Our Opportunity
Areas for Ongoing Innovation and Investment
Vendors that have had success offering technology solutions and services for education programs in prisons, jails, and other carceral settings share several key characteristics. One is a demonstrated commitment to adapting to the unique security and privacy parameters of carceral facilities. Approaches include offering offline-only solutions and forging close partnerships with corrections officials, educators, and other stakeholders so they can understand and address everyone’s specific needs and concerns.
A commitment to scalability—ensuring that solutions can reach a wide audience—is another common trait. To ensure that they’ll be able to sustain long-term operations, many organizations with a mission-driven focus on education access have adopted low-cost business models, often with a nonprofit structure. Critically, these vendors also incorporate feedback from people who are currently or were formerly incarcerated to ensure that solutions meet real needs.
Finally, successful vendors often provide devices and solutions with features and functionality that resemble those of well-known hardware and software brands commonly used outside of carceral settings, helping people who have been incarcerated for extended periods build digital literacy.
Directly impacted individuals know what the challenges are, so we must tap into their insights to develop tech solutions that truly make a difference.
Sophia Bender Koning, Vice President, Product and Business Development, Resilience Education
Many vendors offer solutions with user interface designs that account for varying levels of digital literacy among users, but we believe there’s room for improvement in this area. Other important issues to address include the need for responsible data handling processes and measures to safeguard user data and protect against its misuse.
We have identified the following as some of the most critical areas for future investment in education technology solutions to support people who are incarcerated and prepare them to successfully return to the community when they complete their sentences:
Comprehensive, Data-Driven Impact-Tracking and AI-Powered Learning Analytics
Gap: There are few robust longitudinal studies assessing the long-term outcomes of educational technology in carceral settings. In addition, few organizations offer AI-powered data-tracking that can provide real-time insights into educational progress, behavioral changes, and post-release employment outcomes.
Investment Opportunity: Fund longitudinal studies on the impact of education technology in prisons and jails and invest in solutions with built-in impact measurement tools, with a preference for those innovating with AI-powered systems.
What's unique about this space is that there is a great opportunity to introduce modern technology, to help accelerate impact in a way that is more effective and efficient.
Jason Wang, Founder and CEO, FreeWorld
Secure and Scalable Digital Learning Infrastructure
Gap: While some solutions offer asynchronous learning, many still depend heavily on constant internet connectivity. This creates a barrier for learners in settings without reliable broadband access.
Investment Opportunity: Invest in offline-first learning management systems and tools that can sync with host systems when they’re online, making up-to-date educational resources available to people who don’t have continuous internet connectivity.
Integration of Digital Literacy Training
Gap: Few solutions offer digital literacy training that prepares people who are incarcerated for jobs in today’s increasingly tech-driven economy.
Investment Opportunity: Fund solutions that help learners who are incarcerated build both the fundamental and state-of-the-art technology skills that they will need when they reenter the workforce.
Integration of Mental Health and Support Services
Gap: Most solutions focus on education and training without accounting for the emotional well-being of learners who are incarcerated.
Investment Opportunity: Invest in the development of mental health resources that can be integrated into educational solutions to improve learning engagement, outcomes, and future success.
Long-Term Career Support and Alumni Networks
Gap: Many solutions focus on short-term learning and job placement goals but lack structured, long-term career support.
Investment Opportunity: Fund solutions that offer people who complete their sentences ongoing access to educational content and career development supports, such as mentorship services and networking opportunities.
How to Catalyze EdTech Deployments for People Who Are Incarcerated
The following recommendations are steps that six sets of stakeholders—corrections leaders, postsecondary leaders, employers, solutions providers and technologists, investors, and policymakers—can take to catalyze the adoption of education technology in prisons, jails, and other carceral settings, co-create and elevate innovations in partnership with people who are incarcerated, and improve outcomes for currently and formerly incarcerated workers and learners.
We believe these recommendations will help expand career pathways for people who are incarcerated and broaden their opportunities for post-release economic success. These measures can also lower the macroeconomic costs of incarceration and foster impact at scale to benefit the families and communities of people with records.
Corrections Leaders
Corrections Leaders
- Focus on the long-term goals of using education technology instead of short-term solutions and the latest, high-profile offerings; make plans to develop sustainable systems and identify vendors that can help meet those goals.
