We post news and comment on federal criminal justice issues, focused primarily on trial and post-conviction matters, legislative initiatives, and sentencing issues.

PELL GRANT EXPANSION ANNOUNCED

The Dept of Education announced last week it will expand the Second Chance Pell Grant experiment for the 2022-2023 award year.

Launched in 2015, the Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative provides need-based Pell grants to people in state and federal prisons. The expansion announced last Friday will allow up to 200 colleges and universities (up from 131 currently) to offer prison education programs with support from the Pell Grant program. Current participants number 131.

Unfortunately, the bureaucracy crawls. The expansion does not become effective until July 2022.

Students in this program have earned over 7,000 credentials, build new skills and improve their odds of success. The DOE cited a Vera Institute for Justice study showing that incarcerated people who participated in postsecondary education programs are 48% less likely to return to prison than those who do not.

The expansion will also expand the geographic range of the program, with the goal of including a wider variety of postsecondary education programs serving a more diverse population, according to the DOE.

The Crime Report, ‘Second Chance’ Pell Grants Program Expands to 200 Schools in 2022 (July 30, 2021)

– Thomas L. Root