Have you ever wondered how many people are incarcerated in the United States? It seems like a straightforward question, but the answer is not as easy to find as you might expect. The US Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs reports that there were 1,215,821 people incarcerated in state and federal prisons as of December 31, 2020, according to the most recent data available. This number, however, doesn’t include individuals held in local jails, prisons in US territories, military prisons, facilities administered by the Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Corrections, or any other facilities where people may be incarcerated. With those populations included, the total number of incarcerated people in the United States is closer to 2,000,000. 

Of this group, approximately 64% are eligible to enroll in postsecondary education, but most do not. A major barrier for many incarcerated people is the cost of postsecondary education: many incarcerated people come from unstable economic situations and most make little, if any, money while incarcerated. Compounding these disadvantages is a  1994 law, that makes incarcerated people ineligible for Pell Grants, which previously had provided essential financial assistance to incarcerated people looking to pursue postsecondary degrees. While the Department of Education has made these available in some cases and has pledged to expand these offerings, education is still expensive, and the average cost of a new print textbook was $84 in 2020. Incorporating Open Educational Resources and Open Access materials into courses for incarcerated people is an excellent way to offset some of these costs and offer more accessible educational programs to incarcerated people.

While most states offer incarcerated people some postsecondary programs, they can vary significantly in price. Some, like the Bard Prison Initiative in New York, charge no tuition, while others such as the Print-based Correspondence program through Adams State University in Colorado charge a couple of hundred dollars per course. Adding to that cost, Adams State University’s program does not include the cost of textbooks in the course tuition. This added financial burden can easily drive the cost of taking such a course from a few hundred dollars to well over a thousand. In the rare case that the facility library or a collaborating public library would be able to purchase these materials, it would further stretch their already limited budgets. The cost could also fall on the incarcerated person directly. Choosing OER or materials that are otherwise openly licensed can go a long way toward reducing some of the costs associated with pursuing a postsecondary degree. It can also reduce pressures on facility libraries whose budgets vary widely but are generally quite small.

One barrier to using Open Educational Resources in a carceral setting is the limited access to the internet in most facilities. Lack of connectivity is an issue for many reasons, but it can pose a challenge in the case of Open Educational Resources, as many of these resources are electronic. There are, however, ways around this: the organization World Possible Justice provides several options that balance security with access to electronic resources, including secure laptops preloaded with educational materials and made of clear plastic, allowing them to easily be inspected for contraband. They also offer RACHEL (Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning) devices, small, portable media servers that can be accessed wirelessly without an internet connection from a tablet, thin-client computer, or another device.Numerous benefits accrue from providing postsecondary education to incarcerated people. Whether it is reducing recidivism, providing employment opportunities upon release, or reducing the number of rule violations in a facility, pursuing a postsecondary education has both small and large-scale benefits for all involved. As such, as many barriers to achieving an education as possible should be removed, and limiting the cost of education by incorporating Open Educational Resources into courses dramatically increases access to education. While there are challenges in getting these resources into facilities, work is already being done to make these resources available, and hopefully, it will continue.

Denis Shannon (he/him/his), MI, is the Electronic Resources Librarian for the University of Wyoming Libraries, and a co-editor of the OER & Beyond blog. Denis received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Environmental Studies from Purchase College, SUNY, and a Master of Information – Library and Information Science from Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey. His current research interests focus on library services for incarcerated people. You can reach Denis at Denis.Shannon@uwyo.edu.