Tag Archives: pell grant

Money and Education… Just No Sentence Relief – Update for December 28, 2020

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

‘WHAT THE PELL?’ – NO SENTENCE REFORM IN STIMULUS, BUT THERE’S COLLEGE MONEY AND CASH FOR INMATES

Remember all of the sentence reform bennies in last May’s HEROES Act, passed by the House? Forget about them.

HR133-201228The 5,593-page stimulus package passed by Congress and signed last night by President Trump had none of the changes to compassionate release, CARES Act home confinement or elderly offender home confinement included in HEROES. However, the bill does resume federal college financial aid to prison inmates – Pell grants – that was banned in the 1994 crime bill championed by then-Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr.

The measure was part of a bipartisan deal struck by House and Senate education leaders to address affordability and equity in higher education. Two years ago, leaders in both houses, as well as the education secretary, Betsy DeVos, agreed that the 1994 ban should be revisited. In 2015, President Barack Obama’s Education Department piloted an experimental program called “Second Chance Pell” that allowed 12,000 incarcerated students to be eligible for the financial aid for distance learning and other programs that required tuition. Secretary DeVos expanded the program and urged Congress to make it permanent.

takethemoney191015The other curious feature – omission, perhaps – in the new stimulus package is this: after the uproar over inmates being eligible to receive the $1,200 stimulus payment in the CARES Act, there was no doubt that inmates would be cut out of any stimulus payment in the bill signed last night. But the legislation contains not a whisper that incarcerated people are exempt. Rather, it merely adopts the CARES Act eligibility requirement without change, meaning that inmates remain eligible for the stimulus payment, just like they were last spring.

The New York Times, Financial Aid Is Restored for Prisoners as Part of the Stimulus Bill (December 23, 2020)

Rules Committee Print, Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (Senate Amendment to HR 133) (December 21, 2020)

– Thomas L. Root

The Short Rocket – Update for July 25, 2019

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

THE SHORT ROCKET

Some People Need to be Locked Up…

rocket-312767A lot of people rely on Angel Tree to provide gifts to their kids at Christmas. Angel Tree, in turn, relies on volunteers and donations to be able to fill prisoners’ wishes for their kids.

A Waco, Texas, Angel Tree volunteer who police say stole Christmas presents meant for children with parents in prison, was arrested last week.

According to the arrest affidavit, Charabe Allison would either give donated clothing to her own family members or exchange the items at stores for gift cards. She was caught because clothing was returned to a local store that a store worker had bought with an employee discount. Because such clothing was not returnable, management questioned the employee, who then reported that her donation to Angel Tree had been returned for credit.

Despite my predisposition against indiscriminate incarceration, I think this woman needs to be locked up…

Waco, Texas, Tribune, Angel Tree volunteer arrested, accused on exchanging gifts for store credit (July 16)

College Administrators Urge Full Repeal of Pell Ban…

Vivian Nixon, who as an Education Department employee pushed the 2015 Pell Grant experimental reinstatement for a limited number of incarcerated students last week told a meeting of college executives that Congress should lift the 1994 ban on federal student aid to prisoners.

pell160627Nixon, now director or the College and Community Fellowship, told proponents of college education that the success of the Second Chance Pell pilot program justifies full reinstatement of Pell Grants for incarcerated students. Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, also a speaker, reaffirmed her support for the program, but said, “It’s Congress’s chance to act and do its job to make sure to extend this opportunity in a very sustainable and predictable way to many more people across our country.”

About 1,000 students have graduated with degrees or postsecondary certificates since the Second Chance program began in 2016. The Trump administration and Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Senate education committee, support a repeal of the 1994 ban in a reauthorization of the Higher Education Act.

Inside Higher Education, Taking Stock of Pell Grants Behind Bars (July 16)

BOP Officials Promoted and Given Bonuses Despite Tight Budgets and Infrastructure Failure…

The Bureau of Prisons paid $1.6 million in bonuses to its top executives and wardens during the past two years despite chronic staffing shortages and sharp critiques of prison management leveled by Congress, according to USA Today.

money160118The payments ranged from $5,400 to $23,800 per official. The largest sums went to the agency’s leadership team, including $20,399 to acting director Hugh Hurwitz, and the wardens of prisons who confronted what union officials described as dangerous shortages of guards.

Joseph Coakley, who managed USP Hazelton, where Whitey Bulger and two other inmates were murdered last year, received $20,399 on top of $34,500 paid out during 2015 and 2016 for his work at Hazelton and at FCI Beckley.

