Prison Education Programs Lead the Way in Fair Chance Hiring

Adams State University in Alamosa, Colorado, has worked with students who are incarcerated for more than 25 years. Since 2017, its Prison Education Program (ASU-PEP) has awarded 152 associate’s degrees, 133 bachelor’s degrees, and 20 MBAs, and more than 1,000 people have earned transferable college credit through the program during that time. Director Lauren Hansen, the first person with a record of incarceration to lead the program, and PEP Off-Campus Academic Coordinator Jim Bullington are committed to changing the status quo from the inside out.

Hansen’s journey to leading ASU-PEP began in 2017, when she graduated from Rutgers University as an alum of the NJ-STEP program. Unable to find a mainstream employer willing to overlook her record, she turned to the field of prison education. Drawing on the support and mentorship of peers at organizations that value the experience of those who have been incarcerated, including NJ-STEP and Hudson Link, where she worked from 2018 to 2019, and the Alliance for Higher Education in Prison, where she worked from 2019 to 2022. She took the job as director of ASU-PEP in December 2022. Her rise to leadership is a testament to her dedication and the belief that people who are or have been incarcerated bring invaluable expertise to the field.

ASU-PEP’s mission is to provide high-quality postsecondary programming to students in prison, and Hansen is a fierce advocate for empowering these students through education. A key aspect of her strategy is to hire individuals who are currently incarcerated as adjunct instructors and pay them living wages.

Bullington worked closely with Hansen to negotiate with Colorado Department of Corrections leaders to ensure that these adjuncts would receive the same pay rate as adjuncts who aren’t incarcerated. This bold move faced initial resistance, but Bullington and Hansen insisted on equal pay because they understood that, like education, professional employment opportunities could have transformative power for people living within the prison system. ASU-PEP also offers training to help instructors who are incarcerated learn to write curriculum, learn different pedagogical styles, and learn how to successfully navigate the power dynamics of serving as an instructor to peers who are also incarcerated.

Recognizing the importance of strategic leadership, Bullington personally recruited Hansen for her role at ASU-PEP. Her credibility and lived experience make her an ideal leader to steer the program into the future.
In 2023, Hansen and Bullington delivered a presentation about ASU-PEP’s peer-to-peer teaching model at the Correctional Education Association’s annual conference, and they subsequently secured a Mellon Foundation Grant to support the hiring of five more adjunct instructors who were once incarcerated.

Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison was founded by men incarcerated at Sing Sing Correctional Facility in Ossining, New York, in 1998. It was a response to the 1994 federal legislation that eliminated Pell Grant eligibility for people who are incarcerated and a 1995 New York measure that prevented people in prison from receiving grants through the state’s Tuition Assistance Program.

As Hudson Link Executive Director Lila McDowell tells the story, in 1995, a group of Sing Sing residents who had earned degrees through Pell-funded programs were concerned about a recent increase in violence in the facility and a growing sense of hopelessness fueled by the new limits on access to college studies in prison. They began reaching out to local colleges and churches to see if those institutions could help restore postsecondary education at the facility. Then they learned through the grapevine that students at the nearby Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for women had successfully brought college programs back to their facility. So they asked their counterparts at Bedford Hills for help and worked in partnership with them to bring college back to Sing Sing, which led to the launch of Hudson Link.
Hudson Link now partners with eight colleges and has more than 650 students enrolled in five facilities throughout New York state. In addition to offering college coursework to residents, the organization supports more 2,000 alumni who have rejoined their communities. The recidivism rate among those alumni is just 2% over the organization’s entire 27-year history. By comparison, a Bureau of Justice Statistics analysis of 2005 data found that, nationally, an estimated 68% of people released from state prisons were arrested within three years, 79% within six years, and 83% within nine years.

A key ingredient to the success of Hudson Link alumni after release is the range of wraparound services that Hudson Link provides. Upon release, Hudson Link alumni receive a laptop and have access to the Hudson Link Boutique, where they can obtain clothing and other items free of charge. The boutique offers basic necessities like socks, underwear, a duffel bag, and hygiene items as well as business attire. And because housing remains one of the most common—and difficult to find—needs for people transitioning from incarceration, Hudson Link also operates transitional living houses built by and for their alumni.

