Deeply emotional, incredibly profound: The impact of Ohio State’s prison co-education program
The intersection of education and a prison environment offers a blend of unique perspectives and benefits. Ultimately, it emphasizes the humanity of both incarcerated and traditional students.
Phoebe Helms
Former Patricia B. Miller Special Projects Reporter
On his last day of teaching “Sociology 2211S: Corrections” for the spring 2024 semester, professor Terrance Hinton broke down in front of his class.
Hinton had assigned students a personal reflection after finishing the course — as well as the book “Until We Reckon: Violence, Mass Incarceration, and a Road to Repair” — that instructed them to look back upon their own in-class experiences.
He shared what the reflections had to say on the course’s fateful last day.
“Some of you talked about being in love, cheating, therapy, anxiety, depression, bipolar, abandonment and resentment towards your mother and father for not being there, being incarcerated and not being there for your kids, having to testify against your own father, being sexually assaulted in middle school and having to testify and losing your friends in school who blamed you because the person was popular,” said Hinton, also known as “Dr. T” by his students.
“Some have contemplated suicide. Some of you have been incarcerated when your mother and father passed away. Some of you have a sibling that has been murdered,” Hinton went on. “Some of you have expressed feeling worthless, not good enough, trying to right the wrongs you have done, having shame and feeling worthless for the crime you committed. I was blown away that you felt comfortable enough to share that in this class.”
Terrance Hinton thanks his class for the past semester at the London Correctional Institute.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Hinton shared this to a group of about 30 students — 15 Ohio State undergraduates and 15 incarcerated — at the London Correctional Institute in London, Ohio. The cohort met once a week for three hours at a time for the entirety of the spring semester.
Dr. T’s class is one of many courses offered through Ohio State’s prison co-education program, which is titled Ohio Prison Education Exchange Project and is also known as OPEEP.
On the project’s website, part of its mission statement states “We are building prison-to-college pathways through campus and community based education, advocacy, and outreach. OPEEP courses bring campus-based and incarcerated students together in Ohio prison settings for collaborative and transformative educational experiences.”
Students in Dr. T’s class meet once a week for three hours at a time to discuss corrections in the United States.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
When Ohio State students arrive at the London Correctional Institute, located 33 miles west of Columbus and surrounded by meadows, they are greeted by a looming building and its cold lobby.
“This is a place of firm but kind restraint for those whose undeveloped moral facilities have led into evil ways; that the high purpose of this humane institution is a deterrent one: that it shall be this warning lighthouse of the body politic builded for those whose life barks drift toward criminal shoals,” a quote excerpt etched on a plaque greets visitors in the lobby.
Each week, Dr. T and his 15 Ohio State students arrive at the prison and wait in the lobby, staring at the quote above and reading informational posters that stress the importance of mental health and reporting human trafficking.
Once they are processed — meaning bags are checked, clothes are approved and everyone is officially signed in — they are led through the correctional facility’s halls and up to the “high school” area, where the course takes place.
The whole area is dated. The walls surrounding are a specific shade of eggshell. One poster lists all the U.S. presidents, with the most recent entry being Bill Clinton.
Still, every Monday, Dr. T and his students would assemble in a large classroom to discuss correctional policies and procedures in the United States and internationally.
Incarcerated student, Bill, shared how his own experiences in prison have shifted his perspective on the criminal justice system.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Education while incarcerated
Prison education has only recently become a topical conversation, and co-educational programs are even more newly developed. Specifically, Ohio State’s program operated through the Inside-Out Prison Exchange Program, which was founded at Temple University in 1997.
Since it was founded, hundreds of universities worldwide have implemented the program because of the benefits for both incarcerated students and traditional university students, according to its website. Such benefits include a reduction in recidivism — or the relapse into criminal behavior — and survey results that indicate an increased confidence among students.
The first OPEEP course was taught back in 2009, but expanding the program to its current operating capacity took time and patience, according to program directors Tiyi Morris and Mary Thomas.
Morris said the program secured crucial funding from a series of grants in 2018, allowing it to fulfill her and Thomas’ vision of success.