Meanwhile, Herman Quay, whose mishandling of the infrastructure crisis as warden of MDC Brooklyn last winter and bumbling coverup of the  freezing conditions and loss of electricity there during a cold snap made national headlines, has been promoted to warden at FCC Allenwood. At the new assignment, Quay is responsible for some 3,400 prisoners, about twice the residents of MDC Brooklyn.

A DOJ Inspector General’s investigation into the power loss is not yet complete, but Robert Gottheim, the district director for House Judiciary Committee chairman Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), complained, “It’s certainly not acceptable that the person who was responsible for the care of all the inmates at that facility, who from our perspective did not exercise due care, would then be getting a promotion to another facility, let alone a promotion before we have the investigation made public.”

USA Today, Federal prison officials get bonuses as staffing shortages, management problems persist (July 16)

The Intercept, The Warden tried to cover up a crisis at his freezing Brooklyn Jail — then he got promoted (July 17)

House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on Women in Prison

Piper Kerman, author of the novel turned Netflix series “Orange is the New Black,” testified before a House Judiciary subcommittee on her experiences in federal prison last week.

kerman190725Kerman, reform advocate Cynthia Shank and others spoke at a hearing on women in the criminal justice system, to discuss ways to make sure women are not overlooked in the conversation on criminal justice reform and to argue for a shift in policy to directly impact the growing number of women in prison.

“Policies, not crime, drive incarceration,” Kerman said.

Women are now the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population and initiatives to slow and even reverse the growth of the prison population have had disproportionately less effect on women, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. Nearly 150,000 women are pregnant when they are admitted into prison.

ABC News, House Judiciary subcommittee meets to discuss growing population of women behind bars (July 16)

– Thomas L. Root

Fake News on Second Step Act – Update for May 2, 2019

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

JUST FOOLIN’

trumpaprilfool190502President Trump told an April Fools’ Day gathering the White House to celebrate the First Step Act that “I’m announcing that the Second Step Act will be focused on successful reentry and reduced unemployment for Americans with past criminal records, and that’s what we’re starting right away.”

Um… not really.

The Washington Examiner last week quoted White House sources as saying that “there’s definitely not a Second Step Act.” In fact, it appears that Trump wandered off script from the prepared speech, which did not mention a Second Step at all.

Instead, the source is quoted as saying, the White House is focused instead on implementing the First Step Act in a way that denies ammunition to opponents such as uber-critic Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark.

cotton190502So far, First Step has not been a roaring success. A drafting error stalled additional “good time” credit for 150,000 federal inmates, creating a likely wave of about 4,000 releases around July. White House officials considered options to move forward the date but ultimately did not. “There’s a lot of concern that they have to get this right. Folks like Tom Cotton are just waiting for someone to do something stupid,” said the source who has worked on White House efforts. “People are going to want to wait and see how this [First Step Act] works out.”

Meanwhile, a broad coalition of groups is pushing for repeal of the federal ban on Pell Grants for incarcerated students, as talks heat up over reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Those organizations include civil rights groups, religious colleges and conservative organizations, argue that college access for students behind bars is an issue of equity for postsecondary education and also the logical extension of efforts to end mass incarceration.

Since 1994, federal law has prohibited prisoners from receiving Pell Grants, the primary form of need-based student aid. The Trump administration, however, has named financial aid for incarcerated students as a top priority for a new higher ed law.

Washington Examiner, Trump declared he was working on a Second Step Act. The proposal doesn’t exist (Apr. 26)

Inside Higher Ed, The Case for Pell in Prisons (Apr. 22)

– Thomas L. Root

Brilliant! Pell Experiment to be Studied to See Whether It Worked – Update for April 18, 2019

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

IS DEPT. OF EDUCTION SMARTER THAN A FIFTH GRADER? EFFECTIVENESS OF PELL GRANT EXPERIMENT FINALLY WILL BE STUDIED

Since 2015, the federal Dept. of Education has been experimenting with returning Pell grant assistance to inmates, giving grants to about 8,800 prisoners have been funded to take college-level courses inside their correctional institutions.

But no one knows whether the program has been effective. Back in 5th grade, we learned the scientific method. Integral to that method was evaluating the experimental testing, and refining or eliminating hypotheses as a result of the evaluation.

smarterthan5th190418

So let’s try this, kiddies. Our hypothesis is that providing prisoners with access to college-level course in prison will reduce recidivism. So four years ago, we experimented by giving 8,800 inmates Pell grants so that they could take college course while locked up. So what was the result? Was our hypothesis supported by the experimental results or not?

