Education Behind Bars: Article Two: A Story of Prison to College Degrees​in California

When I was working as a librarian at Coastline Community College between 2005 and 2011, I began researching higher education (HE) in prisons. Nearly all the data was only available through Department of Justice sources. Very few universities or colleges provided information regarding programs for people in prisons or jails. My research was motivated by the fact that Coastline Community College's enrollment of incarcerated students grew from less than 50 to over 4,000 in a span of five years. Coastline was able to accommodate so many students because of its robust telecourse offerings. Telecourse classes are high-tech versions of correspondence courses: students view lectures in televised units and submit coursework by mail. Telecourses were precursors to contemporary online programs. It is important to note that Coastline never marketed its telecourses to prison populations; enrollment grew by word-of-mouth (the grapevine in prisons is highly sophisticated).


We needed information about library services to incarcerated students. It became apparent very quickly that the societal benefits of higher education were an equally important subject to research. In the process, data revealed disturbing facts about crime, imprisonment, recidivism, probation, parole, and the justice system in general. Despite the limited amount of data available, it became clear that higher education did have beneficial effects pertaining to recidivism and prison life.


I continued to explore higher education and justice until I retired in 2016. At that time, HE programs in universities and colleges were expanding, more data was being gathered, and prison reform becoming a hot topic. Now, six years later, HE for incarcerated individuals has quietly exploded! Universities and colleges across the nation have discovered that providing education behind bars has many benefits to the institution, the community, and the nation, in addition to improving the possibilities for one incarcerated person at a time.


The following is Danny Murillo’s story in his own words as they appear in The Possibilities Report: From Prison to College Degrees in California, which was published by The Campaign for College Opportunity. Mr. Murillo began his HE journey by taking Coastline Community College independent-study courses while in solitary confinement at Pelican Bay State Prison, a supermax facility in the state of California. His story illustrates the potential for success as a result of HE opportunities for incarcerated individuals and how lives can be saved!

Danny Murillo, Report Author,
Founder, Underground Scholars Initiative

As a first-generation student, I attended the K-12 public schools in my Southeast Los Angeles neighborhood. My experience with the public schools I attended was punctuated with negative experiences due to my limited English proficiency and being the son of migrant parents from Mexico. I often experienced judgment and mockery by my teachers and school administrators for my language difficulties and ethnicity. These actions left me feeling unworthy of an education and unworthy of my teachers' time or investment. Simultaneous to having negative school experiences throughout my youth, was experiencing violence at home and in my   community. It was not surprising then that by the time I started high school, I was convinced I did not belong and had very little hopes for my own future. On the first day of 10th grade, I was expelled from high school after I never returned to school. These experiences inevitably put me, like so many other men of color like me, in the school-to-prison pipeline.


In 2005, the tenth anniversary of my incarceration, I arrived at the Security Housing Unit at Pelican Bay State Prison, where I would remain in isolation for the remainder of my sentence. My educational experience in prison consisted of Adult Basic Education and Pre-General Education Development courses. Access to postsecondary education was practically non-existent throughout California state prisons, but that was not the case at Pelican Bay, where Coastline College offered a correspondence program. When the people around me discovered I was getting released in five years, they encouraged me to enroll and take advantage of the limited educational resources available in solitary confinement. Little did I know that higher education would be the light at the end of a prison tunnel I was trapped in for fourteen years.


Before my release, I decided to continue my education on a college campus. I believed a college degree offered me the best possibility of creating a new life for myself and my family. My goal was to complete my Associate of Arts degree, and I planned to go to campus, take classes, and head home. But once on campus, things changed when I reconnected with a childhood friend who was formerly incarcerated and transferring to the University of California, Irvine.


My friend gave me his blueprint to succeed in higher education as a formerly incarcerated student. He emphasized the importance of seeing myself as part of the campus community and making connections with administrators, faculty, staff, and students. He encouraged me to get involved with student organizing and visit EOPS (Extend Opportunities and Programs Services), the math and writing center. He advised me to join an affinity group, Puente, and participate in academic and support programs, such as the Honor Scholars' program and the Transfer Center. Equipped with this new information, I dedicated my time and energy to my education and campus life. Cerritos College became my sanctuary; it gave my life structure and purpose. It was within this structured environment that I created my academic plan and long-term goals.
 
As a formerly incarcerated student, though, I still faced challenges. My English professor, who was aware of my conviction history, offered me a work-study position. Initially, I was denied by human resources. However, my professor, academic advisor, and mentor all advocated on my behalf, and eventually, I was hired. Considering I had never been employed, the work-study position was my opportunity to develop a resume. Utilizing the resources available at Cerritos College, I graduated and transferred to UC Berkeley in Fall 2012.
 
Upon my arrival at UC Berkeley, I found a supportive community. My EOP counselor (Educational Opportunity Program) helped me address parole and campus housing barriers. My academic counselor introduced me to faculty and lecturers, who would become my research advisors. Most importantly, I met students who were formerly incarcerated or who had family members incarcerated. We came together and established the Underground Scholars Initiative to support formerly incarcerated students and create a prison to university pipeline.

I graduated from UC Berkeley in the Spring of 2015 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Ethnic Studies, but I knew that a postsecondary degree would not guarantee employment after graduation, so my mentors steered me toward fellowship opportunities. Fellowships can be a valuable resource for creating employment opportunities for formerly incarcerated people if an intentional effort is put into connecting students to fellowships.


I was awarded both the John W. Gardner Public Service and the Soros Justice Advocacy Fellowship. The Gardner fellowship opened the doors for me to work on a collaborative project between the Vera Institute of Justice and Rutgers University. As a Soros Fellow at the Opportunity Institute, I worked on the Renewing Communities Initiative, a five-year initiative designed to expand access to California's public colleges and universities for currently and formerly incarcerated students. At the conclusion of the Soros Fellowship, I was hired full-time to continue supporting this initiative. I am currently the Program Analyst at the Campaign for College Opportunity and a graduate student in the Social Cultural Analysis of Education program at Long Beach State University.

My life's work is to ensure incarcerated, and formerly incarcerated people have the opportunity to turn their lives around through education. My most significant accomplishment was breaking the cycles of incarceration in my family and helping my brother and nephew create their path towards success. You see, while I was at UC Berkeley, my brother and nephew were caught in the school-to-prison pipeline, but I helped them keep their focus on their education, and today, my brother is an undergraduate student and co-founder of the Underground Scholars Initiative at UC Santa Barbara. My nephew is pursuing an Associate Degree for Transfer in Culinary Arts at Laney College.
 
In this report, we uplift the voices of formerly incarcerated students in California's public colleges and universities who candidly and vulnerably discuss the real challenges they have encountered in their transition from incarceration to a college or university campus. I am in awe and inspired by the real opportunity we have as a state to create change for generations of Californians caught in an unjust criminal "justice" system. For far too long, California has overinvested in prisons to solve our social issues but has provided minimal resources or funding to colleges and universities to provide an alternative to incarceration. It is time to change that, and I am living proof that the investment works!
To Read the Full Possibility Report Click the Below Link:
POSSIBILITY REPORT: From Prison to College Degrees in California 


Special Thanks to:
Danny Murillo, Report Author,
Founder Underground Scholars Initiative
For Permission to Share This Report With You


Submitted by Cheryl Stewart, MOTAL Board member and Treasurer