Changing Lives

Adam Gaunt gives a presentation to a business class. ISU Photo/Tony Campbell

Adam Gaunt remembered feeling empathy for the dogs he walked at a no-kill animal shelter in northern Indiana during the last days of summer 2010.

“I noticed that the dogs couldn’t wait to get back to their cages,” recalled 37-year-old Gaunt. “They’d been conditioned. I could empathize with them, that notion of being conditioned, but I never want to be back in a cage.”

When Gaunt was released from prison in August 2010, after almost five years of incarceration, one of the conditions of his five-year probation was community service. His volunteer efforts included dog walking and work on a Habitat for Humanity project.

Now, with two successful full-time semesters completed as an on-campus student at Indiana State University, Gaunt is a first semester senior on track for a May 2013 graduation with a bachelor’s degree in business management information systems.

While serving time in Putnamville Correctional Facility in Greencastle, Gaunt took college classes through ISU’s Correction Education Program (CEP). He received an associate degree in liberal studies in fall 2009, earning a 3.93 GPA, while also earning credit time on his prison sentence.

The up side of prison is realizing that “the only way to change your life is to better yourself through education,” said Gaunt. “If you go to prison and you don’t try to better yourself, you’re just going to keep going back.”  

Going back

Nationally, four in 10 offenders return to prison within three years, according to “State of Recidivism: The Revolving Door of America’s Prisons,” a March 2011 report by the Pew Center on the States.

Between 1973 and 2009, the nation’s prison population grew by 705 percent, resulting in more than one in 100 adults behind bars, the report states. Nationally nearly 43 percent of prisoners released in 2004 were re-incarcerated within three years, either for committing a new crime or violating the terms of supervised release, according to the Pew report.

In Indiana, where about 20,000 prisoners are released annually, the recidivism rate has declined. In 2007, recidivism rates decreased for the second consecutive year, with 37.8 percent of offenders being re-committed to the Indiana Department of Correction (IDOC) within three years of their release date. Rates for 2005 and 2006 were 39.2 percent and 38.6 percent respectively, according to the IDOC report “Recidivism Rates Compared 2005-2007.”

In another IDOC five-year follow-up study (2005-2009), the recidivism rate was 31 percent among offenders who had a college education, but it increased to 56 percent among offenders who had education below high school.

IDOC’s current research “mirrors other national studies in that offenders who participate in college degree programs are less likely to recidivate than any other group,” according to IDOC’s 2010 annual report.

Security, public safety and tax dollars 

“If you don’t change what’s between the ears of the offender, then you’re going to get the same old thing.” -- James W. Houston, GR '11

What most people forget, says ISU alumnus John Nally, ‘66, GR ‘68, and IDOC director of education, is that when an offender has successfully been rehabilitated, the potential for repeat criminal offenses is lessened and the community then is a safer and saner place to live.

In the IDOC organizational structure, education falls under the Office of the Deputy Commissioner for Re-Entry. From day one of a person’s incarceration, IDOC is focused on re-entry to the community. 

Nationally, the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics on reentry trends, state that at least 95 percent of all state prisoners will be released at some point.

Even a 7 to 9 percent reduction in recidivism can result in significant savings for taxpayers, according to “From the Classroom to the Community: Exploring the Role of Education during Incarceration and Reentry,” a 2009 Urban Institute report. Investing $1,182 in vocational training per prisoner can save $6,806 in future criminal justice costs, and $962 per prisoner invested in academic education (adult basic, secondary, and postsecondary) can save $5,306 in criminal justice costs, according to a study published in 2006, and cited in the Urban Justice report.

Ninety-seven percent of offenders in Indiana are released into the community at some point, according to alumnus James W. Houston, GR ’11, program chair of the criminal justice program at Ivy Tech Community College, Terre Haute, and a former director of ISU’s Correction Education Program. “The public needs to be realistic about expectations,” he said. “If you don’t change what’s between the ears of the offender, then you’re going to get the same old thing.”

Houston worked more than 13 years for IDOC at Putnamville, Plainfield and the maximum-security facility at Pendleton, where he was assistant superintendent. To him, correctional education as a state funding priority makes sense from both long-range fiscal and public policy perspectives.