Given the organization’s long track record of providing critical services and resources that help people succeed after leaving prison, it’s no surprise that Hudson Link has become a national leader in hiring people with records. McDowell joined Hudson Link in 2016. In her nine years there, people with records have made up more than 50% of the staff, on average, including President Sean Pica and professionals with expertise in development and fundraising, program design, and college and career navigation.

This is not to say that Hudson Link hasn’t faced obstacles that can make it challenging to hire people with records. For one thing, McDowell says it can be difficult to get the clearances that employees with records need to enter facilities run by the New York Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The team once even hired someone for a specific role that required facility access, only to be later told by the agency that the individual wouldn’t be permitted to enter the facility. To avoid similar situations in the future, Hudson Link now takes steps to ensure that job candidates can meet the state’s requirements before officially hiring them. This sometimes delays hiring by 90 days or more, and once it took over four months, McDowell says. Now when hiring for roles that require facility access, Hudson Link makes every effort to find candidates who can handle multiple responsibilities, so they won’t be unable to work if they don’t get the necessary clearances. However, the policies preventing access to facilities do create barriers that limit employment and advancement opportunities for staff.

The effort Hudson Link has put into adapting its hiring practices to comply with immovable New York state policies is an example of the complex maneuvering required of all employers who embrace fair chance hiring. It’s a reminder that changing an organization’s internal hiring practices is just the first step toward normalizing opportunity for people with records.

Launched in 2011, the New Jersey Scholarship and Transformative Education in Prisons (NJ-STEP) initiative provides postsecondary education opportunities to people in corrections facilities across the state. Operating as a statewide consortium, with staff supported by Rutgers University–Newark, NJ-STEP collaborates with multiple colleges and universities, the New Jersey Department of Corrections, and the state parole board to offer a unified curriculum. This system enables students across the state to use the same coursework, no matter where they are, to pursue associate’s, bachelor’s, and master’s degrees in liberal arts, justice studies, and social transformation and religious leadership. This structure ensures that transferring from one facility to another doesn’t hinder a student’s progress, and it allows students to continue working toward their degrees and career pathways upon release.

NJ-STEP Executive Director Chris Agans plays a crucial role in the program’s success. He oversees a large team of administrative personnel and staffers who coordinate recruitment, mentoring, and registration efforts for students across five prisons. His ability to connect people within spaces designed to disconnect is a key strength of the program.

NJ-STEP’s leaders and staff members have a deep understanding of the needs and challenges people face while incarcerated. They gain that understanding by actively listening to and engaging with students through advisory boards whose input informs policies and practices. In fact, NJ-STEP was built on student input. When the program officially launched in 2011, students had a direct say in its formation, and their insights led to the development of the comprehensive and adaptable curriculum offered today.

From the beginning, NJ-STEP has prioritized hiring people with records who have postsecondary degrees, recognizing that they have unique expertise in the challenges of navigating a carceral setting. The program strives for a fifty-fifty split among staff members who have experience serving time in corrections facilities and those who don’t.

After joining NJ STEP as transitions director in 2011, Agans’s first hires were formerly incarcerated alumni who established peer-to-peer counseling and transition teams to support students returning to their communities. This approach ensures that people who earn degrees in prison will have practical employment opportunities; it also sets the stage for alumni to serve as faculty members for the program.
Even though NJ-STEP has had program alumni on staff for several years, it still faces challenges when it comes to hiring people with records, including barriers at the university level. For example, the Rutgers human resources office requires background checks that can take up to 90 days, and the university often deems people to be ineligible for employment if it’s been less than three years since they have completed probation, parole, or other forms of community supervision. Additionally, the state department of corrections can create further obstacles by imposing bans that prohibit anyone currently serving a parole sentence from entering a facility. NJ-STEP addresses these issues by engaging directly with university committees and educating human resources personnel about the nuances of background checks, with the goal of ensuring that hiring decisions are made with a greater degree of thoughtfulness.

Commitments to forging genuine relationships with students and providing comprehensive support services for successful post-incarceration transitions are central to NJ-STEP’s mission, but sometimes the resources to provide those services are lacking. In those cases, creative leadership fills the gaps. NJ-STEP alumni are able to engage in professional development as administrators, teaching assistants, and tutors under the program’s Writing Center initiative.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic, NJ-STEP alumni have been visiting state correctional facilities to deliver presentations in which they share their career paths and success stories to inspire current students.
Through all of these initiatives and activities, NJ-STEP demonstrates how effective leadership and a commitment to student success can build bridges that profoundly impact systems by taking a human-centric approach to postsecondary education in prisons and fostering a culture of peer empowerment.

