AUGUSTA, Maine — On Wednesday, Feb. 22, a group of people gathered at the University of Maine at Augusta's Katz Library to celebrate an initiative that has been a long time in the making: changing the narrative around prison.
In 2006, the University of Maine at Augusta began its Prison Education Partnership with the Maine Department of Corrections, thanks to financial help from Doris Buffett and her Sunshine Lady Foundation.
Since then, academic programming has expanded to all adult correctional facilities in Maine, with a goal of making prison less about punishment and more about an opportunity to learn and take advantage of a potential second chance.
"When someone has education, they can obtain a livable wage. They can transition back into the community well, and it helps many generations. It helps their parents. It helps their children," Maine DOC Commissioner Randall Liberty said.
Liberty said his team is aware that many people coming to Maine DOC facilities may need to get back on track. He said that's why staff members at correctional facilities encourage prison residents to get engaged and learn through courses and programming offered.
"We know that many individuals arrive in our care with mental health and substance use disorder issues, backgrounds of trauma," Liberty said.
Right now, the PEP enrolls 196 male and female students who are pursuing associate's and bachelor's degrees. Since the program began in 2006, more than 100 prison residents have graduated with degrees. One of them is Brandon Brown, who served more than a decade at the Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren.
"I needed something. I needed something to give me hope," Brown said during the event on Wednesday.
Brown said having the opportunity to pursue an education while in prison gave him more purpose.
"I got to focus on something other than the punishment and the hopelessness and the isolation," Brown said.
On Wednesday, the Maine DOC gifted a wooden table hand-carved by two prison residents who have also obtained degrees through this program to UMA.
It features legs carved to look like textbooks with the name of professors who made an impact on them and the classes they taught. It also has an inscription on the tabletop that reads, "In saving my life, she conferred a value upon it. I am afraid it is a currency that I do not know how to spend."
"The most valuable lessons I took away were about my life; not necessarily about the books I was reading but about what led me to prison, my mistakes," Brown said about his education in the prison system.
Commissioner Liberty said education in Maine's prison system has proven to be quite impactful, leading to just a five percent recidivism rate among those participating. Nationwide, the recidivism rate is 65 percent.
Commissioner Liberty said this program comes at no cost to taxpayers. Since Buffett's gift, people who are incarcerated can apply for Pell grants through the U.S. Department of Education.