Indiana spends about $20,000 a year to incarcerate one offender, said Houston.  According to IDOC, more than 1.1 million days in time cuts were given during the 2008-2009 school year for the adult inmate population completing GED certificates, associate degrees and bachelor degrees.  

“When this number is multiplied by the then per day cost of $53.96 to house and care for an offender, the taxpayers of Indiana realistically could save a total of  $60,751,297,” says Houston. “From a purely fiscal standpoint, the impact of educational programs to incarcerated offenders is astounding.”

IDOC’s July 1, 2011, data fact card lists a total population of 28,082 adult inmates in 21 institutions with an average per diem per inmate at $54.28. That’s $1.5 million a day or $556.3 million a year. 

IDOC’s general fund budget for 2009-2010 was $677.3 million and for 2010-2011 it was $691.6 million, according to the IDOC website.

ISU’s CEP 

At this time a year ago, ISU’s Correctional Education Program had accumulated more than 22 years of experience in educating prisoners. About 60 instructors, mostly part-time, taught about 400 students, who worked on associate’s or bachelor’s degrees at four state correctional facilities and the federal prison in Terre Haute.

But because of significant state funding cuts, ISU’s program now is downsized and in a “teach-out” phase with some students finishing degrees. In May last year, state officials announced that financial aid for confined felons provided through the State Student Assistance Commission of Indiana would cease July 1.  Indiana’s two-year state budget, effective July 1 last year, decreased IDOC’s budget for educating incarcerated inmates attending college from about $12 million to $2 million.   

Through the years, ISU staff and faculty developed a passion for inmate education, according to Leslie Engelland, academic associate in the College of Arts and Sciences. “It’s part academic and part social work,” said Engelland, who coordinates administration of the correctional education liberal studies program. “You can’t do it unless you feel there’s some long-term social engineering good that you’re doing.”

“When we talk about college programs, the public at large thinks there’s this huge captive audience, but that’s not the case.” — John Nally,( ‘66, GR ’68) IDOC director of education

It’s the whole person that you are interested in reaching through correctional education, said Harriet Hudson, associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. The goal is “to provide skills for employment but also to broaden knowledge and experience of the world, while affecting change in the person to have multiple ways of thinking about how to meet life’s challenges,” she said. 

Charles Hawkins, interim director of CEP, says that bachelor’s degree programs for inmates have been one of the best things to happen for the incarcerated and for the public. “Teaching individuals to think independently and to accept responsibility for their actions makes them better individuals,” he said.

“Most of the individuals who pursue an education are sincere about getting their lives started over,” said Hawkins. “I’ve watched individuals go from earning a GED to an associate’s degree and then worked into a bachelor’s program and do well. That’s not easy. You have to be motivated to do that.”

Education and employment

 A lot of people talk about evidence-based practices and IDOC has a long history of one standard, says Nally. “We measure, measure, measure. No matter how we tweak it, no matter how we redesign it, we’ll discard it if we don’t see benefit to the larger community. Not every idea is a home run.”

Indiana’s GED programs are modeled nationally and the Hoosier state is the national leader in college degree outcomes, Nally confirmed. But a very difficult concept for the public is the idea of providing a college education to people in prison, said Nally. “There’s a consensus that the best thing an Indiana citizen can do is get more education. That’s true for our population in lockup too,” he said. “They’re nothing more than a cross-section of us. They’re not that different.”

Nally contends that state government has two missions. “One is to educate its citizens and the second is to provide public safety. The only nexus point is correctional education inside the IDOC.” 

Employment and education function as the top two predictors of recidivism. As the level of education increases, the likelihood of employment increases and as employment increases the likelihood of recidivating decreases, said Nally.  

Between 2006 and 2009, the five major job sectors where released offenders were likely to be employed included temporary help services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trades, construction and lodging and food services, according to “Employment of Ex-Offenders During the Recession,” published in the June 2011 Journal of Correctional Education and authored by Nally and two colleagues.

Results of this study, based on IDOC and Indiana Department of Workforce Development data, may have an impact on correctional education in terms of modifying program offerings during an era of high unemployment and fierce competition for available work, the report states.

