Transcript -- Fighting Crime with Education
A Briefing on Recent Research About Reducing Recidivism Rates for Adult and Juvenile Offenders and the Next Steps for Federal Policy Makers

Steve Steurer:
I'd like to introduce the folks up here. On my far left is Dr. Owen Modeland, Superintendent of Schools for the Oklahoma Department of Corrections, right?

Dr. Owen Modeland:
Right.

Steve Steurer:
Christie Gullion, who is the legislative person from the National Institute for Literacy, who has helped to organize this event, and John Linten, who is the director of the Correctional Education Program at the U.S. Office of Education. And John can't talk unless you ask him questions. And those are the ground rules. Since he works for the administration, certain ground rules [unintelligible] I tried to get Betty Lou Taylor from Senator Specter's office up here but she just said she'd be willing to go over some remarks. Is that everybody [unintelligible]

OK, everybody should have at least a couple of handouts. One is this wonderful looking booklet. I can't believe you guys put this together so fast at the National Institute for Literacy, called State correctional education programs and Christie will make some remarks and maybe introduce the author of the study, who is in the audience. There is a summary of the three-stage recidivism study which we'll talk about very briefly. And then, there is consideration to changes for the grants for youthful offenders, OK, and an information piece about some of the legislation and legislative changes we're looking at this year.

Before we get started, there is another ground rule. If you have a question and there's no microphone out there, one of us that answers it should repeat the question because then it will be recorded, OK? So just the four of us keep that in mind.

Before we get started, I'm going to turn this over to Christie to start it off. I would like all the legislative aides who are in the room just to stand up for a second [unintelligible] Don't hide, I know you're over there. [unintelligible] And could you let everybody know whose office you're with? [unintelligible]

Legislative Aide:
I'm Bobby [unintelligible] and I work with the House Judiciary Committee for [unintelligible]

Robert Lewiston:
Robert Lewiston [unintelligible]

Legislative Aide:
[unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
I'm sorry, whose office?

Legislative Aide:
The governor.

Steve Steurer:
Now I know there are four other people back there who haven't stood up because I know them very well. I'm going to ask Sherry to stand up and introduce herself, please.

Sherry:
[unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
And Betty Lou is hiding back there.

Betty Lou Taylor:
Betty Lou Taylor with Senate Appropriations.

Legislative Aide:
Marcus [unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
Thank you. And anybody else? Marcus has been very [unintelligible] in helping set this room up, so I really thank you, Marc. I would like to have just-not have big, long presentations here but have a couple of crisp things about what we're doing here. And I'd like to ask Christie to start off for the National Institute for Literacy. And then I would like to have Dr. Owen Modeland make a few remarks about what goes on at correctional institution settings, what kind of services they provide. And then we'll go through the study and the considerations for legislation, OK?

Christie Gullion:
Thank you, Steve. I'm absolutely delighted to be here today to talk to you about America's literacy problem and specifically about corrections education. You'll need to bear with me because I'm in the middle of what appears to be a major cold. So if I have to stop and collect myself for a minute, I'll be OK. I have tissues in both pockets, so I think I'm armed and ready.

I did want to start with identifying what we call America's literacy problem. First, I should tell you that the United States does not have a significant illiteracy problem. Many people often use the term "illiteracy" to describe the lack of basic skills that some people have. There's actually a relatively small number of adults who have extremely low or no literacy skills at all. Now for many of these adults, physical or mental disabilities are likely to a play strong contributing role in their very limited literacy. What the United States does have, however, is a large number of adults with low literacy skills, which limit their opportunities to advance at work and to fully engage in some home and community activities. The best statistics available to date are those from the National Adult Literacy Survey, which was-or the NALS, which was conducted in 1992. And the U.S. Department of Education is currently conducting a 10-year follow-up survey, looking at the adult literacy rate in America. And those results are expected some time next year, John, the NALS, the new NALS?

John Linten:
That's not a question is it?

Christie Gullion:
The question is the Department's new NALS survey

John Linten:
I know the survey hasn't been initiated yet. It's been funded but not initiated.

Christie Gullion:
Right, so results are next year some time, ok. As many of you know, as recently as a generation or maybe two generations ago, adults with fairly low literacy skills and less than a college education could earn a fairly decent living because they could find well-paid jobs that didn't require very strong literacy skills. We know that this is no longer the case. Strong basic skills are essential for access to and success in college and so most post-secondary level training. And basic skills have a great impact on an adult's ability to support themselves and their families. And strong literacy skills are fundamental for workers who want to take advantage of the rapid change in the work place and the changes in technology. And in some cases, learning new skills are their only way to advance in the work place, or their only way to obtain that first job that they're going after. Really, learning a new skill or acquiring a new skill is dependent on adults having a very solid foundation of basic skills.

