Reentry programs and higher education for people who are incarcerated are vital opportunities that should be expanded, according to Patrick Conway, director of the Boston College Prison Education Program.
“That kind of intellectual freedom that higher education can provide can be transformative in a place where so many choices are taken away and where oftentimes people’s worldviews and experiences can easily narrow,” Conway said.
Conway moderated a Life After Incarceration panel discussion on Tuesday evening. He was joined by Nurudeen Alabi, a former BCPEP student; Anna Haskins, an associate professor at the University of Notre Dame; Shawn Jenkins, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Corrections; Rev. Zachariah Presutti, S.J, founder of Thrive for Life; and Ved Price, director of the Alliance for Higher Education.
Alabi, who was recently profiled by The Heights, became the first BCPEP student to graduate on Boston College’s campus and one of 16 students in the inaugural class. Alabi emphasized that despite receiving consistent support from BC, there were still many hurdles to obtaining his degree.
“Just being able to get through class after class, learning how to use technology—which was difficult for me because I was incarcerated since I was 17, I did 15 years—and just being able to navigate college campus, how to use the library, find books, how to use Canvas, and things like that,” Alabi said.
Haskins noted that incarcerated individuals often have negative early experiences with the education system. She mentioned the school-to-prison pipeline, a term describing how overdisciplining young Black and brown students leaves them vulnerable to incarceration. Her research centers on generational and communal impacts of imprisonment.
“Much of the work that I look at explores the ways in which the removal of a parent due to incarceration decreases economic stability, increases removal strain and instability in kids’ lives,” Haskins said. “And it’s those mechanisms that then have implications for how well the kid does in school.”
Two organizations represented by panelists are dedicated to restabilizing that crucial community support. Price spoke about the Alliance’s mission to build a network of activists, scholars, and incarcerated individuals. It provides opportunities like paid virtual internships and raises awareness about the positive effects of higher education in incarceration.
“When I go to [Massachusetts Correctional Facility] Shirley, or to another facility, and I see this kind of passion that the colleges and universities bring to these programs, it just gives them that sense of hope and optimism that they don’t necessarily get inside the facility,” Price said.
Flourishing intellectually, however, should include spirituality and basic necessities, according to Presutti, Presutti, founder of Thrive for Life. He said his organization not only provides sacraments and meditative Jesuit exercises behind prison walls, but also affordable housing for people after their release from priosn. Thrive for Life operates houses in New York City and Milwaukee, but it plans to expand to Boston soon, Presutti added.
“These guys live in community with me as they’re continuing their education together,” Presutti said. “So the holistic suite of services that the houses offer are really the support that ensures these guys have a permanent and successful re-entry.”
Since 2019, BCPEP has admitted 98 students and has become the largest higher education prison program in Massachusetts. BCPEP’s success involves extensive coordination with the state Department of Corrections (DOC), which releases 80 to 90 individuals monthly. Jenkins called the DOC a “last-stop social services agency.”
“We have really switched gears in the department and have focused entirely on making sure that the re-entry stuff that we do is critical,” Jenkins said. “I can’t think of anything more important for public safety than making sure people who leave our facilities don’t come back down the line. I think that’s more important than policing, I think it’s more important than courts.”
Jenkins fielded questions from audience members on topics ranging from long-term support for people after their release to the DOC’s role in addressing systemic racism. He and other panelists said partnerships with outside organizations and efforts to reduce stigma are essential to lasting change.
“We also have a high expectation for prisons to solve all the problems,” Haskins said. “I think we have to rethink what our government should be doing—to share the ownership of our citizens and the humanity of people across institutions.”
Panelists emphasized that people could help by having informal conversations about incarceration or volunteering with reentry programs. Alabi is starting a student group called Eagles Bridging the Gap to form connections between traditional and incarcerated students.
“We can do these things—see and treat people with human dignity, allow people to flourish and serve their roles as individuals, and decouple race from criminality, like who belongs in prisons and who belongs in schools,” Haskins said. “We need to reimagine what these things should be doing in society.”