“Teaching individuals to think independently and to accept responsibility for their actions makes them better individuals.” – Charles Hawkins, interim director of CEP

Implication 1: Construction-related jobs — ranging from carpenters, electricians, and plumbers to equipment operators, sheet metal workers and concrete finishers — demand a special skill or certification, the report states.

Although employment in construction and manufacturing declined during the recession years, these areas continued to employ a notable number of released offenders in a variety of specialized fields, according to the report.

Implication 2: Temporary help agencies “provided more jobs to post-release offenders than any other job sector in the pre-recession years and the recession years as well. There is no indication that the trend will diminish,” according to the report. Temporary jobs often act as a bridge to permanent employment. With a shift in recent years from low-skilled and lower-paying jobs to more highly skilled jobs, the fastest growing occupational groups have been legal, business and financial operations; computer and mathematical; education, training and library; and community and social services occupations, according to the report.

“This suggests that post-release offenders must possess a satisfactory level of competency in computer skills, reading, math, communication, and specialized jobs skills to secure positions in a shifting job-market,” the report states.

Average time served among the Indiana incarcerated offenders was approximately 18 months, according to the report, making it difficult for some offenders to complete a degree program or a time-demanding career technical program.

For taxpayers to receive the best bang for their collective buck in correctional education, the target prison population must be under age 35 and no more than seven years from release from prison, said Nally.

“Sixty percent of all offenders sent to IDOC on an annual basis go home after less than a year,” said Nally, calling this statistic staggering in its implications. “When we talk about college programs, the public at large thinks there’s this huge captive audience, but that’s not the case.” 

Indiana is unique because 55 percent of our jobs in the state are middle skill jobs, according to Nally. “That’s a market signal for an associate’s degree, not a bachelor’s degree.”

For example, opportunity exists for potentially 3,000 people with skills to work in coalmines, said Nally. There’s also a huge demand for workers with commercial driver’s licenses. “When I do town hall meetings all over the state, the community doesn’t push back on an offender learning to weld or driving a truck. It’s lots better for an ex-offender to be a taxpayer not a tax taker.”

Nally speculated that what might happen in the future — with state agencies submitting requests this year for the funding for the next biennium — is some type of post-secondary college experience available on a limited basis to a more carefully screened population.

A job

Adam Gaunt receives award from the Scott College of Business.

Gaunt is among those who reply, “Yes,” when asked: Have you been convicted of a felony? About one in four American adults have a criminal record, according to the National Employment Law Project’s March 2011 “65 Million ‘Need Not Apply’” report.

Submission of 19 applications for part-time employment in fall 2011 resulted in zero job interviews, he said. In Mesa, Ariz., he worked five years for AT&T at a residential customer service call center where he worked his way up to management.  

But that professional experience pre-dates his felony conviction for battery in Indiana and “habitual offender” history for drinking and drug problems in Arizona. While in prison, Gaunt completed a substance abuse program and other programs, but he places the greatest value on what he’s learned about interpersonal communication and critical thinking through his college studies. 

“I got to see that a lot of my beliefs were wrong,” says Gaunt. “Thinking that you know everything and then finding out that you don’t” is transformational, he said.

He’s the 2011-2012 recipient of the Mariposa Award, the CEP scholarship for outstanding students. He’s now attending college on a Pell Grant, a Frank O’Bannon Grant and student loans.

Gaunt has many advocates, including Hawkins and Engelland, who are trying to help him find employment. Engelland describes Gaunt as “diligent, hard-working and appreciative of opportunities created for him.”

Gaunt says he’s fortunate to have a supportive family. He’s engaged and future plans after graduation include marriage to a woman with whom he has been honest “from day one” about his criminal past. He wants also to pursue a graduate degree, perhaps an MBA. And he wants to prove himself worthy to reunite with his 9-year-old daughter now living in Arizona with Gaunt’s ex-wife.

Gaunt has no vision of a dream job for either his present or his future.

“To me a dream job is a job,” he says.

Patricia Krapesh is a freelance writer living in Terre Haute.