Statistics, Philosophy of Great Ideas, Environment and Society -Boston University professor Robert Cadigan teaches these courses as part of a standard college curriculum, with one particular difference.
He does not just teach academia to undergraduate students within BU’s limestone towers – he teaches inmates at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Framingham through BU’s Prison Education Program.
Professors like Cadigan must be carefully inspected on entry. The content he uses in class is approved beforehand. Butterfly clips, fluorescent markers, even certain kinds of pens are contraband and stay outside prison walls, he said.
PEP helps inmates in four prisons earn college credit toward a degree. About 250 inmates over 33 years have now earned Bachelor’s or Master’s degrees through the program, according to Cadigan, the program’s director. BU is the only university in Massachusetts to offer college-level liberal arts courses within prison walls.
“[PEP is] a chance for people who really have not had a [crack] at conventional education to have a chance to find themselves,” he said.
About 180 inmates at medium-security Bay State, Framingham and Norfolk prisons and minimum-security South Middlesex are enrolled in 22 different courses that are taught by BU professors.
Until recently, the program was restricted to inmates who had already taken three college courses – either before entering prison or through correspondence courses in prison. But a new $180,000 grant from the Lynch Foundation will open up the program to students who show potential, but not previous college coursework, Cadigan said.
The grant will allow BU to finalize a two-year “Bridge to College” program based on admission by exam. Inmates in the new program will take introductory core courses – English, math and critical thinking – and can then be admitted to PEP based on their performance.
The Prison Education Program began as the idea of former professor Elizabeth “Ma” Barker in 1972. Inmates nicknamed Barker after the matriarch of a 1930s gang of bank robbers called the “Barker Gang,” Cadigan said.
President emeritus John Silber first approved the creation of the program and was “instrumental … essential” to its survival, Cadigan said.
“[Barker and Silber] took the program through some very tough times,” he said.
In 1994, Congress declared prisoners ineligible for federal Pell grants, which previously accepted prisoners as low-income students. The loss in funding impacted other universities’ feeder programs. PEP is almost completely funded by BU.
The program survived a movement away from redemptive programming for prisoners in the late 1980s as part of a “get tough on time” approach, Cadigan said, adding that education programs dramatically improve current rehabilitation programs.
A recent study by the Institute for Higher Education Policy found renewed interest in education by prison officials in a number of states, including Texas.
Psychology professor emeritus Margaret Hagen called the positive effects of prison education “commonsensical.”
“Punishment doesn’t eliminate bad behavior – it pushes it underground and moves it sideways,” she said. “Education programs reward good behaviors. … People who have options for the future are more likely to embrace those options.”
Silber said although PEP provides educational benefits, it also helps to change the personality of the inmates.
“Education is a transforming process,” he said in an email. “Those [in PEP] had a better attitude as prisoners, had a more hopeful and constructive attitude toward life and quite often developed ambitions to succeed as honorable citizens, leaving behind the life of crime that brought them there.”
Cadigan said few students had returned to prison for new crimes and that until recently, students had only returned for parole violations and not for repeated crimes.
One former student of the program now works as a paralegal and has started a non-profit organization for relatives and friends of prisoners. Another graduate has written a novel about crime in South Boston and another works in computer science.
Some graduates even work within the Department of Corrections, Cadigan said.
Although Cadigan has not yet conducted a study on the concrete benefits of the program, he said he believes PEP students receive fewer disciplinary reports and have a better quality of life once released.
“I was [surprised] right off the bat by how much students read into the material and their generally high level of intellectual activity,” Cadigan said. “There’s a stronger level of participation than most classrooms because students are there because they want to be there.”