So what does this have to do with corrections education? Well, the NALS also concluded that prisoners have lower literacy rates than the overall population. The findings confirm that, in prison or out, more education is linked to greater literacy. And while only about a quarter of the general population lack a high school diploma, about half of the prisoner population lack a high school diploma. And prisoners who make productive use of their time while they're incarcerated by reading, writing, attending classes, attending vocational education classes, were found to score higher on the NALS survey than those prisoners who did not participate in educational programs.

So ensuring that prisoners are prepared to return to society is important and for a number of reasons, not only for public safety reasons, but for reasons for those inmates to succeed in their lives after their release. A growing number of inmates will be released from prison in the coming years and, in fact, in the year 2000, nearly 600,000 prisoners were released from prison. And that rate is expected to continue over the years. Unfortunately, almost 2/3 of those released on parole are re-arrested and within three years of leaving prison, almost half are re-incarcerated. So there's a re-arrest rate and there's also a re-incarceration rate that are pretty high for those who have been paroled. Prisons, therefore, present a unique opportunity to provide an education to a large concentration of individuals who fall in a high-risk group and who have significant literacy needs.

I am really pleased to announce today the release of this document. We're releasing this here to you first. It is the new state policy update from the National Institute for Literacy, titled "State Correctional Education Programs." This update provides a background on the criminal justice system, it summarizes the funding sources, correctional philosophy and laws affecting state correctional education programs. And it describes the adult prison population today, the demographics of what that population looks like, not only in terms of race but also in terms of their educational level.

In addition, the update reviews the various components of correctional education and discusses the benefits of education to inmates. There are three states that are highlighted in this document: Maryland, Ohio and Texas. The highlights are on the correctional education initiatives in those states. And I'm really pleased, even though I can't see her, to let you know that the author of this publication, Michelle Tolbert [sp], is in the audience today, and if she would stand up and be recognized. She worked long and hard on this publication and I think it one of the best state policy updates that we've produced. And I'm really pleased that she could be here today.

And I'll just go ahead and wrap by just letting you know that there are a number of reasons for you all to care about adult literacy, improving adult literacy. One is fairly obvious, to improve the economic well being of individuals and families. Another is to sustain economic growth by creating a larger pool of skilled workers. Another reason to support improving adult literacy is so that adults can support their child's education when they are in school. It also gives immigrants an important tool for successful lives in the U.S. as they immigrate here, and to enhance an adult's personal fulfillment, whatever their personal goals are for their lives. And finally, and very important to this briefing today, improving adult literacy really helps to increase a released prisoner's chances of becoming financially self-sufficient and productive members of society.

And so with that, I'm going to turn it over, I think, to Dr. Steve. And just to let you know that these state policy updates are free publications through the National Institute for Literacy. If you are interested in getting additional copies, I do have some with me today. They are also available through a toll-free number or our web site, which is listed on the back of the publication. Thank you.

Steve Steurer:
Thank you very much. I'm really thrilled because this just came out. It's hot off the press. You're probably the first people to get it, right?

Christie Gullion:
Our advisory board received them last Thursday. We thought it was only fair for our board to see it first, but you are the first public group to receive the publication.

Steve Steurer:
The Correctional Education Association is so happy to be working with the National Institute for Literacy, cooperating and helping Michelle and Christie with this publication. And we have-we're working with their literacy page, called LINCS, and we have a repository of correctional education research you could go to the NIFL or to the CEA home page and go through these links. Now, I just want to mention one thing about our latest publication. If gone over a lot, you've probably heard of it before. I'll turn this over to Owen in a little bit.

We do have a summary of what's called the three state study. It was funded by the U.S. Office of Education. Mr. John Linten now heads-he's been there for about a year. And the study goes back about four years of funding. I just want to mention for those of you who don't know about it, particularly for the legislative aides here, this study has been remarkable in a number of ways. It's probably one of the tightest studies ever done and one of the strongest studies ever done on recidivism and the impact on employment.

And it follows over 3,000 folks who were released from Minnesota, Ohio and Maryland, starting back in 1997, I think, was the first group. And when they were all released, we followed them for three years. And we were very much concerned that if we did have a tight study and we controlled for selection bias and everything, would we actually see that education does make a difference. Because a lot of folks felt, well you go to school when you're incarcerated, you probably would have done better even if you didn't just because you were motivated. Well, we controlled for all those factors. The bottom line on recidivism is that if you go to school while you're incarcerated in any of those three states, you just go to school, don't necessarily finish, maybe you do get a GED, maybe a vocational certificate, maybe you'll have a chance to go to college. But just going to school, that's it, just that alone, reduces re-incarceration by 29 percent. And if you translate that into dollars, which we did in Maryland through the legislature and the State Board of Education, for every dollar you invest in a teacher or a text book, you get back two at least, just in terms of re-incarceration cost. You're not building a cell again and all that. It doesn't even take-that two dollars does not even take into consideration these folks are paying taxes. We tracked, were able to track in two of the states the actual offenders who were released, found out that just in Minnesota over 70 percent of them were actually working because there was taxes being reported to the Department of Labor in the state. In Maryland it was over 60 percent. And those folks who were working, who went to school who were in that [unintelligible] while incarcerated were making significantly more money. Those are two findings that are tremendous. And so we offer this to you. It was reported in the "New York Times" in November and the chronicle of higher education actually published it in early February, too. So this is probably the strongest piece of evidence we have to justify why put any money there. Bottom line is it saves money, it reduces crime and it makes taxpayers out of a lot of folks.