“In those first couple years, one of the things Mary and I did was really solidified the philosophical and pedagogical foundation for OPEEP, and that is that we’re grounded in Black feminist ideologies,” Morris said. “We use that as really the cornerstone of the way that we approach teaching, the way that we approach our interactions with incarcerated students and the way that we approach our interactions with each other.”
The project now offers courses in multiple prisons across the state for fall 2024, including the Ohio Reformatory for Women in Marysville, Richland Correctional Institute in Mansfield and the London Correctional Institute in London.
Though the project primarily encompasses single-course offerings, it has plans to begin offering degrees in the reformatories, according to Thomas.
“At the Ohio Reformatory for Women, we’ll be able to offer a BA in Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies, starting sometime next year, so that’s extremely exciting,” Thomas said. “And we would never have been able to get together a whole entire four-year college curriculum that will be offered entirely on site at the women’s prison without the support of the Provost Office and the Office of Academic Affairs.”
Thomas said this is just the beginning, as OPEEP staffers have hopes of providing further degree offerings to different facilities as well.
“Our dream is to be able to offer a degree at a men’s prison eventually in Black studies, but it’s just going to be a while because we only have the two and a half staff members now, and we just don’t have the capacity to be able to offer that — we’d need a lot more money,” Thomas said. “Yeah, we’re dreaming, we’re still dreaming.”
Recognizing the humanity of those serving time in the prisons, as well as that of the participating Ohio State students, is a vital aspect of learning through co-educational programs. Thomas emphasized the importance of using language to do so and shared “The Language Project” — a component of The Marshall Project, a nonprofit journalism organization with a focus on criminal justice — that emphasizes the dehumanizing nature of terms like “prisoner” and “convict.”
“A lot of people who are incarcerated get so used to being called ‘inmate’ by the staff that they refer to each other in that way,” Thomas said. “And so, it’s something that we actually really have to call out our incarcerated students on their language choice all the time.”
One of the incarcerated students shared his experience inside prison and how the OPEEP course has gotten him back in touch with his humanity.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
On the last day of class, Dr. T’s students were given an assignment to research the meaning of their names, then went around the classroom and discussed the meanings they had found. Dr. T emphasized the importance of knowing one’s name, as it offers an understanding of heritage and identity — two facets of personhood that prisons often seek to strip away.
“Not a prison number, but a name,” Thomas said.
Knowledge is power, and co-education programs like OPEEP allow for incarcerated students and Ohio State students to become more comfortable in their identities, Thomas said.
“Prisons are really, they’re knowledge deserts, right?” Thomas said. “It’s very hard to get quality information about the world, let alone even topical information about particular things people are interested in, like climate change, the upcoming election, et cetera. And so, I think that what happens when people take a class is that they realize that there is a world of information out there that they now know that they have the confidence and critical capacity to understand, to be able to look at that information and decide for themselves what it means for them and their communities.”
Morris agreed and said both incarcerated students and Ohio State students gain confidence and perspectives they didn’t have prior to enrolling in the course.
“Many of the incarcerated students, particularly at the men’s facilities, don’t have undergraduate degrees. For some folks who take our classes, it’s the first college class that they’ve taken,” Morris said. “And so there’s a little bit of insecurity about whether or not they have the intellectual capabilities to keep up with a traditional rigorous college class, so it serves that purpose. But the campus students, one of the things that [it] does is break down the walls and it really demonstrates to them, it breaks down the stereotypes that folks tend to have about the carceral system and mass incarceration and who was incarcerated.”
An Ohio State student shares her perspective on the content taught in the course.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Increase education, decrease recidivism
According to one of the first in-depth studies on education and the incarcerated population done by the Bureau of Justice Statistics in 2003, 68% of incarcerated people in state prisons had not received a high school diploma. A more recent study from 2018 done by the Prison Policy Initiative found only about half of all incarcerated people hold a high school diploma or GED.
According to the study, educational prospects for those who have been incarcerated worsen when college degrees are added to the equation. Incarcerated people, or those who have once been incarcerated, are eight times less likely to obtain a college degree than the average civilian, the study’s website states.
And while the everyday citizen has a one-third chance of obtaining a college degree, someone who has once been incarcerated has less than a one-twentieth chance of obtaining higher education.
