Congresswoman touts education at state prison
Dean promotes legislation to boost training programs
Dean went to the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in the Montgomery County portion of her district recently to raise awareness about the Promoting Reentry through Education in Prisons Act.
SKIPPACK TOWNSHIP» One step at a time.
“It’s a sobering experience to walk into a prison, and of course you don’t walk in. It takes many doors, many metal detectors, and a lot of bullet proof glass. It’s a very sobering, sobering experience,” said U.S. Rep. Madeleine
Dean, D-4th Dist.
Dean went to the State Correctional Institution Phoenix in the Montgomery County portion of her district recently to raise awareness about the Promoting Reentry through Education in Prisons Act.
Dean said she’d previously visited the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Philadelphia, but this was her first time going to a state prison. She had a purpose.
“I went to Phoenix for a particular reason, and it’s something people should know. I want to lift up Villanova University,” she told MediaNews Group.
The university runs The Villanova Program at SCI Phoenix, which permits incarcerated individuals “an opportunity to obtain a college degree,” according to Villanova University’s website.
Established in 1972, it’s “one of the oldest, continuously running degree-granting prison education programs in the United States.”
“They are so dedicated, and it was a couple decades ago there were many programs throughout the state system, and other carceral systems for educating prisoners, training them for reentry,” Dean said. “Villanova is one of the
last, and yet it holds really strong.”
Dean introduced the education legislation late last month along with U.S. Sen. Brian Schatz, of Hawaii. According to a statement from Dean’s office, the legislation would “ensure that incarcerated individuals receive the educational opportunities they need to successfully reenter their communities after completing their sentences.”
The Pennsylvania congresswoman said she previously introduced the federal
bill with the late U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, of Maryland.
“I was honored to join him on this legislation because I know it’s the right way to go,” Dean said. “That we prepare those who are incarcerated to re-enter as best we possibly can for the success of themselves and for their families.”
While the PREP Act is a federal bill, Dean expressed her aspirations of working to implement a program and policy for correctional facilities at the state level.
“It can’t be Villanova alone,” she said.
Dean talked with three men during her visit who’ve participated in The Villanova
Program at SCI Phoenix: two men were serving sentences of roughly 25 years, while another man was serving a three-toeight-year sentence.
Dean noted that one obtained an associate’s degree,
and two others received training to gain skills in warehouse operations and barbering. She added that one man had shared plans to open several local barbershops following his release date next
year.
“They’ll be able to be employed when they come out so they’ll have a chance they’ll change their life,” Dean said.
“Each of them really just said what a powerful difference having the chance at an education, whether it’s technical training or academic education, just how it absolutely turned their lives around … from despair,” she said. “Each one of them was very honest, and held himself to account for the grievous crimes committed, but how education gave them hope and gave their families hope.”
The inmates spoke about the fact that they didn’t have access to good education at a young age. “I guess I felt very humbled,” Dean said. “I thought by circumstance, by economic circumstance, by educational opportunity, there but for the grace of God could have gone anybody in my family. It shouldn’t be so random. It shouldn’t be that some set of our population is destined more likely to go into the prison system,” she said.
“We have to interfere earlier. I sat there thinking that I can’t wait until we actually have universal PreK and what a difference that will make to jumpstart our children’s education and derail this pipeline to prison that we are suffering with as a society.”