GIG HARBOR, Wash. _ College graduations are emotional occasions, but it would be hard to match the level of enthusiasm and joy that pervaded the gymnasium at the Washington Corrections Center for Women this month when 19 inmates received diplomas.
Relatives, friends and other student inmates filled the room, bursting into applause over and over. Laughing, crying and shouting "You go, girl!" again and again.
The women in caps and gowns were all long-term inmates, serving sentences for such crimes as robbery and attempted murder. Twelve will be released in the next five years.
Critics of college in prison have long argued that felons should not get free postsecondary education while serving time. Under Washington state law, public money can be used to help offenders earn only high school diplomas. This year, legislation passed that expanded the offerings to include business or vocational associate degrees.
But these women are working on liberal-arts degrees, paid for by a private group that believes a college education makes it less likely inmates will return to crime, and more likely they'll get jobs.
The program is run by Freedom Education Project Puget Sound, a nonprofit that also helps the inmates continue their education after they are released.
Last year, the 5-year-old program _ which is offered only at this prison _ had four graduates. This year, it was 19. Next year, as many as 30 of the program's 80 enrolled students are on track to complete a degree.
"This is the largest women's prison graduation I have ever seen, and I am so proud," said Cheryl Wilkins, senior program manager at Columbia University's Center for Justice in New York, who flew across the country to give the keynote speech.
Wilkins served time at a New York prison for armed robbery and assault, went on to earn a degree in prison, and is now considered a national expert on criminal-justice reform.
She praised the project's professors "who believe in second chances, who believe in higher education, even to a group that society has deemed as unfit, throwaways, unworthy."
A 2013 meta-analysis conducted by the Rand Corp. found that education programs in prison improve the chances that after inmates are released, they will not return to crime, and that it may improve their chances of getting jobs. But the study wasn't able to determine what type of education had the greatest impact _ whether it was high school diplomas, vocational classes or bachelor's degrees.
During the graduation ceremony, prison Executive Director Tanya Erzen spoke about how education was "one of the most powerful ways to disrupt and to change" the women's lives.
"Having this piece of paper means you are no longer somebody who is considered as 'other,' or who deserves less than anyone else," she told the graduates. "It says you have the knowledge, you have the power, you are capable, you are smart."
The graduates earned associate degrees in arts and sciences, a two-year degree accredited by Tacoma Community College that can help speed their way to bachelor's. degrees An associate degree isn't a ticket to a job, but Erzen said the degree matters because it signals to employers and to other colleges that the graduates were able to do demanding academic work, stick to a schedule.
Freedom Education pays professors from area colleges and universities modest stipends to teach at the prison. The classes started in 2011, and the program became a nonprofit in 2012. In 2013, Tacoma Community College agreed to give credit for classes and provide transcripts.
Tonya Wilson, who is in prison for attempted first-degree murder after she served as an accomplice and driver during a gang shooting in Tacoma, helped lead the call for the courses to count as college credit. Last week, she stood before the class as its valedictorian, and talked to her fellow students about how the degrees they had just earned had the power to transform their lives.
Before the Freedom Education Project arrived, she said, women in the prison earned marks of distinction among the prison population for bad behavior. "And now they have marks for being in classes that challenge you," she said.
Wilson is to be released next year and wants to become a teacher, but she knows that's a long shot.
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(Researcher Miyoko Wolf contributed to this report.)
