Felix D’Allesandro explains who and what is stopping him from getting a college education in prison and describes why it’s an serious issue with a simple solution.

I arrived at Washington Corrections Center (WCC) in October of 2021, during the ersatz closure of Washington State Reformatory (WSR) at Monroe. The difference between the two institutions was stark.

At WSR, one could fill their days with various classes and clubs. There was always something to do. Here, at WCC, there is little. Besides basic skills which are offered at every prison in the state, our local contract college offers credits only toward a basic associate’s degree and a ten-week certificate in Construction Trades Apprenticeship Program, the only vocational opportunity at WCC.

Other programming includes Bridges to Life (a Christian-based victims’ awareness program), Substance Use Disorder (SUD)Treatment Services, and Thinking for a Change, a cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) program. Research results on the efficacy of these programs is mixed.

The latter two are restricted and determined by a needs-based assessment, and Washington Department of Corrections (DOC) determines most prisoners have a need. Individuals who refuse to participate in these programs receive a “557 infraction,” and DOC will keep hitting you with them until you comply.

A 557 violation, “Refusing to Participate in an Available Work, Training, Education or other Mandatory Programming Assignment,” results in loss of mandatory good conduct time, all available earned time credits for the month in which the violation occurred, and specific privileges determined by the Disciplinary Hearing Officer. Loss of good conduct time for a 557, unlike other infractions, cannot be earned back.

If you release without completing these programs, DOC can require you to take them at your own expense while under community custody. Your Community Corrections Officer can even force you to retake them at your expense if you did not complete them within six months of release. The consequence for refusal is more prison time.

Postsecondary education, the best indicator of better rehabilitative outcomes, does work and yet Washington state prisons offer very few postsecondary educational opportunities – even after the governor signed into law[2] mandated increases in postsecondary offerings.

In a 2019 study[3], benefit to cost ratios were monetized to reflect the value of rehabilitation in prisons. Postsecondary education was the highest at $19.74 and a 100% chance the benefits outweighed the costs. Employment ranked second highest at $12.69, vocational training third at $11.94, drug treatment fourth at $10.13, basic skills fifth at $9.64, and offender change programming sixth at $6.31. And yet, year after year, DOC has requested increased funding for “offender change” programming instead of postsecondary education.

So why isn’t taxpayer money being spent on education? DOC receives significant state and federal funding for CBT and SUD treatment programs, while educational funding comes from the reallocation of funds from the agency’s budget. During the past twenty years of incarceration, I have completed an Associate of Science degree and my senior year toward a bachelor’s degree through Ohio University, without financial assistance from DOC.

Currently, Pell funding in Washington State prisons covers only associate level courses for non-correspondence students. While funding expanded to include bachelor’s level courses for the fiscal year 2024 nationwide, Washington State Board of Community and Technical Colleges and DOC agreed to delay implementation until fiscal year 2025. That leaves correspondence courses as the only means of completing credits above an associate’s degree level and without financial assistance.

Ohio University is one of the few remaining institutions offering pencil-and-paper courses, and they no longer guarantee bachelor’s degree completion for existing students. We do not have the legislatively mandated restricted internet access, meaning we cannot complete bachelor degree-level courses through secure internet. Although a senior with a 3.8 GPA, I can no longer take the courses I need to graduate from Ohio University. I have found no viable options.

In anticipation of Pell funding, DOC has broadened the bidding to allow state universities/colleges into their facilities. Dr. Elizabeth Grant, Washington Corrections Center Director of Corrections Education, is hopeful that with unrestricted funding, Centralia and other colleges will be able to expand postsecondary offerings up to a bachelor’s degree and include more vocational programming. It is uncertain whether this expansion will occur at all prisons.

At a recent listening session hosted by Evergreen State College, Evergreen noted that it was highly unlikely they would be able to establish a presence here because Kristen Morgan, DOC Education Services Administrator, had already approved them for Stafford Creek.

Then, what enrollment criteria will DOC use? Before, DOC restricted enrollment in education to those with under five years on their sentence, recently raised to seven years.^[4] Those with indeterminate and life sentences are excluded, making it impossible to meet conditions set by sentence review boards or show rehabilitation efforts to the Clemency and Parole Board.

Correspondence degrees have been all that was left to those of us seeking a postsecondary education otherwise excluded by policy. People like me.

Support for correspondence education was scant. I had to fight every step of the way for my education. Prisoners are required to program. By law and policy,[5] correspondence education qualifies as programming for full-time students. But administrators at WSR disagreed. Even when the DOC Education Services Administrator verified that correspondence is considered full-time programming, exempting me from work, WSR’s Correctional Program Manager (CPM), Melinda Ferrell, and Associate Superintendent, John Padilla, ignored headquarter’s decision, and forced me to take a job.

Beyond considerations of time to complete coursework, is funding. The incarcerated individual bears the full burden of cost, and most classes cost between $1,000 to $1,400. DOC only recently raised our slave wages from $0.42/hour up to $.55/hour less deductions to $1.00/hour.