Portland State University (PSU) in Oregon launched its higher education in prison (HEP) program in the fall of 2019 under the direction of Deb Arthur, a former defense attorney and a fervent believer that people who have themselves served time in corrections facilities can have a powerful impact on the success of postsecondary programs for people who are incarcerated.

Made possible by a grant from the Sunshine Lady Foundation, the program initially served students incarcerated at Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville, the only women’s prison in Oregon. When she established PSU HEP, one of Arthur’s goals was to address inequities in access to education between men’s and women’s prisons. In its first year, PSU offered a single yearlong course to 20 students. Fast-forward to 2025, and the program is able to offer four or five courses per term in both the medium- and minimum-security units at Coffee Creek. Before PSU introduced the program, the facility’s residents only had access to correspondence courses.

Another one of PSU HEP’s priorities was to increase overall educational opportunities to people who were incarcerated in Oregon, and the program took steps toward that goal through a partnership with Chemeketa Community College in Salem and with funding from Ascendium Education Group. Within five years of its founding, PSU HEP began offering bachelor’s degrees at Coffee Creek and building bachelor’s degree programs in other facilities in the greater Salem area.

After five years in operation, PSU HEP has further expanded to include a focus on creating new opportunities for people to learn and grow while incarcerated in Oregon so they can get on a path to economic advancement. As part of that effort, PSU HEP has worked with community colleges and established a one-year pilot of an AmeriCorps program that provides students with professional development and mentor opportunities. PSU HEP alumni are also able to receive financial compensation and honorariums for activities such as public speaking engagements, part-time roles as navigators supporting students transitioning out of prison, and attending meetings and events like the National Conference for Higher Education in Prison.

[Nahlee Suvanvej] is an example of the level of impact made possible when a past record of incarceration is valued as expertise instead of risk.

Arthur believes that hiring people who were once incarcerated is an essential component of a successful prison education program. So she did that when she was building her team—eventually going so far as to replace herself as program director and promote a PSU alumna with lived experience of incarceration, Nahlee Suvanvej, to the leadership position in 2023. Having received new funding through a Ready for Pell subgrant from Jobs for the Future, Arthur had hired Suvanvej—the program’s second full-time employee—in 2022 as a Pell Grant readiness counselor. By the following year, Suvanvej had demonstrated she was ready to lead the program, so Arthur transitioned into an advisory role.

But hiring people with records was not—and still is not—an easy task. Among other things, Arthur has had to engage with PSU’s human resources office to advocate for elimination of background checks, and she has worked to convince state corrections officials to support her plans. The Oregon Department of Corrections does not allow anyone who is under probation or parole or any other form of correctional supervision to access its facilities.

As founder of the PSU HEP program, Arthur demonstrated the importance of effective advocacy for learners who are incarcerated and the urgent need to break down any remaining barriers to their advancement. And for her part, Suvanvej is an example of the level of impact made possible when a past record of incarceration is valued as expertise instead of risk. With Suvanvej steering the PSU HEP ship, the program continues to grow and thrive, ensuring that learners who are incarcerated in Oregon will continue to have equitable access to education.

Berkeley, California-based Roots of Success is a federally-registered environmental literacy and apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship program specifically designed for youth and adults who are members of populations that face barriers to education and employment, including people with records of arrest, conviction, or incarceration. Under the leadership of Executive Director Raquel Pinderhughes, an urban studies and planning professor at San Francisco State University and an expert on the green economy, Roots of Success brings transformative educational programming to communities that have been underserved by public and private institutions. Pinderhughes has the expertise and vision to deliver powerful results.

Roots of Success offers Registered Apprenticeship and pre-apprenticeship programs centered around a comprehensive 10-module course. These experiences prepare participants for quality jobs in green infrastructure projects in sectors that include water, waste, transportation, energy, building, food, and open space. Pre-apprentices graduate from the program with an “Environmental Specialist” certificate and the knowledge and skills needed to access more than 50 jobs within these sectors and 111 career pathways with more advanced study.

