Prison inmates best Harvard debate team: Does prison education work?

The winners are part of the Bard Prison Initiative, a program that provides qualified inmates with an opportunity to earn tuition-free degrees from Bard College. If similar programs lower recidivism rates and boost cost efficiency, why hasn’t more money been invested in them?

After being crowned world champions last year, the Harvard debate team faced their fiercest competitors yet: three prison inmates from the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, who defeated the prestigious team last month.

After being crowned world champions last year, the Harvard debate team faced their fiercest competitors yet: three prison inmates from the Eastern New York Correctional Facility, who defeated the prestigious team last month.

As the Wall Street Journal’s Leslie Brody reported, being incarcerated while preparing for a debate has its challenges. Inmates could not access the Internet for research, and had to request from prison administration specific texts, a process that can take weeks.

And they had to defend a policy to which they were personally opposed: “Public schools in the United States should have the ability to deny enrollment to undocumented students.”