Defunding prison education collapsed almost all prisoner literary journals

Evidence

Abu-Jamal and many other prison writers have strongly criticized the prohibition of Pell Grants for prisoners, which was enacted in the 1994 crime bill, as indicative of the contemporary pattern of dismantling educational programs behind bars. As creative writing courses for prisoners were defunded, virtually every literary journal publishing prisoners’ writing eventually collapsed. Of the scores of magazines and newspapers produced behind walls, only the Angolite at Louisiana’s Angola Prison and Prison Legal News at Washington State Prison remain. What this means is that precisely at a time of consolidating a significant writing culture behind bars, repressive strategies are being deployed to dissuade prisoners from educating themselves. — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 145

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the pattern of prison expansion Davis traced in earlier chapters—education dismantling as part of the turn away from rehabilitation. — connects to: The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 153; The 1994 crime bill’s Pell Grant ban dismantled prison higher education.

Related

• The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons (similarity 0.86)
• American prison higher education expanded then collapsed with federal Pell Grant policy shifts. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• The 1994 crime bill’s Pell Grant ban dismantled prison higher education. #corroborates (0.80)
• The 1994 crime bill deliberately destroyed higher education in prisons #expands (0.70) — Davis, Angela Y, Are Prisons Obsolete, 153