One standout aspect of the Roots of Success approach is that it empowers people who have been incarcerated—57% of Roots of Success participants are currently incarcerated and 42% were previously incarcerated. The program is offered in correctional facilities throughout the United States and is taught and run by apprentices and journey-level workers who are incarcerated and are usually employed full time to manage and teach the course. Many of these instructors are serving long-term or life sentences, and they are deeply motivated to help fellow residents get on pathways that enable them to avoid returning to prison. Compensation for teaching the course is limited by existing carceral wage scales, so instructors don’t receive the same level of pay as apprentices who aren’t incarcerated, but the initiative marks a significant step toward normalizing career opportunities for people who are incarcerated. It also shifts perceptions about what is possible among people who are incarcerated and instills in them a powerful sense of autonomy and purpose.

Pinderhughes ensures that Roots of Success remains attuned to the needs of participants by actively seeking and acting upon feedback from them. The curriculum is designed to reflect the experiences of people from low-income backgrounds and communities of color, allowing students in the program to see themselves represented in the material. To ensure that course content is culturally relevant for participants, there are 10 versions of the curriculum, each designed for a specific population.

[Raquel Pinderhughes] has created a model for transformative education and empowerment.

Most of the Roots of Success classes offered in state prisons take place without security staff present, creating a safe space that fosters trust between instructors and participants. By eliminating some of the institutional power dynamics, Pinderhughes clears a path for individuals to grow and realize their full potential. The program also benefits prison administrators and staff by giving individuals who are incarcerated meaningful activities to engage in, thus limiting idle time, encouraging prosocial behavior, and reducing violence.

Roots of Success leads with love, increasing knowledge and skills to enable people to achieve more. It provides an educational experience for people who are unable to pursue postsecondary education and training experiences, and for many, it serves as a bridge to higher education and careers.

The program’s website offers statistics that illustrate its impact: More than 28,000 people have completed the Roots of Success course in the past 15 years, and 75% of graduates who took the course in community settings found a job within three months. The organization also says that its data from the past decade shows significant reductions in violence in corrections facilities that offer the program, and while it has had more than 11,000 participants go through the program while incarcerated in its 15-year history, there has only been one disciplinary infraction.

Pinderhughes has created a model for transformative education and empowerment, and under her direction, Roots of Success has fostered growth among people living in some of the most challenging environments, helping them to express their full potential.

Since its inception in 2016, the University of Baltimore’s Second Chance College Program has made strides in providing postsecondary education for people who are incarcerated. Selected as one of 67 schools to participate in the U.S. Department of Education’s Second Chance Pell program, this initiative offers participants an opportunity to earn a bachelor’s degree in human services administration. It has served approximately 130 students to date, with 40 to 50 students enrolled each semester. The program offers its classes at Jessup Correctional Institution, a maximum-security facility for men, and celebrated a significant milestone in October 2023, when it held its commencement ceremony inside that facility for the first time.

Program Director Andrea Cantora emphasizes that providing education alone is insufficient. Recognizing the need to also provide participants with employment support, the University of Baltimore’s career center helps students find jobs upon their release. Leveraging Pell Grant eligibility, students also qualify for federal work-study programs, enabling the university to hire them for on-campus jobs.
Students have successfully worked in various departments, including technology services and student engagement. Despite initial hesitance among university officials about hiring people who were recently incarcerated, the results have been overwhelmingly positive. The IT department, for example, has been so pleased with its employees from the Second Chance College program that it has expressed interest in hiring more students from the program. This feedback has prompted the university to add more IT-related classes to better prepare students for employment opportunities upon their release.

However, the program does face several challenges. One significant hurdle is a Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services policy that prohibits people on community supervision from working inside state correctional facilities. Cantora hopes to hire program alumni as full-time counselors to help other people being released navigate their transitions back to their communities, but because these workers are limited in how often they are permitted to visit students in prisons, she has arranged for them to maintain contact with their clients via Zoom. Recognizing that this as a broader issue, Cantora and her team are collaborating with other Maryland-based prison education programs to advocate for policy changes that would allow people with records to contribute more effectively.

Cantora is also focusing on finding ways to compensate people who are incarcerated. Many students serve as tutors and advisors within Jessup Correctional Institution, but state department of corrections policies prevent them from being paid as employees.
The University of Baltimore’s Second Chance College Program has made significant progress in creating employment opportunities for people who are or have been incarcerated, and it likely will continue to make an impact in the years ahead, because Cantora and her team are dedicated to pushing for the necessary changes to enable more meaningful employment opportunities for these individuals.