By Jesse Carson
I have been involved in college programs in prison since 2005. I’ve taken classes from several different colleges, earned three associate degrees and membership in the international Phi Theta Kappa honors society, and just graduated from California State University with a bachelor’s degree. There are obviously a lot of barriers to college for the incarcerated—from paying for classes to finding proctors to getting class materials to even just getting support from the prison—but one of the biggest barriers relates to students wanting to stay in college. It is nearly impossible to find a prison education program that treats us like students who happen to be incarcerated rather than prisoners who happen to be taking college classes. To an on-campus student, some of these issues might be trivial, but for us they are a part of a larger trend that speaks to the carceral system and our treatment as inventory, not people.
Communication is a big part of it. For example, when I became a CSU student in 2021, I didn’t even know that I was enrolled or that the program existed. One day at work, the 
building officer told me that I had to move to another building “for college.” It wasn’t until the first day of class (which date was a mystery until a few days prior) that we even learned what classes we would be taking. It feels like we are expected to be grateful for the opportunity, and should be willing to drop everything and just go along with what we’re being told—not asked—to do. As prisoners, what else could we possibly have going on?
Having a full-time job and going to school is of course a challenge for anyone, but it actually seems to work against me, often when it comes to learning about the programs I’m involved in. I regularly miss all or most of orientation and other meetings because we’re not told about them in advance, only when they’re about to start (and even though all the staff know where I work—an editor for the Mule Creek Post—it still usually takes a good half hour before it’s noticed that I’m not there and someone then calls for me). One day I found out that the entire class had had their pictures taken for flyers and the program’s Facebook page, another surprise event that no one knew about but for which we were expected to drop everything and go when called (for those who were called at all…).
This lack of communication means I may not even finish the classes for my BA degree. Though I’ve already had the graduation ceremony, like most of my classmates I was still going to need to take two electives in the fall to complete all the requirements. After the spring semester, though, I learned that the university was not counting one of my community college classes for a graduation requirement, meaning I’d need three electives to graduate, but we’re only being offered two classes this fall. I could have taken a community college class during the spring that would have fulfilled the requirement, had I known; I can’t take it in the fall, because I’ve been assigned to a mandatory “life skills” class by the prison at the same time. This same class, in fact, overlaps with one of those two electives in the fall, so I’ll still end the year two electives short of graduation, and it’s unclear if Pell grants will continue funding my classes much longer.
“Figure it out” was the refrain of our first two semesters. Over and over we heard this from the prison’s coordinator, any time we had a concern about something. No guidance or assistance, just a retort to “Figure it out.” Once, a computer technician came from headquarters to lecture us about an annoying new program rolled out for no discernible reason (another meeting I missed most of because it was a surprise and I was at work). Every concern we raised about the unnecessary and difficult new program was met with a bold “Figure it out.” At one point, he even compared the challenges his high school student son has to what we’re going through; he figured it out, and so can we. Four semesters in, due to the computer system we continue to be unable to learn what scores we get on final exams or presentations or really anything that would be graded in the last week of class; all we get is a courtesy notice from the program coordinator letting us know we earned an “A” or “B” or whatever.
The computers, ironically, lead to their own set of problems. Because we have laptops and almost everything we need is posted on the prison system’s version of the online learning platform, Canvas, we get very few printed materials for class. But as there is only 100 MB of storage in the network for each student, we have to purge everything—research, essays, notes, lectures—periodically to make room for new materials. This leaves us with no access to anything from previous semesters, like we’re starting our college education from scratch with every class.
Dinner is also a problem. The first couple days of class trays were delivered to the education area for us, but after that they were sent to the building to wait for us when we returned from school. This worked out perfectly for everybody, but this past semester a new staff member decided that he didn’t like this setup and ordered the kitchen to stop sending trays. He’s managed to manufacture a story for his bosses about how we have a 45-minute break between classes so that we can go to dinner (I don’t know where it is: 3 to 4:15, 4:30 to 5:45, and 6 to 8:45 were our scheduled classes) and how we can go eat even if the chow hall is closed, but of course nobody talks to us about this. The administration thinks everything is fine because the only people they are talking to about it are not incarcerated. Imagine a student on campus having to rush back to their dorm room to drop off their materials and pick up eating utensils, then off to the cafeteria, then back to drop things off and pick things up again to go to class, all in 15 minutes. That would be insane, right?
Folsom Lake College doesn’t seem to be much better. It is supposed to be the prison’s college partner, but is actually the least accessible of the colleges I’ve dealt with while here. I have no idea how to get in contact with anyone, or whom to contact, about an education plan or questions about classes, because there is no address or other information given to us when we enroll nor transcripts sent after classes. A year and a half later, the art instructor still hasn’t responded to the emails sent on my behalf by a kind teacher here asking about my final grade or to have my last assignments returned. It was only after weekly badgering that a professor in my second semester told me my student ID number; most students here have never received theirs. The College’s interns have no idea where they stand on meeting the requirements for an associate degree, and their curriculum and assignments change so frequently and arbitrarily that I can understand why students quit the program. I am frustrated on their behalf when I hear about the constantly changing class, the ungraded or clearly-unread-but-graded-anyway assignments, the internship hours that are questioned or even voided for lack of “evidence” It pains me to say that I have changed my mind about ever participating in this program, and whenever anyone asks me about it I give them all the warnings I can.
I have been in prison for 22 years now, serving time on high-security level IV mainline facilities down to this low-security Level II “soft” facility where I live now. My college experience here has made me feel less human than anywhere before. The CSU director has threatened disciplinary action (“to the fullest extent of the law”) for working on assignments for one class while we’re in another. For a semester we were being searched on our way out of class (while no other classes or programs were), a minor indignity but one which I can’t remember happening in the past 15 years. The speakers for our CSU graduation, a major event in our lives, were privately selected by a vice principal new to the program and seemed to reward not the best students but her favorite ones; our challenge to the process was met with anger and the promise of another secretive selection. (spoiler alert: it turned out the same).
We are treated like prisoners —told what we’re going to do and when, without question or complaint—not like students who collaborate in their own educational process. I and most of my fellow students couldn’t wait for this bachelor’s degree. Not because of the accomplishment, but because it means the end of the educational journey, and we don’t have to be treated this way any more. We can just go back to being prisoners.