With that, I'd like to turn it over to Owen, Dr. Modeland, who is the Superintendent of Schools in Oklahoma just to take a few minutes. For those of you who aren't aware of what correctional education is at the state prison level, what kinds of programs and offerings [unintelligible]

Dr. Owen Modeland:
Thank you, Steve. First of all, I want to commend these people that put this study together and the ones in our audience have had a great deal to do with this. On receiving the initial copies of this, we made sure that, number one, our Director of Corrections got a hold of this and elicited and solicited his support in trying to get us state funds in addition to anything else that might come down the pike and what you're primarily interested in, and that is the federal level.

We started out 11-1/2 years ago with corrections, so I'm kind of a newcomer compared to these veterans in this. Nevertheless, we just had-part of them were the Laubach program. But we do have what we call a state accredited school in our Oklahoma system. We have state department of accreditation. And in 1991, the year after I'd been there, I applied for North Central accreditation as an alternative school. So we do have North Central accreditation there. That's about the best accreditation you can get, as far as the state and local, and with that national accreditation. Therefore, we did put in computer labs and we do take in at the processing/reception center 150 new inmates per week. Now, for a lot of states that's not very many but to Oklahoma, which is number-one in female incarcerations per capita, we get our fair share of females and round it out with the males. So, in testing those, with the tests of all basic education, which is a taped test, we find that approximately 56 percent of those 150 that come in per week need to be placed in a literacy course. The thing is that we place as many in the literacy course as we possibly can but because of state and federal funding, we are limited in a great number of ways.

Therefore, the lifelong learning money that we get for literacy, adult basic education and GED is really-it's imperative that we get it, it's essential that we get it. And we've been able to increase that over my 11-1/2 years tenure. Really, we can't get along without it, it's just imperative that we get it. It's essential. We've enjoyed the increases, but by getting those increases, we can do more in the literacy, ABE and GED movement. In 1990, I began to put a big thrust into the Pell grant. As we've turned out, you have to change attitudes in the development of all of these, from the case managers to the unit case managers, clear on up through the warden on into the directors. Really, we want to get college education for inmates. Now with security people drawing what they're drawing at a very low level in many, many if not most states, you do not always find the attitude of wanting to give inmates a break on getting an education.

We really worked hard in attitude development. Being with a degree in psychology and being a certified psychologist, I really worked on behaviors and attitudes a great deal of the time. I got that up and running for several thousand hours. And what happened to the Pell grant? Well, we carved it out from underneath with a Pell grant. So therefore, we kind of lost a little ground, we had a little slippage. But nevertheless, we've been able to come back under this youthful offenders grant and put those back into operation, narrowed attitudes again, and we even generate some foundations with private money now in that we've got a program going to where we're putting some private money from corporations and from individuals around some of our facilities, augmenting what we have in this grant.

I wish we could raise that to 35 and I know we've worked on that every year, as we need to include more because the better, the higher the level and the better, they're more productive citizens you make. And if you get them out with a college degree, your recidivism rate is the least. With an Associate Arts degree, we found in our studies in Oklahoma, that it just drops a little bit; GED on down and then clear down to the literacy level where the lowest level there is where you have your highest recidivism. We run about 40 percent there. Therefore, in 1993, I worked with representatives and we got the Literacy Act requiring our inmates, making it mandatory for those that need this to have the opportunity. Of course, on their release, that is taken into consideration. And sometimes we fall short because we do not have the funds to do it. So we're right on target with this literacy movement. We're right on target with all of the re-entry work. Our re-entry is starting now on the first day of incarceration. We're writing plans there just like IAPs [sp] for the special education and taking it clear on out through the community, etc. So we're doing a lot of wonderful things. We're just like most other agencies. We need more funds to improve what we're doing and extend it for more opportunities for more offenders. Thank you very much.

