April 15, 2007
Maximum Security Education
How Some Inmates Are Getting A Top-Notch Education Behind Bars
-
Play CBS Video
Video
Inmates Graduate Bard
In Full: Bob Simon profiles inmates of a prison in New York State, who are learning to flex their intellectual muscles while receiving top-notch liberal arts educations from Bard College.
-
Photo
(AP Photo)
-
Interactive
FBI Crime Statistics
Explore the latest information on U.S. crime, from acts of violence to property damage.
-
Interactive
Crime Beat
Statistics and specifics on crime in America.
No one doubts that one of the best ways to rehabilitate criminals is through educating them while they're in prison, but who wants to pay for prisoners to go to college when most people have trouble coughing up money for their own kids' education?
Correspondent Bob Simon found one college that does. Bard, an elite private college is offering true liberal arts degrees to some inmates in New York state. It's not what you’d imagine goes on behind the bars of a maximum security prison. And by the way, the program doesn't cost taxpayers a dime.
It looks and sounds like an ordinary college graduation ceremony: there are caps and gowns, the handing out of diplomas. But a group of men receiving their degrees from Bard College will not be leaving to go out and make their mark on the world—they are inmates at the Eastern Correctional Facility, a maximum security prison in New York state.
Most prisoners ended up at Eastern Correctional Facility by committing violent crimes, like assault, rape, and murder, with sentences ranging from seven years to life. It’s not the type of place you'd expect to walk into and find the inmates studying 18th century European history.
The Bard College program, which is privately funded, has been in this prison for six years and the academics are tough. One inmate tells Simon he and other inmates study five or six hours a day, outside of class, to make the grade.
The classes they take change each semester but what they have in common is that they're not practical courses—they’re true liberal arts courses, like English, sociology, philosophy, and German.
Salih Israel pushed for a German course because, he says, he wanted to be able to read German philosophers in their original language. "I mean, you’ve got Hegel, you have Marx, you have Kant. A lot of those prevailing ideas – they’re in German," he explains.
Salih Israel, by the way, is serving 20 to 40 years for shooting a woman in the course of a robbery.
"What do you say to somebody who says you should be learning a trade, some vocational training, instead of all this philosophy?" Simon asks inmate Joe Bergamini.
"Well, a vocational training will teach you how to do something, to have a job, but it doesn’t teach you how to think, and I think that’s the problem a lot of men in prison have is that they’re not thinking, they’re reacting. And a vocational program might give you the skills, to have a job, but it’s not gonna give you skills to have a life," says Bergamini, who is in prison for killing his own mother 16 years ago.
Reshawn Hughes shot and killed a man the following year. He was far from being college material. Before he was incarcerated, Hughes admits he had never read a book. Now, he says he hopes to continue his education until he gets his Ph.D.
Wes Caines has already served 17 years for taking part in a shootout in which one man died and another was seriously injured.
He knows how lucky he is to be getting an elite education from Bard. "They made an investment in people that society had written off and people who even today feel that we shouldn’t have this opportunity," Caines tells Simon.
Not every prisoner gets the opportunity; only about 10 percent of the inmates who apply to the college program are accepted. Prison life can be so routine and depressing, it's no wonder that these men jump at the chance to escape with their minds, if not with their bodies.
Travis Darshan dropped out of school when he was 14. When he was 17, he was arrested with two friends for robbing and killing a taxi driver.
Darshan never dreamed he'd get a college education. Asked how he felt when he got in, Darshan tells Simon, "Oh, I was elated. I was elated. It was, it was almost like they told me I was going home. … I really was. I felt like it was a new chapter in my life that it gave me a chance to start over."
"To these people locked up, this is just a psychological lifesaver. A string of hope even if their release is 10, 15, 20 years out," says Leon Botstein, the president of Bard College, a liberal arts college located about an hour from the prison but in every other sense worlds away.
Produced By Catherine Olian
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved.
Recent Segments
Scroll Left
Scroll Right


- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 145 CommentsWonderful, so proud of Bard & so ashamed of our representatives who refused the use of our money to enrich society by enriching the lives of the guys and women who need it so much.Never ddreamed a national program would tackle such a story & thrilled that you folks did.
Catherine Lewis
The item that deals with higher education provided to convicts serving long (and well-deserved) sentences for gruesome crimes is introduced with the usual tiresome liberal cliche about how the United States has more people in prison than any other country in the world. Well, the ones you have featured tonight do not exactly validate your snide preposition. Why does America keep on kicking herself?
When will 60 Minutes undertake a serious study of the causes of lawlessness in all too many segments of your population, instead of implying that apprehending and punishing those who deserve it is somehow morally tainted?
Here in Canada, unlike the United States, I do not recall any prominent "captains of industry" ever going to jail for wrongdoing; yet, in the U.S. it is almost routine. Does that mean that Canada has a more moral business community, or that the United States has a more responsive legal system?
Get real.
Why can't we be more enlightened about programs like this one AND provide financial assistance to nonincarcerated students who want to go to college? We are the richest country in the world -- surely there's enough money to go around.
Posted by jewsaleh at 08:24 PM : Apr 15, 2007
Not and pay for the war too. We've spent half a trillion dollars on that debacle. Just think of all of the education programs that could have funded? To say nothing of the REAL security we could have provided here in America. It's enough to make one sick.
