Senate must follow DeLauro on Pell grants

As current and former members of the Connecticut House of Representatives, we have dedicated decades between us supporting all citizens in our state. It is with great appreciation that we thank Connecticut’s Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro for her leadership in advancing federal legislation to lift the longstanding ban on Pell grants for incarcerated students in state and federal prisons, which would make the transformative power of education available to all.

Supporting access to high-quality postsecondary education in prison is an opportunity to curb costly, growing incarceration rates in Connecticut and across the country. Access to college courses and other skills training helps prepare incarcerated people for the workforce, while saving taxpayers money and releasing funds that could be directed to other community programs. As a senior member of the House Appropriations Committee, DeLauro understands how this common-sense criminal justice reform will ultimately save our state money, which means more funding that could benefit our schools, housing needs, child care and more.

By lifting the ban on Pell grants for incarcerated students, states could dramatically reduce recidivism rates while also cutting costly prison expenditures. About 95 percent of people in prison will eventually be released. When incarcerated people are able to gain the education and skills necessary to secure employment, they are about 48 percent less likely to return to prison than people who do not. Based on reduced costs of incarceration, if fewer Connecticut residents go back to prison, our state’s taxpayers could stand to save more than $7.2 million annually if the Pell ban is fully repealed. It simply costs far less to educate someone than incarcerate them.

Additionally, according to a University of Cincinnati study, prisons with college programs have fewer violent incidents, which creates safer working conditions for staff and safer living environments for incarcerated people.

People in prison have been barred from obtaining federal Pell grants, which are intended to help the most economically disadvantaged people, to further their education since Congress passed the Violent Crime and Law Enforcement Act in 1994. Since then, collaborations between corrections and education partners have built a strong foundation of post-secondary education in Connecticut prisons through private funding. In 2016, the U.S. Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative selected several colleges in the state to work with the Connecticut Department of Corrections, which has helped to make clear that broad access to post-secondary education is a smart and effective strategy that produces results. As a result of this initiative, a number of Connecticut colleges and universities already offer courses for credit in our state prisons and the University of New Haven is planning to do the same as soon as the COVID-19 crises allows. We applaud them and other state colleges for their partnership with the Department of Correction.

These opportunities speak to the growing desire of corrections and postsecondary education institutions to collaborate and offer high-quality programming that helps transform lives, reduce recidivism and save taxpayer dollars. With the House already in support of lifting the Pell ban, we urge our state’s lawmakers in the Senate to make the life-changing opportunity for postsecondary education available to everyone in Connecticut.

State Rep. Robyn Porter has represented Connecticut’s 94th House district since 2014. Mike Lawlor is an associate professor of criminal justice at University of New Haven and is the former Connecticut

House Judiciary Committee chairman.