The New Fight to Restore Pell Grants to Felons
Study shows ninety-four percent of formerly incarcerated persons list education as a personal reentry need
In 1972, Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island was instrumental in establishing the Basic Educational Opportunity Grants, later known as Pell grants. The grants were given to low income students who sought to attend college. The grants did not exclude prisoners or felons, a policy that conservative law makers took exception to. In 1994, an amendment was attached to the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act that made prisoners ineligible for the grants. President Bill Clinton signed it into law.
A group of reentry providers, under the banner of Education from the Inside Out, will soon be meeting with members of Congress in an effort to get Pell Grants reinstated to prisoners. The goal is to get the reinstatement of Pell Grants passed in 2011, because those seeking office in 2012 might not want to be considered soft on crime during their campaigns, despite the fact that post-secondary education offered to prisoners resulted in a ten percent recidivism rate. While that number might look small on paper, the impact on the lives of those effected by the grants spreads far into the community.
One of the targets of Education from the Inside Out is Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) who supports restoration of Pell Grants to prisoners. Other politicians will also be approached and provided with information concerning the proposed bill. Critics of Pell Grants for prisoners claim that money is taken away from law-abiding citizens seeking financial aid, and given to prisoners. The reality is that when Pell grants were offered to prisoners only six-tenths of one percent of all the grants went to prisoners, all those who qualified for Pell Grants received them.
Dallas Pell, daughter of the late senator, is working with Education from the Inside Out to get the grants reinstated to prisoner. After all, it was her father who stated “Education is our primary hope for rehabilitating prisoners. Without education, I am afraid most inmates leave prison only to return to a life of crime.” Statistics bear this out. The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that two-thirds of those released are rearrested, and within three years fifty percent go back to prison within three years. Sean Pica, the executive director of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison was quoted as saying,“If there were a sixty percent fatality rate on a main thoroughfare, we would find out what the hell is going on. The fact that sixty percent of our men and women are returning doesn’t seem to concern anyone.”
Source: National Cure
New York Times
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