Even though it doesn't cost the taxpayer a dime, what about all the children in this country living in poverty who would give anything for a college education? Why not have those professors teaching the inmates give their time to those less fortunate children? One prisoner, when asked how he felt about getting his college education in prison, replied that he wanted to make his daughters proud. Don't you think he should have thought of that before committing such a heinous crime?
Shame on 60 Minutes for reporting such a ludicrous story when there are so many other major issues facing this country and the world.
Mary F. Hauser
Philadelphia, PA
An embarrassed white American
Dear 60 Minutes,
Free college education for prisoners is a great idea; it is a step back in time. As you noted there used to be free college education till federal funds dried up. Without some form of rehabilitation in prisons, the prisons become training grounds for criminals, thus continuing the cycle of crime.
Thank you,
Mark Burwinkel
They no longer sound like gangsters, they sound like gentlemen.
TRULY, JUST AS ONE INMATE STATED, "FREEDOM" ISN'T JUST PHYSICAL - "FREEDOM" COMES FROM THE ABILITY TO THINK AND FEEL FOR YOURSELF.
THANK YOU BARD COLLEGE AND 60 MINUTES FOR AIRING THIS STORY. YOU'VE GIVEN A VOICE TO THIS ISSUE OF PRISON "REHABILITATION" AND WHAT IT TRULY CAN ACCOMPLISH.
THANK YOU.
Why can't we be more enlightened about programs like this one AND provide financial assistance to nonincarcerated students who want to go to college? We are the richest country in the world -- surely there's enough money to go around.
I don%u2019t know if you do follow up%u2019s with the people that you interview --- but I was struck by the comment of the fellow that was sent to the more liberal institution in that he would go back to his original place of incarceration at the drop of a hat to continue his education. My comment would be that if you are able to contact him again suggest to him that he now has the opportunity to start an education program at his new institution.
Again Bob great article.
Why can't we be more enlightened about programs like this one AND provide financial assistance to nonincarcerated students who want to go to college? We are the richest country in the world -- surely there's enough money to go around.
Instead my children and I will have student loans to pay off for the next 12 years at least, and they will be punished because they are indeed good, honest, moral and hard working people. In the real world these traits don't get you anywhere but shoved down anymore. If only I had realized this before I raised my children.
What Bard College is doing is WRONG. If you're going to give out free education, enrich the lives of people who deserve it AND pay taxes.
The message they are sending out got to me too late - I'm sure others will get it in time - so they won't have to look back at their lives and feel like crying.
Only 1 in 10 Texans is dyslexic, but a study shows 3 in 10 Texas prisoners are dyslexic. According to the Texas Comptroller's Fiscal Notes, hopelessness due to learning disorders leads to overincarceration. Anything we do to help inmates is not only more humane, but is ultimately cheaper than warehousing them. How can you argue against "habilitation" ? ("Re-habilitation" doesn't count if they weren't "habilitated" to begin with). Here's the article: http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2005/07/failure-to-treat-dyslexia-increases.html
Do you remember the kids who made the worst grades were also the bullies ? I do. All this makes sense...
Universities in the US are big-profit businesses. The admissions process is difficult, obtaining a scholarship or grant near impossible even for above average students. Most non-traditional students find themselves faced with taking out large student loans to assist with the financial burdens associated with achieving an advanced degree. It is society%u2019s responsibility to rehabilitate criminals but it is the criminal%u2019s responsibility to pay back their educational debt to society.
The websites are www.tesc.edu and www.excelsior.edu
Each college has financial aid, but it is limited. The least expensive method by which to earn college credit is proficiency exams. It is possible in many cases to earn a degree entirely by examination. I do know of inmates who have graduated from Edison and I am reasonably sure the same is true of Excelsior. I am happy to correspond with interested people. However,I won't provide my email address without the consent of 60 Minutes.
As usual, lets punish the innocent and reward the guilty.
As usual, lets punish the innocent and reward the guilty.
As usual, lets punish the innocent and reward the guilty.
Those that are feeling put off from the show, try to remember that the crappy public school system in the inner cities (that most of these men endured or abandoned) failed them as children/adolescents. Thank goodness for Bard!
P Wetzel
It isn't being funded by the taxpayers' dollars.
The biggest single problem related to incarceration is recidivism. This program reduces that.
It also reduces the level of frustration that makes prisons more violent, It makes the prisons a little bit safer for the guards.
It gives some hope to the most hopeless.
Prison guards have noted that the educational level of prison inmates in America is appalling. Many are illiterate. Some have never seen a clock radio. One prisoner with a small TV in his cell (someone had given it to him), sat in darkness every day because he didn't know how to turn it on, and was too proud to ask for help.
Anything that brings a little light into such darkness is a good idea.
He said that they should be building libraries and encouraging the inmates to read books. Teach the illiterate inmates to read, and encourage all the inmates to sit in their cells and read books, instead of hitting the weights.
I'm not sure Machiavelli is the best philosopher for these convicts to be studying.
They might get some Machiavellian ideas about right and wrong.
- 1
- 2
- 3
- next
See all 145 Comments