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Chicago-based Jail Education Solutions launched a pilot program in an almost untouched market: the Philadelphia prison system.
Prisons may seem like an odd market for a Chicago tech startup focused on education, but founder Brian Hill sees a lot of potential, for both doing good and making money. Over the next few months, the soft-launch pilot program will bring several hundred tablets full of educational programs to the Philadelphia correctional system. The goal is to help reduce the recidivism rates by giving inmates the tools and education they need to survive on the outside. It’s a serious problem – about half the people in American jails will return.
In Philadelphia, inmates will have the ability to rent the tablet for a few dollars a day. Hill doesn’t expect everyone to be enticed by the idea of learning. The program is incentive-based; meet a benchmark, and users a rewarded with music, movies and games that are otherwise inaccessible (both on the tablet and more generally in jail).
At first glance, Hill, a law student at Northwestern University, may seem like an unlikely candidate for prison education and reform. But the Chicago-transplant grew up with prisons in the background – his dad worked at the infamous Folsom prison when he was a kid. “From a very early age, I remember feeling we had some challenges to the correctional system…. The opportunity for people to make changes while incarcerated was very limited,” said Hill.
After forming his team, they “started working on one of the biggest gaps [in prison] which is technology,” said Hill.
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Starting in Jail, Moving to Prison
Hill initially started the company to work on the problems in jail. Quick primer: jails are where people go when they’ve been arrested or if they have a short sentence (1-2 years). Prisons are where the longer-term incarcerated population goes. According to Hill, there’s not a lot going on in jails. Days are filled with bad television programs and little else. Hill saw a captive audience. Why not give people, who are otherwise just waiting for time to pass, a chance to get their GED or learn new skills?
The idea took off, but Hill realized that the prison system was in dire needs of structured educational programs, and it wasn’t getting the funding from the state. Educational money for prisons is a hard sell when local schools are cutting their budgets. That’s why his company sells directly to inmates, at prices similar to what the incarcerated population is spending on snacks or other goods in the prison commissary. It eliminates the need for the taxpayer to foot the bill, but still provides the company with a viable revenue stream.
Now the company is working with any and all correctional facilities, including juvenile detention centers, jails, prisons and post-release programs.
In both jails and prisons, Hill sees “a huge demand that’s unmet right now. Even if they have a program, you are talking 2 hours [of education] maybe twice a week. There’s a lot of time there that’s untapped and we can meet that.”
Still, there was plenty of pushback. Most of those surround the safety and security of the devices. Hill says the tablets are designed to withstand a prison environment.
While the pilot program is launching in Philadelphia, Hill credits Cook County with a lot of his success so far. Hill initially became interested (again) in the idea while helping out on a social impact bond project there. “We are breaking ground. It’s a tribute to Philadelphia, Cook and others who have allowed us to test out,” said Hill.
He adds that his program thinks not just about the inmates, but about the needs of the officers who work in the prison. That is likely the influence of his dad. “People also forget that the correctional officers that work there day in and day out … they also spend their lives in prison,” said Hill.
Beyond Prison
While the company was set up to help the incarcerated population – specifically with the goal of lowering recidivism by giving inmates an educational opportunity – Hill sees corollaries for other groups of learners. Proving success in a difficult market like prisons will verify their model, according to Hill. He points to the dismal statistics of high school dropouts and hints that his program could make a difference there too.
While the American prison population is sadly growing, the 13-person team at Jail Education Solutions is growing too. Over the next few months Hill plans to hire for help on software, user experience, managing their platform and account managers.
