common sense so to win the war on drugs and the war on crime, and dispose of those unable to cure themselves.Under this heavy-handed model, the Congress in 1994 excluded prisoners from the Pell Grant program (Dey, 1994, p. 18).Without this financial lifeline, by the end of the '90s only a handful of PSCE programs survived (Dey, 2005a), returning us to the penological Dark Ages of the pre-Civil Rights era.Due to America's fixation on crime and punishment, the national prison population swelled to 2.3 million prisoners by the mid-2000s and beyond (The Sacramento Bee, 2008, E6).Above the influx of state dollars pouring into the local economies, prisons built in rural locations created some unforeseen opportunities for prison-dependent communities (Dey, 2005a).Colleges in remote outposts of the prison-industrial complex are frequently in jeopardy of losing their accreditation and funding because of problems maintaining full-time enrolments (FTE) (ibid).This correctional-educational manifestation is common in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR), the largest prison system in the country with 33 institutions and roughly 170,000 prisoners (Beyer, 2008, p. 1).Seeing an opportunity where no other existed, Palo Verde Community College, located in the sparsely populated desert region of southern California, became determined to take advantage of the untapped resources at Ironwood State Prison (ISP) (Dey, 2005b, p. 9).Beginning in 2000, with courses offered entirely through correspondence, Palo Verde 33 graduated 30 ISP student-prisoners in 2003 with Associates degrees (ibid).With hundreds enrolled, ISP now has a class regularly graduating from Palo Verde College (ibid).Educators at Lassen Community College (LCC) took notice and decided to follow Palo Verde's lead.Nestled in the mountains of northern California, Lassen County is the home of two state prisons, the California Correctional Center (CCC) and High Desert State Prison (HDSP), plus a brand new federal prison in nearby Herlong.With three prisons, Lassen County is one of the largest penal colonies in the world, dubbed Prison Town, USA (Galloway and Kutchins, 2007) in a documentary.This is the perfect location for a community college to begin teaching in a correctional environment (Dey, 2005a).Lassen College, on the brink of failure as an institution of higher learning, decided to apply the Palo Verde Model of PSCE administered through correspondence.Beginning with 60 prisoners in CCC and HDSP in the spring 2005 semester (Dey, 2005a), the fall 2006 semester would realize LCC's first class of graduates who would receive Associates degrees in Liberal Arts.Like Palo Verde's, LCC's program has thrived.At the beginning of the summer 2006 semester almost 200 students were in CCC and HDSP, plus around 50 in Herlong.This is a win-win for all involved.Lassen College receives much needed FTEs and the prisoners, primarily from impoverished backgrounds, receive an education free of charge.The CDCR now has a growing number of fully funded Associates degree programs.Above the Palo Verde Model of correspondence, Patton University in Oakland has been teaching at San Quentin in Marin County since 1996 in a privately funded program that also offers Associates degrees (Dey, 2005).This is a far cry from the 350 Associates and Bachelors programs prior to 1994, but PSCE is beginning to make a comeback on a much smaller scale. PoWeRfuL testiMonyHow higher education transforms a convict into a scholar occurs in increments.As the college curriculum soaks in over a number of semesters, the prisoner morphs.A lifetime of using their cognitive skills primarily to promote another agenda, providing higher education to them while in prison gives them a chance to use their intellect in a legitimate manner.Getting a suspect to answer questions are the tools of law enforcement.As a matter of protocol, if not survival, prisoners are disinclined to cooperate with inquisitors.But a prisoner participating in PSCE at CCC is 34

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