Dive Brief:
- The Department of Education and the Attorney General's office have issued guidelines for agencies to provide education services to an estimated 60,000 young people being incarcerated.
- The package includes guidelines on how to provide educational services for incarcerated students with disabilities.
- It also outlines the extent to which federal Pell Grants can cover education programs for students in juvenile justice facilities.
Dive Insight:
The guidance package, released Monday, is based around recommendations released in May in the My Brother's Keeper Task Force report. It includes a series of guiding principles, a sample letter that is intended to clarify the obligations of states and public agencies to provide education to eligible incarcerated students with disabilities, and documents intended to outline Pell grant access for incarcerated students.
In a news release, Education Secretary Arne Duncan and Attorney General Eric Holder call education access "one of the most effective crime prevention tools we have," and makes the argument that Pell grant-supported postsecondary education actually reduces re-incarceration. "Less crime not only means lower prison costs -- it also means safer communities," Duncan and Holder said in the release.
Although Pell grant access for incarcerated students might raise eyebrows, the two framed the program as a cost-saver, noting the average cost to confine a juvenile is $88,000 per year. The pair said inmates were half as likely to return to jail if they participated in higher education.