Incarcerated student Malik has been in prison since he was 19 years old. He turned 24 before his last class with Dr. T. Preceding his incarceration, Malik wanted to be a journalist, but said he had been led down the wrong path.
Last names of the incarcerated students have not been shared for privacy reasons, due to university and reformatory policy.
“Unfortunately, I dropped out of high school — 11th grade, life was too much,” Malik said. “I didn’t know how to handle it. No father figure. No role models. I relied on myself so [I] dropped out of school. But coming here like this, I want to be smart, but I know I’m smart. People [are] pushing me to know how to deal with gaps in the course and keep it going.”
At the London Correctional Institute, Malik found himself wanting to do more with his time inside the facility, which is why he went through the rigorous process of applying to OPEEP.
“I don’t like wasting time because, you know, I want to get this education,” Malik said. “Like one thing for me, I don’t want to be the same person that got locked up. I don’t want to do the same thing. Turns out a lot of people get locked up and do the same thing.”
Incarcerated student Malik has been in prison for over five years, and has actively been pursuing his education since.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Malik said he desires to become a doctor after being released. In his free time spent outside of class, Malik said he’s teaching himself anatomy and biology by studying books available in the prison’s library.
Ohio State first-year in public management, leadership and policy, Mido Abou El Fadl, took Morris’ course on civil rights and the Black Power movement in the Southeastern Correctional Institution in Lancaster, Ohio. To him, the experience has made him reexamine how he spends his time.
“It’s more so through meeting the people and understanding that they do not like to be incarcerated. Since they do not have the luxury of free time, every moment of their day is kind of dictated by ‘Do this, do that, do this, do that,’” Abou El Fadl said. “So, I personally have started to look at my opportunities, look at my free time and try to invest that into just learning more about the world or seeing what opportunities OSU has.”
Abou El Fadl said the course has also opened his eyes to the harsh realities of prison and mass incarceration.
“It’s a completely different experience actually being there,” Abou El Fadl said. “I kind of went from ‘OK, yeah, this is, this is a bad thing and we should be worried about this’ to walking in and seeing and being like, ‘Oh, my God, this is kind of an atrocity that’s happening in front of our eyes.’ So it’s been very sobering for me.”
Despite this, Abou El Fadl said the experience and environment have given him an understanding and experience of humanity unlike any other, which makes his comprehension of incarcerated individuals’ circumstances all the more difficult.
“They’re people who have just beautiful, beautiful stories and have a full range of emotions,” Abou El Fadl said. “These are people who, even after they leave prison — because the majority of incarcerated students, I don’t think, are in there for life — they’re still going to be stuck, you know, saying, ‘Oh, have you ever been incarcerated,’ applying to jobs and whatnot. So, they’re kind of forced to be a second-class citizen long after they leave the prison system.”
An Ohio State student expressed gratitude towards the incarcerated students for their openness and vulnerability.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
The U.S. continues to lead in global incarceration numbers, with nearly 1.5 million people total in prison, based on 2022 numbers. And still, despite a white-majority racial demographic in the U.S., Black and Latinx make up over 50% of the incarcerated population.
Morris echoed the sentiments that Abou El Fadl shared about the OPEEP experience.
“It demystifies mass incarceration,” Morris said. “That kind of lets them see firsthand how oppressive that system is.”
Paul Bellair, an Ohio State sociology professor and the director of Ohio State’s Criminal Justice Research Center, emphasized the importance of outside contact and education for those incarcerated.
“Prison society is a very insular society,” Bellair said. “Other than emails and phone calls to their loved ones, they don’t have any contact with the outside world. And so, having an opportunity to sit through a class and learn from people who are coming in from the outside is really important. For people who are taking those classes, it’s kind of an amazing opportunity for them to kind of connect with the university. And for those individuals who are in those programs, it makes their prison time go faster.”
Involvement in prison education programs has also been proven to decrease recidivism rates. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, incarcerated individuals are 43% less likely to be arrested, convicted and sent back to prison if they participate in any sort of prison education program.
