Ithaka S+R is excited to announce a new, three-year research project examining accessibility issues and disability services in higher education in prison programs. Made possible by funding from ECMC Foundation, this project will explore how accessibility considerations and disability services are implemented in carceral settings. It will also identify key barriers higher education institutions and correctional agencies face in providing effective support. By moving in three discrete phases designed to describe the problem landscape, document existing practices and service gaps, and collaboratively develop interventions, this project will advance field-wide knowledge and build the informal infrastructure to sustain learning and action well beyond its three year lifespan.

Why disability and why now?

Since we began our research on technology access and use in 2022, Ithaka S+R has repeatedly heard of technical, logistical, and infrastructure barriers that prevent people with disabilities from being able to participate fully and successfully in higher education in prison programming. Our findings reinforce existing evidence showing how individuals with disabilities in prison may face additional, often hidden, structural barriers to accessing programming inside. A series of recent court cases has brought renewed attention to the role of disability accommodations in prison education settings. In 2023, two developments marked a significant shift: (1) federal Pell Grant funding was restored for eligible incarcerated learners via the FAFSA Simplification Act; and (2) the Minnesota Department of Corrections settled with the Department of Justice over Americans with Disabilities Act noncompliance. These events have elevated the importance of this issue, but research in this area is just beginning to develop.

While research on effectively including and supporting students with disabilities in higher education in prison programming is scarce, there is a substantial body of evidence on the prevalence and impacts of disabilities in carceral settings. As we noted with K.M. Begian-Lewis in a 2023 blog post synthesizing existing research, the most recent Bureau of Justice Statistics data available indicates nearly two in five incarcerated individuals have at least one disability—nearly double the rate college students reported the same year—and incarceration itself can be harmful to mental and physical health. Research has since deepened our understanding of the prevalence and impact of disabilities among specific segments of the incarcerated population, including older adults, individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities, and those with traumatic brain injuries.

Clear technical and applied research, and guidance incorporating it, are limited. In 2024, the ACLU released new guidance for seeking accommodations while on supervision, and in 2023 the Southwest ADA Center published a practical guide to seeking disability related access for incarcerated individuals.

As this body of research demonstrates, this is not a niche issue, but one that likely impacts a significant share of the growing population of students in higher education in prison programs. Our project seeks to better understand how higher education institutions and correctional agencies are addressing disability-related challenges for incarcerated students and how to identify these often hidden barriers to access, participation, and success in postsecondary education programs.

We will address gaps in knowledge about the prevalence and accommodation of disabilities in higher education in prison programs and provide space to iterate and pilot new interventions that help agencies, systems, and programs reconsider how they assess and plan for accessibility, and how they assess and document disabilities and provide access to accommodations.

What is the work and how will it unfold?

This new research project represents an ambitious attempt to bring higher education program administrators and faculty, correctional education administrators and ADA coordinators, and college and university disability service providers into dialogue. The project will proceed in three phases:

  • Policy Scan and Expert Interviews (Year 1): We will conduct a policy scan and a series of interviews to better understand how correctional agencies, higher education programs, and campus disability services offices perceive their roles and obligations in providing disability services and ensuring accessible education inside.
  • National Survey (Year 2): Based on our learnings from the first phase, we will field a national survey to college-in-prison administrators, campus disability services directors, correctional education directors, and ADA coordinators to identify gaps between policy and practice, explore state-specific lessons, and identify emerging best practices.
  • Interdisciplinary Community of Practice (Year 3): We will convene an interdisciplinary community of practice bringing together stakeholders from corrections, college programs, disability services offices, disability policy experts, and disability and crip studies scholars, and currently and/or formerly incarcerated individuals with disabilities. This will bring practitioners, policy makers, and cultural and social scholars into dialogue to design interventions that lead to increased access for students with disabilities across culture and narrative, policy, and practice.

This research project is one of a handful of efforts under way in the field to address accessibility and disability services in the context of education in prison. Our work will take place in conversation with complementary ongoing initiatives, such as those led by Ben Wright at The Community; by Ryan Wells and Michael Krezmien at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and by Daniel McGloin at the University of Maine at Augusta. We look forward to developing a better understanding of the landscape, identifying gaps and opportunities for change, and developing interventions with key stakeholders.