Correctional Education

While school seems like prison for some students, it liberates those incarcerated

By Kristyn Loudermilk

“I was never afraid,” she says. “I was in a room with 20 men alone, no guard, but I was never afraid.”

Stassen says that professors don’t know what type of crime the inmates are serving, but it could be anything.

“I could have had a murderer in my class,” she said. “But you would never be able to tell based on their work and participation.”

She says that her prison students worked harder than most of her Ball State students on average. They came to class prepared and had questions. Sometimes, her students would complain about the other inmates being too loud when they were trying to study.

“One guy wrote 18 pages of notes just for a study guide,” Stassen says. “It was unreal.”

Ball State has nearly 100 instructors across Indiana prisons, teaching approximately 1,000 students in the Indiana prisons, according to Joanna Wallace, associate dean of the school of extended education for Ball State.

Some professors travel to Michigan City, Ind., which is about 3.5 hours from Ball State, to teach once a week at the prison there. This is the main reason Stassen no longer teaches at the prisons. It is difficult to travel so much as a single mom she says. Ball State professors taught former inmate, James Barham, while he was incarcerated. He says his professors inspired him while he was in prison, and now he attends Ball State to finish his degree in psychology.

“Being in the classroom in prison provides a different social identity for the inmates,” Barham says. “So instead of belonging to a gang, they belong to Ball State.”

Barham says that the professors taught the inmates the same as they would a typical Ball State student.

Stassen confirms that teaching in the prison was quite similar to teaching at Ball State. She says that the classrooms look the same but with less technology.

Stassen could bring her computer and use PowerPoint presentations or the Internet to show examples for class, but inmates were not allowed on the Internet. Most prisons have computer labs, so inmates can type papers, but all research has to be done without the use of the Internet.

Professors also have to create lesson plans before the first day of class begins because the prison must have a copy of all materials they will bring during the semester. Teachers need to plan much further in advance because if they do bring something not on the original list, it will be confiscated.

Barham says that professors are inspiring because they give inmates the opportunity to learn something they weren’t accustomed to learning despite the distance, negative talk and harassment they could potentially endure.

“The prison regulations sometimes handicap the professors,” he says. “At one point they couldn’t even bring in their laptops.”

The rules the professors adhere to now are minimal compared to the beginning of the program. Indiana correctional education has progressed since it began in the mid ‘70s. More prisoners are allowed into the program, and numerous policies have been passed that give prisoners more money and rights.

However, some people don’t agree with the educational rights for prisoners and say that money the prisoners receive should be given to people who have not committed crimes.

Wallace says that even if people don’t agree prisoners should be educated, it is a law, so Indiana can’t choose not to educate.

Stassen and Wallace say that it is a common misconception that prisoners receive a free education, which is not true.

“The prisoners have to go through the same process as everyone else to receive grants for their education, and they can only receive the money for four years,” Stassen says.

Wallace says that a lot of times the prisoners come from disadvantaged homes that didn’t value education, so she can see the humanity in offering them an education.

Barham agrees with Wallace and tries to make people understand why it is important for prisoners to receive an education. Statistics show that inmates who receive an education while in prison are less likely to be repeat offenders and return to prison.

“Those that are abused or go through traumatic events are walking time bombs,” Barham says. “But if they are educated, they can figure out how to work through their problems and follow a different path when they leave.”

He says that he spent many of his years in prison fighting for more educational rights for inmates. He wrote numerous letters to the government, including state representatives and senators. Some responded, and eventually, laws mandated that inmates receive more educational rights. Barham says that before things were changed, an inmate had to have a maximum of two years left in order to get his or her GED.

“I remember when a younger kid came up to me and said he was in prison for drug charges,” Barham says. “And would have to go back to selling if he wasn’t able to get his GED because most jobs required that.”

Those are the reasons he and other inmates fought for future prisoners’ rights.

“I taught at the prisons because it opened my eyes to a completely different culture,” Stassen says. “I’m not saying people who do horrible acts don’t deserve punishment, but it’s amazing how different their lives are and the things they’ve endured.”