CJEI: ‘Technology is the Answer’ for Incarcerated Learners at 2023 ASU+GSV Summit
"How do we build the skills and equip justice-impacted individuals with a talent set to prepare them for jobs that are going to lead to social and economic mobility? It's technology," said Jodi Anderson Jr., director of technological innovation at Cornell University’s Criminal Justice and Employment Initiative (CJEI).
Anderson spoke at the 2023 ASU+GSV Summit in San Diego, California alongside fellow industry experts, Robb Scott, executive director of Cornell University’s Prison Education Program, and Jason Spyres, chief executive officer of Training All People (TAP). The panel delved into the state of education technology, workforce development, and educational reform for millions of incarcerated learners in America.
"It’s about helping people see a vision for themselves that they have yet to grasp with their own identity,” said Spyres. He spoke from experience; Spyres was handed a 30-year prison sentence in 2003 for a nonviolent cannabis offense as a teenager. Due to Illinois prison policies, his nonviolent cannabis offenses declared him legally “unrehabilitatable” and therefore unable to take classes in prison.
“I refused to just sit in a cell and watch time pass me by,” said Spyres. “I looked around my cell and said 'what can I do?' I just started trying to learn, reading math books. My mom sent me a Khan Academy transcript.”
Spyres used Khan Academy’s SAT Prep to earn acceptance to Stanford University and has since used his experience and expertise to found TAP, a workforce development program that utilizes technology to educate justice-impacted workers.
"As I've done this work for 15 years, there's a tremendous number of people that have untapped potential inside of prison walls,” said Scott, who moderated the panel titled ‘Getting Educated While Incarcerated’. Under Scott’s decade-long leadership, Cornell’s Prison Education Program has expanded to operate in four prisons, serving over 200 incarcerated students each year, and granting over 100 college degrees during Scott's time at Cornell.
Anderson is a graduate of Cornell’s Prison Education Program, rising beyond incarceration to graduate from Stanford University. He has since gone on to become a voice for the power of technology to enable justice-involved individuals access to meaningful careers. Anderson is co-founder of Rézme, a technology platform that facilitates economic and social mobility through specialized recruiting, professional development, and personalized learning for socio-economically disadvantaged and justice impacted citizens.
"There's a knowledge gap,” said Anderson. “Individuals don't know where to access resources. There's a thousand applications to get any thing that you want in life, but to get things that will actually help you out? Almost nonexistent. So it's incumbent on us technologists to actually build technology that helps connect people to those resources."
It was this expertise of first-hand experience and rigorous academic research which allowed the panelists to deeply explore the role of entrepreneurship, education technology, and workforce development technology in empowering justice-impacted households.
Discrimination against individuals with criminal records is “sandbagging the whole economy,” said Scott. Millions of people have been impacted by incarceration. “Who is doing the work to put an alternative record out there?” asked Scott. “Well, it's going to be the vision of people like Jodi and Jason.”
Anderson and Scott also featured in a panel focused on creating the prison-to-college pipeline.
Moderated by Brad Bernatek, managing director of WGU Labs Accelerator, the panel brought together education and technology experts to discuss the impact of education in prisons, with a particular emphasis on the reinstatement of Pell Grants for incarcerated individuals. Bernatek and WGU Labs’ position as thought leaders in scalable education solutions allowed well informed discussion across the panelists.
Panelist Noah Freedman addressed the challenges of implementing e-learning in prisons. These barriers include the lack of necessary technology infrastructure and the need for policy changes to ban exploitative tech business models.
“Over the last five years or so, there’s been a big growth of technology inside corrections, but it’s come in under business models with perverse incentives, that really disincentivize bringing in high quality education technology,” said Freedman.
As Chief Executive Officer of Nucleos, Freedman has positioned the organization at the forefront of helping people with limited opportunities get access to high-quality education and training.
“If you look at what’s happening in the prisons, it’s really a punishment factory and a mass producer of people who are going to have a very hard time in society, not a pipeline to college,” said Scott.
Scott emphasized the importance of quality education programs in prisons, particularly in light of the reinstatement of Pell Grants this month, which will enable upwards of 500,000 incarcerated individuals to enroll in college programs.
Both panels converged on a shared narrative—the transformative power of education, entrepreneurship, and technology in the lives of justice-impacted individuals. These elements serve as conduits to successful reintegration, increased earning potential, and healthier communities and families.
Both Anderson’s and Spyres journey from incarceration to Stanford graduates and tech entrepreneurs serves as a testament to the potential for change within the criminal justice system. By providing high-quality education and workforce development opportunities to incarcerated individuals, society can break down barriers, reduce recidivism rates, and promote a more just and inclusive future.