Without outside support, the costs are simply too high for all but a handful of people to earn credits. And yet, a solution exists. In fiscal year 2018, the legislature approved the use of secure internet “expressly for the purposes of furthering postsecondary education degree opportunities, and training,”[6] though DOC has failed to implement it.

The ability to participate in online correspondence courses would be life changing. Western Governor’s University is free to Washington State residents. Without the cost barrier, every inmate would have the same opportunity to ensure a better outcome post-release. Regardless of whether courses are offered online or off, correspondence students must deal with the contract community college, which is responsible for proctoring exams, as well as providing resources to students such as electronic resources, and computer lab time.

Completing coursework without word processing software is impractical if not forbidden by some instructors, and correspondence students are not issued laptops, as opposed to the students enrolled in the contract school. Lab time is limited to a couple of hours a week, too short for one class alone, to say nothing about full-time students. Research requests and library resources can take weeks to obtain, and may or may not be useful.

Under the previous DOC Education Services Administrator, Loretta Taylor, I was issued a laptop for my correspondence work. That changed when Kristen Morgan replaced her. I first encountered Morgan at WSR. She was Monroe Correctional Complex Associate Dean of Corrections Education. She reneged on an offer made by the previous dean to issue me a laptop. She stated that Edmonds resources were for Edmonds’ students.

Morgan has now brought her philosophy to the department as a whole. College courses lacking a proper support apparatus become much more challenging. If not for my parents’ support, I would not have been able to complete my degree.

And then there is the mailroom. Over the years, the mailroom has lost course materials, rejected textbooks and supplies, and delayed the completion of courses. At WSR, the mailroom said they returned the materials for the final two courses of my associate’s due to incorrect shipping information. Ohio never received the returned materials. I grieved the missing materials, and weeks later, they inexplicably appeared on my bunk. The mailing label, which I had kept, was appropriately addressed. The mailroom sergeant, Melvin Hopkins, was unaware that I ever received the materials, and only became aware of it during his investigation of the grievance.

In addition, many of the courses require that you incorporate feedback from the previous graded lessons before you submit subsequent lessons. WSR’s mailroom frequently sent my returned lessons to the educational navigator, which in turn took me weeks longer to receive. Courses that should have taken three to six months to complete took up to a year, and I had to pay for the ensuing course extensions.

At WCC, I was placed in a receiving unit during COVID for quarantine when course materials arrived. The mailroom rejected them because we were not allowed anything other than written correspondence from individuals because we were placed in the receiving units, a very restrictive environment. I appealed, stating that I was there due to quarantine and should not be under the severe restrictions in receiving. CPM Melinda Kupers, prompted by emails from my parents, talked to me before they released my textbooks. They rejected all other course materials (paper, pencils, pens, folders), which are allowed by policy, and ignored my appeals.

DOC consistently subverts laws and mandates by offering feigned compliance. Where there’s no will, there’s no way, and DOC lacks will. Worse than that, they want us to fail because our success costs them funding and jobs.

The greatest predictor of future criminal activity is prior criminal activity. Many turn back to criminal behavior because they don’t have the skills to find gainful employment. Most prisoners did not complete high school, most are poor and lack strong community support, but economic disadvantage can be overcome with education.

DOC’s motto that reentry begins at reception is deceptive. They could ensure that postsecondary education is a priority with secure internet for online courses. It is the best program in prison. That would make reentry at reception a reality. DOC does not change without external pressure. Taxpayers, legislators and judges must force their hand.

Prisons do not benefit society in terms of crime reduction, value for investment, or rehabilitation. The least DOC could do is not impede our efforts to escape the permanent taint that incarceration leaves. Citizens should demand change, and legislators should hold them accountable. DOC’s success need not be exacted on society.

[2] RCW 72.09.460

[3] The Washington State Institute for Public Policy (WSIPP) is a nonpartisan public research group located in Olympia, the hub of Washington State government.

[4] DOC 500.000, rev. 9/22/2023

[5] RCW 72.09.460, 72.09.465 and DOC 500.000, 500.100

[6] RCW 28B.50.815

Felix D’Allesandro has been incarcerated in Washington State since he turned 19 in 2003 and is approaching the end of his sentence in 2027. In 2023, his article, “Censorship in America’s Prisons: Rooted in Puritan Christianity,” was published in RTS Zine and exhibited at Incarcerated Artists and Authors Shed Light on Prison Censorship in New York, which “explored the prison industrial complex’s mechanisms of silencing.”  He recently proposed a developmental computer programming learning environment between his prison and the local community college that would allow coding clubs as well as coding classes. The purpose was to give incarcerated useful skills in a high-demand occupation upon release as well as offer a valuable learning environment. Despite the full support of the Dean of Education, the prison refused to engage in further talks. This is one example of many proposals submitted that would benefit those within. Unfortunately, Washington Corrections Center is not open to education programs beyond GED and some limited vocational programs. Felix was active in teaching pre-calculus, coding, and Japanese at a former prison in Washington, Monroe Corrections Center. He has attained an A.S. and is a senior at Ohio University. He has published four short stories and is active in the WCC Writers’ Group.

The post Here’s Why We Need College Education in Prison first appeared on Prison Writers.