Steve Steurer:
Thank you, Dr. Owen Modeland. Dr. Owen Modeland illustrates the same case we have in most states. We have here in Maryland, we're doing great things with some wonderful staff. We've got plenty of inmates lined up for services that we never get to. So many people stay-are in the facilities for a few years and just never get into school, although they don't have their GED and some of them are very illiterate, have low literacy levels. So we're simply making the push, you know, at the state level and federal level, to consider more funding. We can sit here today and talk about the Adult Education Act or Vocational Act or special ed. and all that. But we've sort of decided today to concentrate on one piece of legislation. And that's the other handout you have, called "Considerations for Changes for Transfer of Youth Offenders." When we lost Pell grants in the mid-90s, we found a friend at Senator Specter's office and particularly, with one legislative aide, named Betty Lou Taylor, who's sitting in the back of the room. And when she worked with us and got lots of other legislative aides, too, to support this. And Senator Specter was able to write a piece of legislation that initially, I think, Betty Lou was in the Title I, ESEA Title I act. And it allowed for grants for youthful offenders if you were under 25 years of age and you could get some post-secondary money if you were within five years of release. And we did it, we wanted it that way to be politically saleable or sellable or whatever the word would be. And then a few years later, we finally got some more authorized money for it and began the programs. So I think John [unintelligible] I can ask John a question. He just can't tell me [unintelligible]

I think it's in the fourth year funding cycle now, the grant is in its fourth year. And we've been able to increase that from somewhere around 11 or 12 million to 17 million dollars. The problem has been that these grants are very difficult to administer. Trying to pull together people who fit the parameter of being able to be released in five years and under the age of 25 is not always easy because it requires some administrative gymnastics to gather these people in this place because some of them are in maximum security, some are in medium and [unintelligible] other considerations. So a lot of states have some troubles actually spending the funds because by the time they get it together, moving around and it's your next fiscal year. So there's been an issue with that.

We collected a lot of ideas from people and input in this and asking for changes. So the position paper we have, this is now part of the Higher Education Act, all right. That is it's moved from Title I to higher ed. So the Higher Education Act will probably not be considered this year so there will be some other vehicle we can maybe use to get these amendments. But we're asking for three simple things. One of them is that we change the age limit from 25 to 35. We originally asked for no age limit but then it was pointed out to us that that's not very useful. We had some discussions subsequent to the 35 and the whole thing might be considered. Maybe if it was at 39, but somebody pointed out that the average age of being incarcerated and being released now is close to 33. But we can talk about that. But if we could move the age up to 35 or 39, it would be much easier to move people around in the system to serve them. And then with the cost of living, we also-colleges are allowed to get about $1,500 per inmate. We're asking to move that gap up to 2,000 which is in line with some other legislation for college tuition.

And finally, we're hoping to increase the level of funding. I know [unintelligible] it might be difficult to get any increase. We're hoping eventually to get up to about $30 million, which is somewhere at the level Pell grants used to be. Pell grants used to be, according to a Senate study done on programs that are still in existence, probably about $35 million a year were being expended for Pell grants. So these are things we're asking your support for and we would hope that maybe there'll be some discussion here, questions and answers, and John Linten, I'd like to have him make a presentation [unintelligible] but I can't have him give a presentation. However, if you ask him a question, he does talk. So those are the rules that the Bush administration has sort of put down for folks who work for the administration right now.

With that, I'd like to open it up for any discussion and any further comments from folks up here, with the exception of John.

Audience Participant:
John, how do the odds look at us getting this approved?

John Linten:
I'm not really an expert on that.

Steve Steurer:
You have to repeat the question: what are the odds of getting this approved?

John Linten:
I honestly don't know. I'm probably not the best person to comment in response to that. Steve probably has a better perspective than I do.

Steve Steurer:
I would defer to the legislative aides in this room, you know, the chances of getting some of these changes approved. If anybody wants to make a comment, Betty Lou or Mark or Sherry? Any desire on your part to make a comment on that?

B. L. Taylor:
I'm not sure that [unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
Did everybody understand? I just want to repeat it for the recorder here. Betty Lou says it's about 50/50 but she's not sure whether we could find a vehicle, which is a piece of legislation that's going through right now.

Audience Participant:
I have just a little bit on that same question. If we don't get these changes that we ask for, we get-we are looking for at least re-funding what we have. Where are we on that?

Steve Steurer:
That's a good question. Just for the sake of the microphone here, what are the chances of at least being re-funded because the Bush administration has zero funded this particular item this year from 17 million to zero.

Audience Participant:
[unintelligible passage]

Steve Steurer:
There's a good chance we're going to get that money back even without the changes.

Audience Participant:
[unintelligible passage]

Steve Steurer:
Right, the problem has been to spend the money and that's a real problem. I'd like to ask John Linten how the spending seems to be going because it was a real problem a year or two ago. Mark Lace [sp] pointed out that we're having some problems in a number of states. But John, could you comment on the spending and how it's going? Is it improving now?