- Engage with technology providers that are willing to co-design secure solutions that can be tailored to meet the unique needs of corrections facilities, including systems that use secure hardware and feature offline access.
- Invest in secure hardware and network infrastructure to expand access to digital learning while maintaining security and ensuring regulatory compliance.
- Collaborate with postsecondary institutions to design educational offerings that meet labor market needs; this will ensure that learners who are incarcerated build in-demand skills that prepare them well-paid long-term employment opportunities.
- Work with postsecondary institutions and other education and training providers to collect meaningful impact data on program participation, skills acquisition, and post-release employment to inform policy decisions and funding allocations.
- Reduce barriers and streamline approval processes for implementation of educational technologies, making it easier to scale high-quality programs that lower recidivism and expand opportunities for economic success.
Postsecondary Leaders
Postsecondary Leaders
- In partnership with corrections leaders, identify the best edtech solutions for delivering online, asynchronous, tech-enhanced learning to students who are incarcerated while ensuring that these systems foster learning that helps participants build in-demand skills and prepare for career pathways that lead to economic success.
- Develop and scale hybrid learning models that combine in-person instruction with tech-based platforms, maximizing student access to instructional and academic resources.
- Collaborate with technology vendors and third-party evaluators to develop cost-effective methods for tracking student engagement, learning outcomes, and post-release employment.
- Work with state and federal agencies to ensure that new policies facilitate the use of Pell Grants and other funding options for tech-based learning in prisons and jails that meets the same quality standards as programs available to people who aren’t incarcerated.
- Work with postsecondary institutions and other education and training providers to collect meaningful impact data on program participation, skills acquisition, and post-release employment to inform policy decisions and funding allocations.
- Integrate digital skills training into education programs in corrections facilities to ensure that learners develop the capabilities that all employees are expected to bring to modern workplaces.
Employers
Employers
- Reach out to edtech providers and corrections officials to provide feedback on the quality of education and training employees received while incarcerated; this helps ensure that the curricula of prison education programs align with labor market needs.
- Communicate clearly with edtech providers, corrections officials, and other partners to ensure that they’re aware of any regulations that would prevent people with records from securing licenses they would need for employment in a particular role or career pathway.
- Be proactive about recruiting people with records; this could include efforts to promote opportunities for remote work that would be available to people who are incarcerated.
Solution Providers and Technologists
Solution Providers and Technologists
- Consider strategies for building products that meet the needs of multiple populations—including but perhaps not limited to learners who are incarcerated—to expand opportunities for business growth. Also, evaluate existing solutions and think about how they could serve people who are incarcerated with little or no adaptation.
- Provide corrections partners with research-informed, data-driven solutions that are tailored to the unique needs of people who are incarcerated and center user experience, accessibility, and ease of use.
Investors
Investors
- Adjust investment strategies and expectations to reflect the fact that doing business within the corrections bureaucracy involves a unique set of challenges, including the need to comply with strict security and privacy rules, longer go-to-market timelines, and limitations on the capacity to secure robust and timely impact data.
- Focus on investing in solutions that ethically meet the needs of people who are incarcerated while also expanding the pipeline of skilled talent that fulfills unmet needs in the labor market.
Policymakers
Policymakers
- Recognize that while policy measures designed to increase access to broadband service and technology, like the Digital Equity Act, may include support for people who are incarcerated, they rarely include allocations of the resources necessary to make that support a reality, and therefore implementation of up-to-date IT systems has been slow in carceral settings. Turn good policies into meaningful outcomes by setting specific goals and timelines for implementation of technology that supports education for people who are incarcerated, and ensure that dedicated funding is available.
- Advocate for policies that remove restrictions limiting the ability of people with records to obtain occupational licenses.
- Advance initiatives that help close the digital access gap and promote the right of people who are incarcerated to be trained in the use of emerging technologies, like AI and machine learning systems; this will better ensure that these learners are adequately prepared for the evolving demands of the modern economy and labor market.
- Enact common-sense data privacy policies that safeguard data without creating roadblocks that prevent learners who are incarcerated from accessing vital educational and training resources.