A group of 23 incarcerated individuals at San Diego’s Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility recently graduated with a bachelor’s degree as part of UC Irvine’s LIFTED program.This fall will be my third time teaching introductory computer science inside Richard J. Donovan Correctional Center to a new cohort of UC Irvine students. I began my doctorate degree in the Computing Education lab at UC San Diego in fall 2021 knowing that I wanted to study how to improve computing education in prisons.
I receive a fair amount of skepticism from computing academics when I introduce my research , especially after revealing the severity of the technology restrictions. So far, I have found the answer to be largely positive. However, I believe it is yet to be understood the degree of grit, resourcefulness and brilliance it takes for my students to succeed despite incredible barriers.
One of the most significant challenges for computing specifically is that students are not able to run code on their prison-issued laptops. Much of my work thus far has been developing and documenting strategies — some of them entirely created by the students — to simulate and supplement the critical learning for novice programmers that happens in the trial-and-error process of running code, identifying errors and fixing them.
However, as power and resources in our society are increasingly concentrated with those in control of our technology, structural changes will need to take place in order to truly expand the pool of those trained with computing expertise to include those impacted by incarceration — and the marginalized populations they overrepresent. While higher education in prison programs have grown in recent years, there are currently no computer science degrees offered.
Creating access to computing degrees in higher education in prison programs such as LIFTED, and pipelines to careers in technology, is a necessary step towards equity in technology, higher education and the criminal justice system. Despite ongoing narratives about science-related fields being objective and neutral, the benefits and harms of current technology in our society are undeniably biased.
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