No one knows, because no one at DOE ever looked at the experimental results. When the agency was finally called out on it last week by the Government Accountability Office,  DOE unabashedly announced plans to conduct a “rigorous” examination of the program (after earlier saying it could not afford to do so.) The study is to “help provide policymakers with the information needed to make decisions about the future of Pell grants for incarcerated students,” wrote Gretta L. Goodwin, director of the Homeland Security and Justice division at GAO.

second170119Pell grants were made available 55 years ago to help low-income Americans benefit from higher education. The grants were denied to inmates after passage of the Violent Crime Control and Enforcement Act in 1994. But policymakers, faced with mounting evidence that education is critical to prisoner rehabilitation, approved the “Second Chance Pell” pilot program in a cautious attempt to rehabilitate the concept.

Advocates hoped the study will spark a bipartisan consensus about the need to return Pell grants in order to reduce mass incarceration.

The Crime Report, Does College Education in Prison Work? Ask the 8,800 Inmates Who Got Pell Grants (Apr. 11)

– Thomas L. Root

No One Much Cares About the ‘Seven Days’ Debacle – Update for February 25, 2019

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

BAD NEWS, GOOD NEWS

fishbicycle190225The bad news: We have already reported in detail on the error in the First Step Act that accidentally tied the effective date for the additional seven-days-a-year good-conduct time for federal inmates to the effectiveness of the earned-time credits, a pairing that makes as much sense at relating a fish to a bicycle.

Although there has been a hue and cry from all of the usual advocate-suspects, no one has owned up to the blunder, let alone taken steps to fix it.

I’m not often right, but I predicted a month ago that Congress would be uninterested in doing anything to correct the sloppy drafting. This is because Congress, as an institution, addresses a problem once, happily concludes that the problem is all fixed, and then moves on to the next problem. Criminal justice and prison reform got their moment in the sun with passage of First Step. It will be a long time before Congress comes back to the issue. That is all the more true here, because the drafting gaffe will remedy itself in July, when the seven-day credits take effect.  Some prisoners who should be home now will surely suffer, but that’s hardly an effect that will fire the imagination of Congress, especially the Senate leadership. 

And more: Law professor Nora V. Demleitner, editor of the Federal Sentencing Reporter, complained last week in The Hill that new Attorney General William Barr is no reformer. “Congress should have demanded an attorney general committed to decreasing the federal prison population, improving re-entry, and limiting prison sentences for minor offenders… an attorney general committed to the spirit of the [First Step] Act. Instead it settled for someone who will interpret it as narrowly as possible and implement it grudgingly.”

retro160110The Good News: Speaking last week at a crime symposium, Koch Industries general counsel Mark Holden identified three priorities for the next federal prison reform legislation. Holden, who was point man for Koch Industries’ backing of First Step, said that congress first should apply First Step’s sentencing changes retroactively – the 18 USC 924(c) destacking provision, the reductions in mandatory minimums under the drug trafficking statute, and “safety valve” qualifications.

In addition, Holden called on Congress to codify the Supreme Court’s Brady v. Maryland ruling requiring prosecutors share all of the information that they have about the alleged crime with the accused at the outset the case, and to adopt a clearer and more stringent mens rea rule. Also, he urged the Trump administration to reform the executive clemency process and then to apply it to “create second chances for people who wouldn’t necessarily qualify for relief under the First Step Act.”

Meanwhile, a push is on to again make Pell Grants available for prisoners. Complaints that hard-work Americans were paying for criminals to go to college cauaed Congress to prohibit issuing prisoners Pell Grants, which provide students with financial need aid for college. Without Pells, the number of prison college programs plummeted from 772 to just eight by 1997.

In 2015, the US Dept of Education started a pilot program, allowing some colleges to use Pells to increase access to college courses in prison.

education180509Last week, a conservative magazine called on Congress to expand Pell grants to prisoners nationwide. “Such programming brings gains for both prisoners and public safety,” the American Conservative said, “rebuilds families, is fiscally prudent, and acknowledges the individual dignity of those in prison.”

It may happen. There has been bipartisan support for legislation to reinstate Pells for prisoners. Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tennessee), chairman of the Senate Education and Labor Committee, has hinted the change may be part of reauthorizing the Higher Education Act. “Most prisoners, sooner or later, are released from prison, and no one is helped when they do not have the skills to find a job,” Alexander said last year. “Making Pell Grants available to them in the right circumstances is a good idea.”

The Hill, Barr confirmation reveals shallowness of congressional commitment to justice reform (Feb. 19)

The Crime Report, The First Step Act: It’s Only a ‘First Step’ (Feb. 18)

American Conservative, Sending Our Prisoners to College (Feb. 21)

The Intercept, How The Federal Government Undermines Prison Education (Feb. 18)

– Thomas L. Root