“I think that it reinforces a mindset that ‘I can succeed if I want to. If I want to do this, I can do it,’” Bellair said. “And that’s critically important for individuals when they come home, because invariably, they’re going to face difficult circumstances, for many anyway. It’s during those hard times that you can draw from, you know, the hope that was instilled by being involved in education.”
Another incarcerated student in Dr. T’s class, Donnie, was an electrical engineer before entering prison. He expressed concerns for incarcerated individuals when released due to a lack of educational resources inside of the London Correctional Institute as well as familial support.
Donnie also said despite degree offerings and courses that can be taken in prison, what incarcerated individuals really need are more vocational programs and certifications available. His view is, even if incarcerated students were to earn a degree in a discipline like business, career opportunities would be unavailable to them due to their criminal record.
“I can’t go work at Amazon,” Donnie said. “What I can do is go work for a machine or electric shop and run electricity through industrial buildings, residential. I can [do] plumbing, I can go fix things and eventually, I can start my own business.”
Despite his views on the importance of vocational education, Donnie expressed how meaningful the experience has been to him.
“This is the first time in here that I’ve felt normal in a really long time,” Donnie said.
The initial view of the London Correctional Institute that greets visitors.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Finding humanity through connection
Another incarcerated student, Bill, is 54 years old, and has spent 36 years in prison — 31 of those years were consecutive. Bill said he began regaining hope and a sense of purpose after becoming involved in programs like OPEEP.
“I came to prison when I was 18 years old,” Bill said. “So for me, I felt like life as I knew it was over, I didn’t really ever think I would get out. At times I lost hope, but as I aged, I started getting involved in restorative justice and classes like this. I gained a different perspective on life and where things could be. I took this program to help effectuate change. I might not see that change in the criminal justice system in my lifetime, but the little, small changes I’ve seen so far give me hope for the future.”
Bill said the program has not only helped him learn, but also work through past traumas.
“These students have helped me heal,” Bill said. “In 1990, I was sexually assaulted in prison and I didn’t mention anything about it until I came back [to prison]. I was fortunate enough to teach a class on prison culture in life sentences, and I got up in front of this group and told them what happened to me, and that’s the first time that I ever spoke publicly about it and not feel ashamed about what happened to me. Through the course of these 12 weeks between us [incarcerated students] and [the Ohio State students], we’re students. Despite where we are, we’re normal, and we don’t often get that. So these students have helped to keep us connected to our humanity.”
Incarcerated student Justin enjoys the celebratory activities on the last day of class.
Credit: Molly Goheen | Former Managing Editor for Digital Content
Through taking Dr. T’s class, Bill said he was able to earn his associate’s degree in criminal justice. Bill shared that after being released, he plans on opening up a halfway house for those who have been incarcerated for 15 years or more. He attributed this goal to his own experiences in prison and through prison educational programs.
Ohio State spring 2024 graduate Rosario Riggs, who studied criminology and criminal justice, said his experience with the criminal justice system was the reason he decided to enroll in Dr. T’s course.
“I grew up in a neighborhood where a lot of my friends either ended up dead, in prisons or in jails,” Riggs said. “Or, they just didn’t end up with the life they wished they had. So I felt like coming into a place like this, I could see myself in a lot of the other people here and realized that one decision I could’ve made could’ve led me in the exact same shoes that they are.”
Riggs said his experiences at home and the time spent taking this course have changed his views on incarceration, and helped him forge deeper connections with his other classmates.
“I see a lot of my past in the stories that they’ve told, because I’ve heard similar stories from my friends,” Riggs said. “So, I feel like having gained all of those experiences and using them to better myself, I feel like I’m a different person coming out of this because I don’t have the preconceived notion of prison that I did have.”
On the last day of class, after they had finished up their discussion on “Until We Reckon,” students played cornhole, ate cupcakes and celebrated the growth they had achieved via the course. Students were also allowed to share their testimonies on the meaning this course had to each of them.
Dr. T ended the class by sharing the themes of the reflection. He shared with his students the profound impact they had on him, and how they have inspired him to become a better teacher and father.
“You inspired me to be better,” Dr. T said. “I want you to know that. And lastly, you’ve inspired me to be a better fighter.”