John Linten:
Your comments on spending, one of the issues that repeatedly comes up as we talk to the states about the issues and spending is the issue, the restrictions. There is a restriction on nearness to release: a person must be within five years of release and release eligibility. They can spend only on inmates that are under 25. And that, of course, kicks in even if the person is part way through a program. They have to stop at that point. And also the per capita limitation, how much can be spent per person, $1,500 on instruction and $300 per year per student on related services.

So we talk to the states about issues about being able to expend the money, those issues come up a lot. But it is kind of a young program. It's in the fourth year of operation. Some of the states have come along after the first and second year and have not even had the full four years. So we do see things kind of working out in some of the states and the activities picking up and the expenditures picking up. I've had a chance to ask a few of the folks from various states over the last couple of days at the conference about issues with expenditures. And I keep hearing, well we must have spent the money from the wrong year. I'll go back and talk to my budget person and make sure we get those charges adjusted. So, we hoping that we will see some of those figures improve a little bit, as people get back and work with their budget staffs and see if they've actually drawn down. The money had to be obligated and it's expired in terms of obligation. But if it hasn't been drawn down from the state or they spent it from the wrong year's appropriation, there still would be an opportunity to make that adjustment. So we're hoping that figure will certainly improve.

Steve Steurer:
Question?

Audience Participant:
[unintelligible] if somebody is 24 years old when he starts the program, he doesn't finish, turns 25 or his 25th birthday to 26th birthday, whichever, he is out of the program?

Dr. Owen Modeland:
It's basically provided to the states. When they spent the money, for example they bought the tuition for a semester or whatever the unit of instruction, they don't have to remove the person from instruction but they can't purchase another unit of instruction. So they couldn't start another semester. Even if a person is part way through an AA degree program, they wouldn't be able to go in the second year, for example, if they turn 26.

Audience Participant:
Steve, in consideration of this being a major concern, the two of the three items that you discussed are kind of instrumental for us to even keep our funding the way it is. Age is one of the huge problems. There are just people that are past 25 who are still going to go back out there and have a viable time in the community. So I really support maybe if we can attach the 25 to 35 as a priority item. Then that spending per person [unintelligible]

Dr. Owen Modeland:
I agree with the man from Utah there on that because we get into this problem trying to get that spend for the fiscal year and all that carryover stuff and everything else. But when we're really interested in recidivism, you know if he's 40 years old and he gets a college education and gets out there, you have a similar return for just about as long if he's got a college education. And that's what we're interested in. And I do know that makes it look a little bit more like a Pell grant. But when we were open-ended on Pell grant and they qualified we were getting, you might say, across the board results. With this limit in here, I'd love to see it go to 35 because, you know, we could take care of our expenditures. But when you really talk of the overall picture, the big picture, the Picasso of recidivism, then you really have to look at all offenders of all ages and what they can do. And of course, I'm being 102 years old, I think of the GI bill and I recall that it was the best, most sound investment that's ever been made in the history of education in the United States. I think this would be the next-best if we'd invest the money wisely.

John Briggeman:
John, John Briggeman [sp] from Wisconsin. And I guess I would just like to endorse that, too. It behaves-there's a bit of a catch 22 on the age limit of 25 because you're targeting a lot of your first time offenders. They're coming in with shorter sentences and as a result, they're taking in drug treatment [unintelligible] as a priority and then there's not enough time left for them to get into the post-secondary. The ones that do have a long enough sentence, youthful ones have a very long sentence because they've done something very bad. They're not getting out in time for us to see the results. So we're losing those two ends of the population and there's this little sliver of population that really fits the profile of getting there, getting the post-secondary and getting out [unintelligible]

Audience Participant:
Good morning, my name is [unintelligible] from California [unintelligible] I'd like to reinforce what you were saying. I think, Steven, before your comments when you said that half of the prison population doesn't have a high school diploma or GED. That being the case, the young man coming into the system, very short time, maybe half of them don't have the GED or high school diploma. So then they're not even eligible. And maybe by the time they get done, then they're on their way out of prison. They're about to be released. They're 24 or 25, so they really don't time to really benefit from that program. But even if we couldn't change the [unintelligible] And I don't know. This is probably the question, I guess. You still have to change the bill again. If the person got in before they were 25, why wouldn't they be able to stay in it because they met the criteria at a certain time. Would that be possible and what would it require to change that?

Steve Steurer:
Well maybe I'll have John respond to that a little bit if he can because what [unintelligible] one thing that occurs to me is a lot of this money is used for very short term post-secondary programs. For example, in Maryland, we have within our community college a fiber optic copper cabling installation program, which is a certificate program. And I suppose - and I'm just throwing this as a question to illustrate your quandary-if somebody enrolled in that at age 24-1/2 and wouldn't finish it until they're after 25, they probably wouldn't be thrown out of that program. You'd just have to-it's not a several series course, it's a course not a series of courses. Does make sense, John?

