The prison to school pipeline: Why freedom behind bars starts with the mind

Some specify clip arsenic linear, immoderate spot it arsenic a block. Others notation to it arsenic thing spent, successful the present, oregon the future. Meanwhile, others see it to beryllium supernatural oregon holy, oregon thing to twist, tame oregon traverse.

As idiosyncratic who has been sentenced to a lifetime down bars, clip is some abstract and defined. When you person truthful overmuch time, it is each you have, yet, inside, you person astir nary power implicit however to walk it.

Every day, I tin perceive it: tick, tick, tick. It’s torturous, similar that dripping faucet successful my cell.

So to quiescent the sound, I study. I learn. I effort to physique thing meaningful from the minutes.

At the clip of my apprehension successful 2002, I was a 25-year-old entrepreneur who had started a palmy business. I was enrolled successful college, moving towards my grade successful Information Technology, erstwhile my satellite collapsed. Once successful New Jersey State Prison (NJSP) successful Trenton, I had a elemental choice: either springiness up connected each of my dreams, oregon combat for them alongside my efforts to beryllium my innocence. So, I decided to usage my clip to implicit my education.

My begetter had brought our household to the United States from Pakistan truthful his 2 sons could person entree to higher education. He passed distant this past January, and it is due to the fact that of him I support studying, to fulfil the imagination helium carried crossed an ocean.

Yet connected the inside, that imagination has been hard to chase.

‘You guys aren’t going anywhere’

Prison beingness is an insidious thing. The situation is conducive to vice and illicit activities. Drugs and gambling are casual to find; doing thing constructive, similar education, well, that tin beryllium a monumental task.

The NJSP’s acquisition section lone offers GED-level (high-school level) education. Prisoners tin besides enrol successful extracurricular correspondence courses, besides known arsenic autarkic study. These see certifications, similar successful paralegal studies, costing astir $750 to $1,000.

For-profit “correspondence schools” advertise mail-order assemblage degrees, but most, costing anyplace from $500 to $1,000, are unaccredited – selling paper, not knowledge. Some men cod a bachelor’s, master’s, and adjacent a doctorate successful a azygous year. I could not bring myself to bash that. For me, an accredited grade is thing that cannot beryllium dismissed, and would marque maine consciousness connected par with those successful the escaped world.

But the options for assemblage degrees from reputable accredited universities tin tally into the thousands – a non-starter for astir of those imprisoned. So I began with a prison paralegal grooming course taught by chap prisoners helping others with their ineligible battles.

Later on, I watched a PBS documentary astir the Bard Prison Initiative successful New York, a existent assemblage programme, accredited and rigorous, for men and women successful the state’s prisons. Inspired, I decided to constitute dozens of letters to reputable universities crossed the country, asking them to instrumentality maine arsenic a trial lawsuit to bash a degree. None replied.

Then I learned astir NJ-STEP, a programme offering assemblage courses to prisoners astatine East Jersey State Prison. But erstwhile I asked to enrol, the NJSP’s acquisition supervisor replied that it was not offered astatine our prison. When I appealed to the administration, a information large told me, “Why should I bring the NJ-STEP here? You guys aren’t going anywhere.”

His words echoed, arsenic if a condemnation wrong a sentence.

[Illustration by Martin Robles]

The story of higher education

Thomas Koskovich, 47, has spent astir 3 decades successful NJSP, wherever helium is serving a beingness sentence.

When I asked him astir the opportunities for higher acquisition successful the prison, helium scoffed.

“What assemblage programme?” helium blurted.

“The lone happening they fto america bash is thing called autarkic study, and by the way, you wage for everything yourself. The situation doesn’t assistance you. They conscionable proctor [meaning they supply idiosyncratic to administer] the tests.”

Thomas works arsenic a teacher’s aide, a situation occupation detail, successful the Donald Bourne School, named aft a policeman who was killed by a situation inmate successful 1972. The teachers travel from the outside, portion aides similar Thomas assistance them and besides tutor students requiring other support. He helps men gain their GEDs portion knowing determination is nary way offered beyond that to further higher education.

“I’ve seen guys stuck successful GED classes for 15 years,” helium said.

Prisoners get stuck for antithetic reasons: classes get cancelled due to the fact that of emergencies, oregon sometimes the men person small acquisition to statesman with and necessitate years to larn to work and write. Students besides get paid $70 a period to attend, truthful immoderate see it a occupation – peculiarly arsenic situation jobs are scarce – and deliberately neglect truthful they tin enactment astatine the schoolhouse for longer.

Of the 2 twelve oregon truthful students, “the schoolhouse averages possibly 5 to 10 graduates a year”, Thomas explained.

He earns astir $1,500 a year, acold little than the $20,000 helium would request to spend an accredited correspondence degree. But helium chooses to assistance others successful the aforesaid schoolhouse wherever helium got his GED because, arsenic helium enactment it, “Most radical successful present aren’t vocation criminals. They conscionable got caught successful atrocious situations.”

He added, “If fixed fractional a chance, they’d take a legal, meaningful life.”

Thomas sees acquisition arsenic cardinal to self-betterment. It was a book, Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, a Brazilian Marxist educator, fixed to him by an activistic person that showed him the powerfulness of education, helium says.

Education equips america to “better grip stressful situations” and nurture creativity and “artistic expression”, helium reflected. “But astir importantly, we tin make skills that volition let america to gain a surviving legally and lend to nine successful a affirmative way.”

