When the FBI in April 2015 arrested six young men for planning to join ISIS, Matthew Palombo knew some of them as his students at Minneapolis Community and Technical College (MCTC). And when they reached out asking to continue class readings, Palombo did his best to support them, terror charges or not.
“I would send books, syllabi, assignments, everything,” said Palombo, a philosophy professor at MCTC.
All six later pleaded guilty to their charges and were sentenced to up to 10 years in federal prison. Yet the students’ desire to continue their education, even behind bars, inspired and moved Palombo.
“When somebody 18 or 19 years old goes to prison, it’s easy for someone to get depressed or assimilated into prison life and culture,” he said. “But these young men had the determination to continue their education.”
Believing he could do more for his students and those like them, Palombo approached the Minnesota Department of Corrections with an idea to start a prison higher education program. The DOC cited “too many unknowns” to move forward, but Palombo continued to send what resources he could to his incarcerated students.
After Tim Walz was elected governor in 2018, Palombo’s proposed program finally got some traction. Prison education programs were of particular interest to First Lady Gwen Walz, and the new administration set a goal to create a strong prison education system that could keep formerly incarcerated people out of the big house.
Then, in 2020, a change in federal policy would allow the state to expand education for those in prison: PELL grants, federal financial aid that benefits students in need, opened up to include incarcerated students. That meant Palombo’s program finally had the financial and political backing it needed to get off the ground.
The collaboration between MCTC and the Minnesota Department of Corrections led to the Transformation and Re-entry through Education and Community (TREC) program starting at the Lino Lakes correctional facility in 2021. DOC Commissioner Paul Schnell, who is tasked with lowering recidivism rates (the rate at which a person will reoffend and become reincarcerated), said such programs “intensify the odds of success” and could end up saving the state money.
The program now serves 113 students at Lino Lakes and Stillwater and will begin serving at Faribault in the fall, Schnell said. By 2026, he hopes 1,000 students will be enrolled in TREC, which can lead to an associate degree through in-person instruction by faculty from MCTC, the University of Minnesota and Metropolitan State University.
Strong potential, with some skepticism
While TREC has shown signs of success with 19 students at Lino Lakes graduating earlier this year, it’s too early to know its full impact. But supporters say demand is strong, and about 82% of all incarcerated people in Minnesota already meet TREC eligibility by having a high school diploma or equivalent.
That means classes often reach capacity, and applying students are selected by a lottery system, said Ann Deiman-Thornton, the dean of education and public and human service at MCTC.
The problem isn’t a lack of teachers, said Deiman-Thornton, “We have more faculty who want to teach than we have classes available.”
Instead, Schnell said a lack of security staff limits how many classes can be held at corrections facilities. TREC educators try to mirror campus life as best they can on the inside, but no program can operate without some level of security.
Most funding for TREC comes from PELL grants, and the DOC spends about 2.5% of its $470 million budget for incarceration and pre-release services on education. While Schnell said some might ask why the government is paying for classes rather than sending the bill to students, he said there’s evidence the program will pay off in the long run.
“If [incarcerated people] participate in programs and services they don’t come back,” he said. “We have to ask the question, ‘How do we want to spend our money?’”
Palombo, who identifies as a prison abolitionist, embraces Ubuntu philosophy and the teachings of Nelson Mandela.
“It’s easy to get lured into the prison culture and the DOC discipline and policies,” he said, “I didn’t want our program to reinforce prison culture.”
Abolition, in Palombo’s book, does not begin with demolition. Instead, he aims to abolish a culture that emphasizes punishment and hyper-security. TREC invests in students to build a less triggering, traumatizing, and dehumanizing institution, Palombo said. But it will take time to get there. Often, Palombo said his students feel they need to keep their heads down and tread carefully on prison grounds, so it’s a challenge getting them to feel comfortable to share their perspectives.
But once they do get comfortable, incarcerated students are highly engaged, said Travis Sands, a professor of gender studies and college prison director for Metropolitan State University. “These are the best and most engaged students we will ever have,” he said.
Sands said his incarcerated students work just as hard as his on-campus students, though the incarcerated students tend to complete more of the assigned readings.
“The classroom is not not prison,” Sands said, “but it is a moment that isn’t overdetermined by the fact of prison.”
Learning from research
A 2009 report from the Correctional Association of New York found that prison education programs reduce violence and improve security in facilities. It also found students are more likely to behave well because they have a positive program that they don’t want to lose.
Yet for both Sands and Palombo, it was integral that TREC not be experienced as a reward or a way to prevent idleness. The TREC program depicts education not as something to be earned, but as its own form of therapy.
Studies show that education is the most effective form of rehabilitation to reduce recidivism. Some studies also show that as the levels of education increased, the recidivism rates decreased. For example, one study showed formerly incarcerated people with an associate degree had a recidivism rate of 5%.
Schnell said TREC works together with a broader policy change the Legislature passed this year called the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act (MRRA), a reward and reinvestment program for incarcerated people in Minnesota. MRRA, which takes effect Aug. 1, will lower the time served behind bars in exchange for participation in treatment programs like TREC and accomplishing other goals, Schnell said. The DOC estimates that MRRA will save about $4,600 per prisoner.
According to Article 12, section two of the MRRA, any incarcerated person who does not comply with their rehabilitation will not be granted early release until they have fully served a disciplinary action in segregation.
Schnell said prison education programs not only benefit students, but also their families. A first-generation college student himself, Schnell said education opens the door for students to pursue life paths that weren’t previously possible. “Once that begins to happen it’s a game changer, a generational game changer,” he said.
“If the parent is educated,” Schnell said, “they can help their children move forward.”
While Minnesota has offered vocational education programs in its prisons in the past, Palombo wants his students to come out of the prison system with more than just skills in HVAC or carpentry. “Even if you want to do the trades, there’s no contradiction between those skills and loving poetry,” he said. “Their employer will know that you have a felony conviction. But what do you bring as an alternative to that? You can get a degree in HVAC, but you need something in the world of humanities to say ‘I’m different from what I was.’”
Challenging conditions
These goals can only be achieved if students remain in class, a substantial problem in the prison system. Schnell explained that not only do students have to balance their classes, but they undergo other forms of treatment and rehabilitation that occasionally interrupt their schedules.
“It’s not perfect, I’ll be the first to tell you,” Schnell said. Students may need to be moved from one facility to another as their treatment or security needs change; not every facility is equipped equally.
When possible, TREC staff tries to work with the DOC to make sure students’ treatment options will allow them to continue their classes, according to Palombo.
Though not labeled as disciplinary, administrative segregation places students in a restricted housing environment. This may occur when a student goes under investigation or if their presence in standard facilities poses a safety concern.
Palombo states that these moments of isolation are when students need education most. “We’re told to vet this program. Keep the good guys in and the bad guys out,” he said, “but we don’t do that. We want the ‘bad guys.’”This is Ubuntu in action. Palombo explains the philosophy as the belief that the relationships around a person create the person. Improvement of the person cannot result from punishment but from compassion. “You’re not gonna change if you’re afraid. If someone is struggling, you need to feed their humanity,” he said.
Palombo encourages TREC educators to work their hardest to ensure, even during segregation, that their students receive the resources needed to learn and improve. Education under TREC is not a reward for students, it is treatment.
“I remind students that it was in the 1960s in South African apartheid, [incarcerated people] could go to college in prison on Robben Island,” Palombo said. “It shows that what they’re doing is not new. Even under the worst regimes, they recognize the benefits of college in prison.”
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