John Linten:
I think it is worth pointing out that a lot of the states are using most of the money for occupational training, post-secondary vocational training. Usually [unintelligible] I'm reminded also of the young man that we met with in Baltimore yesterday at a conference. He was a successful ex-offender. And he was telling his personal story of coming into the prison system without a high school diploma and without a trade. Incidentally, he's a successful supervisor at a roofing company currently. But he said that he had been 18 and was given a 15-year sentence. So he entered the correctional system at the age of 18 with a 15-year sentence. He didn't serve 15 years, he served about 10 years. But, of course, we can't enroll them in this program until they get close to the end of their sentence. And he certainly fit the category of a youthful offender but in terms of some of the restrictions on this funding source, it would be very problematic.

Dr Clint Davis:
Well the question of being able to spend the money or the allotted budgets that were given, I will give you an example in my facility. 680 women are in the prison and I have 75 in college. I would increase that number easily to 125 if they would just increase the age.

Steve Steurer:
That's a tremendous piece of information. I think Jane [unintelligible] just walked in. Hi, Jane.

Jane:
Hi, Steve.

Steve Steurer:
Jane is from Senator Kennedy's office. Dr. Clint Davis made a comment over here that the age adjustment, Betty Lou, just for the age here that you could increase your population right now from what to what?

Dr Clint Davis:
75 to 125 easily. We were counting bodies out there of people that would like to go to school but have no funding, which we set up a foundation to help some of them. But I could easily go to 125 from 75.

Steve Steurer:
Just by changing from 25 to 30?

Dr Clint Davis:
Absolutely.

Steve Steurer:
Maurice?

Maurice:
Maurice [sp] [unintelligible] most of our guys that we're finding out that a lot of them meet the criteria but they're not interested in college until they turn 25. We got guys 24-1/2 and they come in, they're 22, 21, 20. And by the time they turn 25 they want to go to college but then they don't qualify. So if the age was a little higher, most of my guys over 25 want to go to college but can't go unless they can afford to pay their own way.

Audience Participant:
To just underline Clint's point, I did analysis in Wisconsin. If the age was changed to 35, our pool of eligibles would improve by 140 percent.

Steve Steurer:
That's a big factor.

Audience Participant:
I'm just wondering what the study that John [unintelligible] 29 percent [unintelligible] two gradations reflective of how much education and how much more the recidivism rate may have been reduced [unintelligible] about how much payoff there would be if some of these changes were made?

Steve Steurer:
The question is, were we in the three states then able to show the differences for folks who went to college, high school. We had hoped to do that with 3,000. And we do a study like this to try to get as many people in these different cells that make these comparisons. And while we didn't publish-we had some success, some limited success with that. But the state of Ohio is very interested. They have a post-secondary program and also has some state funding in it. And it's always being threatened. And Dr. Linda Smith, who was the chief researcher on the study, who I hoped to be here today but she [unintelligible] she's doing a sub-group of the college people. Although there weren't large numbers, there was a significant difference in the recidivism. And it was in favor of college again. So that group recidivated even lower. And we have problems of those kinds of other studies, maybe not quite as statistically sound studies, but still good studies. But almost any study you're going to do is going to have some statistical problems. But it's always been kind of a trend that's what's showing. Some of the data that I've heard over the last couple of days, for instance, state directors saying, "Well you know, I've had a hundred and some people go through the program and only eight have come back," that have been released out of a hundred and some, whereas if you look at general populations it's much higher. So there have been some emails on that, John, back and forth in recent weeks that we have some good evidence out there that that's exactly what you're saying is the case. And that's how you can justify if people don't want to do post-secondary for inmates because I got to work for my kid to go to college. Why should they get [unintelligible]

Audience Participant:
Steve, if I could just say something about that. We did a study just of the women - or I did over a five-year period - in Oklahoma and we ended up with, if they got a GED, that had a 43 percent recidivism rate. If they successfully did college classes and it wasn't any set number, just a college student that's successful, it dropped to 8 percent. If they got an associates degree, it dropped to 3 percent. And the odds of us going to prison is 2-1/2.

Steve Steurer:
You and I have a 2-1/2 percent chance [unintelligible]

John Linten:
I was going to mention also, there was a very nice article in the "New York Times" last November that talked about the three state recidivism study. This article also combined it with the findings of a study on a post-secondary program up in New York state at Bedford Hills. I did bring a few copies if you'd like to see that. And there have been quite a bit of discussion about the implications for recidivism and post-secondary education. There is also a nice story in the "Chronicle of Higher Education." And their headline is kind of a mouthful: College Programs for Prisoners Long Neglected Win New Support Punitive Philosophy Towards Jail [unintelligible] That Approach That Studies Show it Reduces Recidivism.