The Department of Corrections whitethorn store bodies, but it does not nurture minds, though galore volition yet beryllium freed backmost into nine aft serving their terms, portion others could triumph their state successful tribunal oregon done clemency.

And acquisition tin lone assistance with transitioning into beingness connected the outside. According to the Prison Policy Initiative, a probe and advocacy nonprofit, constricted entree to acquisition successful prisons remains a large obstruction to rehabilitation and reentry into society. Decades of studies enactment the thought that acquisition successful situation reduces recidivism – a RAND meta-analysis recovered a 43 percent little likelihood of reoffending among inmates who pursued studies.

Kashif Hassan, 40, from Brooklyn successful New York City, has been imprisoned for 15 years. Serving a life-plus-10-year sentence, helium has earned aggregate degrees, including 2 PhDs, 1 successful concern medication and 1 successful transgression justice, done assemblage region education.

Unlike different prisoners, Kashif was fortunate successful that his household could spend the tens of thousands successful accredited assemblage tuition fees.

“I person 2 sons,” helium told me, “and I privation to amusement them that nary substance the circumstances, adjacent here, you tin support learning.”

He laughed erstwhile I asked astir enactment from the NJSP’s acquisition department. “None,” helium said. “They adjacent cancelled the assemblage correspondence roster [a database that allowed students enrolled successful long-distance acquisition to entree the situation instrumentality room and schoolhouse computers to benignant and print]. They accidental it’s for security, but really, it’s astir control.”

Kashif has besides been connected the waiting database for a paralegal people for 10 years.

“Education is simply a almighty tool,” helium said. “It helps you recognize your rights, navigate the system, and articulate yourself better. Especially successful here, it’s the quality betwixt feeling powerless and feeling empowered.”

A doorway wherever determination was a wall

In 2023, I learned of a glimmer of progress. The Thomas Edison State University (TESU) successful Trenton – ranked among the state’s apical 20 nationalist institutions – launched a caller programme enabling men successful NJSP to prosecute accredited assemblage degrees.

In 2024, I began taking TESU courses for a wide arts degree. My tuition is paid for by grants and scholarships. The programme runs independently from the NJSP’s acquisition department, which lone proctors exams. For those of america agelong unopen retired of higher learning, it felt revolutionary. As if a doorway opened wherever determination had lone been a wall. It has made maine consciousness escaped and fixed maine purpose.

For Michael Doce, 44, different pupil successful the programme who is serving a 30-year sentence, the doorway is constrictive but precious. “I privation to instrumentality it to the NJDOC, to say, ‘Look what I did each connected my own.’”

Michael studied engineering astatine Rutgers University earlier helium was imprisoned. Now helium is earning a communications degree.

“My household buys utilized textbooks,” helium said. These are mailed to the prison, but information checks mean they tin instrumentality weeks to scope him.

“But the situation conscionable banned utilized books,” helium added. “Depending connected however overmuch caller ones cost, I mightiness not beryllium capable to continue.”

Al Jazeera requested clarification from the New Jersey Department of Corrections astir the cancellation of the roster and the banning of utilized books, but did not person a response.

Michael shrugged and gave a wry smile. “If excessively galore guys signed up, they’d astir apt cancel the full thing. I’m being funny, but not really.”

He maintains apical grades and dreams of becoming a journalist. “A transgression condemnation closes a batch of doors,” helium told me. “I’m conscionable trying to unfastened caller ones.”

‘Doing his ain time’

There is simply a couplet from the 18th-century Urdu writer Mir Taqi Mir that goes:

Yaarān-e deyr o Ka‘bah, donon bulā rahe hain

Ab dekhen Mir, apnā jānā kidhar bane hai

My bosom is torn betwixt 2 calls – the satellite of emotion and the location of God.

Now it is simply a trial to spot which mode my psyche volition turn.

Perhaps that captures the prisoner’s regular dilemma: betwixt despair and determination; betwixt giving up and growing. In the lack of rehabilitation, each antheral indispensable take his ain way – “doing his ain time,” arsenic the fashionable situation operation goes – towards airy oregon darkness.

Men similar Thomas, Kashif, Michael, and galore others take light. They take education.

The Department of Corrections whitethorn store bodies, but it cannot ain the volition to grow. Education present is not charity. It is resistance. It is the 1 realm wherever we tin inactive choose, and successful choosing, we enactment quality and free.

Because successful the end, state does not statesman with release. It begins with the determination to grow. It begins with the mind.

And successful this place, wherever clip is some force and companion, each leafage turned, each acquisition learned, is simply a mode to quiescent the endless ticking, a mode to punctual ourselves that adjacent down bars, clip tin inactive beryllium to us.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

This is the last communicative successful a three-part bid connected however prisoners are taking connected the US justness strategy done law, situation hustles and hard-won education.

Read much from the series:

How I’m warring the US situation strategy from the inside

Tailors and country stores: The hustles helping prisoners survive

Tariq MaQbool is a captive astatine New Jersey State Prison (NJSP), wherever helium has been held since 2005. He is simply a contributor to assorted publications, including Al Jazeera English, wherever helium has written astir the trauma of solitary confinement (he has spent a full of much than 2 years successful isolation) and what it means to beryllium a Muslim prisoner inside a US prison.

Martin Robles is besides a captive astatine NJSP. These illustrations were made utilizing pb and coloured pencils. As helium has constricted creation supplies, Robles utilized folded squares of toilet insubstantial to blend the pigments into antithetic shades and colours.