1. Introduction
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with around 2.2 million adults in prisons and jails and more than 4.5 million adults on probation or parole (Kaeble). In addition to these, 60,000 people under the age of 18 are being held in juvenile detention centers on any given day (American Civil Liberties Union). There are 5.6 times more black or brown people in prison than white people per 100,000 of the population (Carson). Native Americans, lesbians, gays, bisexuals, transgender and gender nonconforming individuals go to jail or prison two to four times more than heterosexual whites (Hartney). A University of Georgia study published in 2017 shows that at least 19 million adults, representing 8% of the overall U.S. population and 33% of the African American male population, have felony convictions; shockingly, only 3% of the total U.S. population but 15% of the African American male population have served time in prison (Shannon). All formerly incarcerated people face serious difficulties in finding employment when they are released, and the toll on low income black and brown communities has been devastating. Nicholas Turner, Director of the Vera Institute of Justice, observes that
We have lost generations of young men and women, particularly young men of color, to long and brutal prison terms. Even when they return home, they remain lost, as deplorable prison conditions and treatment seriously impair their ability to live productive and healthy lives long after release1.
Despite evidence that education programs in prison lower short-term recidivism by 43% and long-term recidivism by 29% (Davis), provisions written into the Violent Crime Control Act and Law Enforcement Act (also known as “the Crime Bill”) of 1994 continue to make all incarcerated students ineligible for financial aid. In this way the criminal justice system keeps hundreds of thousands of people out of school. Privately funded prison education programs that lead to certificates, associate’s, and bachelor’s degrees, as well as pre-college programs that prepare incarcerated students for these, are life-changing for students who can attend, but there are way too few to go around. With so many people in jail and so few of them able to pursue an education, CUNY’s mission to serve “as a vehicle for the upward mobility of the disadvantaged in the City of New York” (“The CUNY Story”) must continue to extend to those behind bars.
In April 2020 The Institute for Justice and Opportunity at John Jay College (until recently named the Prisoner Reentry Institute)2 released a 60-page report on CUNY’s commitment to students impacted by the criminal justice system. In his foreword to this report, Vice Chancellor and University Provost José Luis Cruz invokes the need “to embrace our mission of access and inclusion by seeking and serving broader prospective student populations, especially those whom we have sometimes overlooked in the past,” recognizing that “[o]ne our most overlooked populations is those students who have been incarcerated” (The Institute for Justice and Opportunity, “Report”).
Through the Prison-to-College Pipeline (P2CP), CUNY’s college-in-prison program based at Otisville Correctional Facility in upstate new York, a good number of incarcerated students are able to pursue higher education before release. Started by John Jay Professor Baz Draesinger, this program has been operating since 2011 and presents an inspirational model of how education can “tear down [the] walls [erected by the United States’ prejudiced and inequitable criminal legal system]” (The Institute for Justice and Opportunity, “Report”) and help restore lives. The P2CP has been one of the guiding lights of this project.
Most correctional facilities are under-resourced and low-tech, and students are denied internet access. The scarcity of hard and soft infrastructure to support digital work in prison is an opportunity for innovation through adapting and developing tools for digital humanities praxis within the parameters of minimal computing. Such tools will also be easily exportable to prisons and other low-tech environments in the U.S. and in other parts of the world.
With a firm belief that education is a real means to help people improve their lives, this paper explores how a digital humanities course can be taught in prison and why the humanities, and not just technical skills, contribute to laying foundations for helping system-impacted people rebuild their lives and enriching the communities they return to after release.