Steve Steurer:
That's a headline for professors [unintelligible].

Steve Steurer:
I think Julie [unintelligible] just walked in from Congressman [unintelligible] office, I want to thank you for coming.

Audience Participant:
Just talking to my vocational person from Utah at the larger prison in Salt Lake City, their most recent - and it wasn't a big study but an informal study - only 14 percent of their completers returned to prison after 2-year degree programs.

Steve Steurer:
So we have some-we can focus on a lot of stuff to support that [unintelligible] some of it is a little more on the anecdotal side, it just seems rough statistics but there have been some pretty good studies out there. Some more questions? I'd like to get a few more from some of the aides that have come in here, a few more questions. Because we have a lot of folks and we have quite a few states represented: California, Utah, Idaho, Wisconsin, Indiana, Iowa. And they have a lot of information so if you have some questions about some of this. Betty Lou?

Betty Lou Taylor:
What would the difference be if you change the age from 25 to 39, rather than 35? Would that make any huge difference in the number of participants?

Dr. Owen Modeland:
It would make some, yes.

Steve Steurer:
Yes, when I brought this back, because we had that discussion. We changed it to 35 because Jane, you and others said, "Let's do it." Because we still have-want to keep the youthful thing and how high can we go on it?

Audience Participant:
Higher every year.

[crosstalk, unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
I got comments from a number of people who saw this over the weekend and said, "Gee, 35, that's great." So just a little higher because we've got guys averaging about early 30's, 33 years old getting out on the average, so that would help a lot.

Audience Participant:
[unintelligible]

Audience Participant:
In California, our average age is going up in the 30's, 30 - 35. It would make sense that you could use-you know, a lot of times people don't make decisions that are positive decisions until they're in their 30's, mid-30's, late 30's.

Dr. Owen Modeland:
That's basically when we have to start at such a lot literacy level on our arrivals, see. And that is so generic that our general public do not realize that when we take in those 56 percent at every age and we have to start at ground zero, OK, and go from there, it takes them a long time to accept education, adjust their thinking and the maturity factor doesn't set in until it's just a little too late to take full advantage. And if we could just find a vehicle to put that on this time, it would really help us expend the money that we have because we do have to watch the minimum/medium/maximum type situations on combining people for classes. And that's another factor. And so when you get all these little stumbling blocks in there, then you have a little money-quite a bit of money left over at the end. And it's a shame you cannot spend it. When you've got one a year or two older and the results with his getting a degree are the same in reducing recidivism. And that's hard to explain to an inmate. Why does my buddy down here three years younger get a degree and I have to just sit here and do time while he does that?

Audience Participant:
John, if you were to follow the baby boomer population, I think that explains why we have to go up to 39. Many of the baby boomer's children are now over 25.

Steve Steurer:
I've been following the baby boom population for more years than I want to remember.

Audience Participant:
Directly to your question in Wisconsin, I just looked and our eligible pool would increase by 200 percent, rather than 130 [unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
That would really facilitate us spending the money because that's been-it's really-in other words, we had to do that politically to get this bill through in the first place with the demise of Pell grants. And so if we could do that, I'm hoping there's more acceptance now among politicians and the public that education, even at the higher level, is something that is very good to do in prison. Sherry?

Sherry:
If we expand into 39 [unintelligible] how would that work for staffing [unintelligible] would you have a hard time recruiting [unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
Sherry wants to know, if we increase the age with the same-assuming the same amount of funding that we have, would we have difficulty finding the staff to provide the programs, right?

Sherry:
Yeah, to make sure there is a sufficient number of staff [unintelligible]

[crosstalk, unintelligible]

Dr. Owen Modeland:
We're just processors, we're just processors. The colleges and universities really want to cooperate. They want students and so it's a market for them. So we have someone assigned to take care of the processing of that enrollment and supervise that. But there would hardly be anything additional on our part really.

Steve Steurer:
In most cases I'm aware of, it's a local college that is the provider and coordinator with the contract. There are some exceptions to that, in some cases, colleges and universities.

Audience Participant:
In Utah, we are like that. We even had the space and we were even prepared to make a full building program. We'll just use our building program. But the funds from the state were limited but if we had the 39, that would open up that many more FTE's and they would have more employees to help [unintelligible]

Steve Steurer:
Good. I think [unintelligible] we spend the money more easily, of course, since the money is limited, we'd probably reach a point where we'd like to hire more [unintelligible] but certainly our classes would probably be fuller and easier to do.

I wanted to mention something in the bill, in the Bush administration's write-up of this and just make sure everybody's aware of it. When it was zero funded - and there's a footnote in there someplace and maybe John could be a little more explicit - one of the justifications was well [unintelligible] was because there was the adult education money. But that was a little bit of a shell game because the adult education money is not post-secondary money at all. Those of us who administer that money, it's really for basic literacy and some GED and English as a second language. And even there, we're limited. Some states don't even get it because there's no requirement to give that money out in the first place, whereas this [unintelligible] specifically correctional education programs, specifically for post-secondary/vocational. So if somebody reads that note, as a number of people have, are confused by it. It's just kind of a-John I don't know if you have a remark on that.

John Linten:
Well, I might just make a comment that there-most of the folks in the room are involved with general correctional education programs, literacy programs, vocational programs. And there certainly is a very significant demand for services at the pre and post-secondary level. And I don't think any of us that have worked in correctional education would advocate taking resources away from basic instruction, particularly for those individuals that have the most severe needs, to provide for post-secondary education. They really should be separate funding streams. I don't want to paint the administration as being insensitive to issues of corrections and correctional education. And I found that our new Assistant Secretary, Carol D'Amico [sp], has been very eager to be involved in correctional education and be engaged with the other federal agencies, for example, with the re-entry initiative. And I have it with me, a copy of her text, for a statement that she made on a national teleconference on the re-entry initiative.

So we're trying to be engaged in education with the Department of Justice and some of the other federal agencies, Labor, HHS and Housing and Urban Development in terms of addressing some of the issues of returning offenders. Christie mentioned the number of 600,000 individuals being released. Sometimes it's hard to put that number in perspective, but Carol D'Amico, in her comments for the teleconference, mentioned that as recently as 1980, there were fewer than 200,000 people being released from state and federal prisons. So this number has really skyrocketed and this has a very significant impact on our communities. So we need to be working together as educators to address the full range of educational needs and also to be working with other agencies and other issues related to post-release services and post-release supervision. So we really don't want to do post-secondary at the expense of other types of services.

Steve Steurer:
Yesterday, we had Dr. Robert Pasternack [sp] speak at our conference. He is the U.S. Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehab Services and he's a former superintendent on the juvenile facility in New Mexico. He's a clinical psychologist and just has a whole bunch of interest in this area. And he, too, expressed the desire of the Department of Education to reach out and coordinate. He was talking about transition in mental health issues in particular and how that's another whole area for us that we're not really targeting today. But there's a wide range of stuff here with education for the correctional populations. The whole problem of drugs, drug use and abuse among this population as well as another one. And he was advocating for taking a look at a real strong transition program particularly targeted towards the youthful offenders, most of whom now find themselves in adult facilities, not in detention. They're getting adjudicated to adult facilities. So the range of people in criminal detention, a range of people who are in adult detention who are under the age of 21 who are highly unserved [unintelligible] coordinated services.

Did all the folks who came in, the aides particularly, could we get you to sign something so we can keep track of-Heather, do you have the [unintelligible] You're way ahead of me. Good. Any more questions we have for the committee or your comments? We do have to be out of here at 1. We still have about 15 minutes if you want of continue. Christie, you have any more comments?

Christie Gullion:
I don't. The only other thing I wanted to add, for those of you who might not be aware, the president did cut the funding 17 million and did make the footnote that it should come out of the adult ed state grant. But then the adult ed state grant was level funded. So there were no additional funds proposed in the adult ed state grant. So it is a little bit of a funding problem. I just wanted to clarify that.

Dr. Owen Modeland:
And I'd like to point out to those staffers and others that, you know, when we talk about numbers, tens of thousands in prisons, when we bring in the 56 percent of those that are illiterate or read below the 8th grade level, we're talking about a special population here. We're talking about a lot that have really totally rejected education, the families have for generations. A lot of them that have learning disabilities and if they have one disability, 70 percent have multiple disabilities. And we've got a lot of working with those people to even prepare them to want to take a taped test or any other kind of a test because their families and they have rejected education a lot. And we cannot use those people in a generic way. They're a special set of people that have all the rights that the rest of the American citizens have. And we need to deal with them as individuals and turn their lives around and give them the required attention which is much, much extra, much more costly. And then prepare them for society and give them a break. I think our president's initiative more or less addresses that kind of consideration. I want to thank you in advance for all your support you lend to that special group. And that is our highest recidivism rate. That group, the illiterate, the special education group, we need all the support in that. We're just proud of the job you've done thus far and we want you to continue. Thank you.

Steve Steurer:
Any other comments? Michelle, did you want to make a comment? You were the one that wrote this beautiful-

Michelle Tolbert:
The only thing I'd point you guys to in the report [unintelligible] if you have any questions [unintelligible]

Audience Participant:
How can we get multiple copies [unintelligible]?

Christie Gullion:
On the back cover, there's a 1-800 number and a web site. The publications are free. You can call or go to the web site and request the number of copies that you want.

Last updated: Thursday, 10-Sep-2009 16:03:00 EDT