Pell Grants in Maryland Prisons May Help Fulfill the Promise of the Juvenile Restoration Act

Since the early 1970s, need-based federal funds, called Pell Grants have helped low-income students pay for undergraduate education.[1] Studies have confirmed that postsecondary education is “a transformative experience” for students, improving lives and creating safer communities.[2] A majority of Maryland’s incarcerated population are financially eligible for a Pell Grant, but since 1994, inmates have been federally banned from receiving grants.[3] Fortunately, starting in July 2023, Pell Grants will once again be available to students in prison.[4] For those Marylanders incarcerated as children and sentenced to long prison terms, Pell Grants could lead to relief under the Juvenile Restoration Act (“JuvRA”) by providing not only an education but also a chance to demonstrate an ability to reenter society, a key requirement of JuvRA.[5]

JuvRA gives those who were sentenced to long prison terms as children the opportunity to petition for a sentence reduction, as long as they have served at least twenty years. During JuvRA hearings, courts consider a litany of pre-incarceration factors like (1) the petitioner’s age at the time of the offense, (2) “the nature of the offense,” (3) any mental or physical illness, (4) the petitioner’s “family and community circumstances,” (5) the involvement of an adult during the offense, and (6) the underdeveloped nature of children’s brains.[6] Because JuvRA acknowledges the ongoing and incomplete brain development of child offenders, these pre-incarceration factors were intended by Maryland legislators to allow the court to view the circumstances leading up to the crime as adversity that could be overcome through maturity.[7] Thus, pre-incarceration factors are examined during the JuvRA process to allow the court to gauge how much a petitioner has matured since the offense.

Courts then look to JuvRA factors that focus on the petitioner’s actions after incarceration, like whether they complied with the rules of the prison.[8] Some post-incarceration factors simply are not in the petitioner’s control yet provide the best opportunity to demonstrate redemption when compared with pre-incarceration factors. An example is when courts look to whether a petitioner completed educational or vocational programs, which allow the petitioner to demonstrate rehabilitation and an ability to rejoin society.[9]

JuvRA candidates, by definition, entered prison as children and were without access to the educational and vocational training outside its walls as they matured. They must necessarily rely on the State of Maryland to make such opportunities available within those walls. Denial of these same opportunities within the prison, whether for arbitrary, punitive, or budgetary reasons, creates additional barriers to JuvRA relief worthy of a Joseph Heller novel.[10]

Unfortunately, vocational training through Maryland’s Department of Labor is only available to those inmates who are “within 24 months of release.”[11] Priority for placement in other forms of occupational training is based on release date,[12] which means that for those JuvRA petitioners who were sentenced to life, most if not all of this training will never be within reach.

Likewise, many educational programs are limited in scope. The Correctional Education Program (“CEP”) only serves about ten percent of the total number of inmates in the Maryland prison system.[13] Even though a majority of Maryland’s incarcerated population are Pell-Grant eligible financially,[14] the Second Chance Pell Grant pilot program, which studies the efficacy of funding education for inmates, is currently only available in a few institutions within the Maryland prison system.[15] For those Marylanders confined in non-pilot institutions, Pell Grants and the educational opportunities they provide remain unattainable.

Fortunately, Pell Grants will be available to all of Maryland’s incarcerated population beginning in 2023.[16] Students in Maryland prisons will soon have access to funds that allow them to pursue an education previously out of reach. For those who were incarcerated as children, Pell Grants could fulfill the promise of JuvRA by clearing a path to the “maturity, rehabilitation, and fitness to reenter society” that JuvRA demands. [17]

Laura Grant is a third-year law student at the University of Baltimore School of Law and an Associate Editor for Law Forum. While at UB, Laura served as a Rule 19 student attorney with the school’s Low-Income Taxpayer Clinic, and as a judicial intern with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. She is the Academics Coordinator for UB’s chapter of If/When/How and President of UBalt Parity. As a Summer Associate at Venable, LLP, Laura was honored to work on a pro bono JuvRA case and hopes upon graduation in May 2023 to continue that work.

[1] Emma Kerr, Everything You Need to Know About the Pell Grant, U.S. News (Feb. 3, 2021), https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/everything-you-need-to-know-about-the-pell-grant.

[2] Second Chance Pell Grant Program, Bowie State Univ., https://bowiestate.edu/academics/colleges/college-of-professional-studies/departments/behavioral-sciences-and-human-services/second-chance-pell-grant.php, (last visited October 6, 2022)[hereinafter Bowie].

[3] Id.

[4] Fact Sheet: Biden-Harris Administration Expands Second Chance Opportunities for Formerly Incarcerated Persons, White House: Briefing Room, (Apr. 26, 2022), https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/04/26/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-expands-second-chance-opportunities-for-formerly-incarcerated-persons.

[5] Md. Code Ann., Crim. Proc. § 8-110 (LexisNexis 2022). (initially introduced as Juvenile Restoration Act, enacted 2021 through veto override).

[6] Id. § 8-110(d)(1)-(2), (d)(7)-(10).

[7] Danielle E. Gaines & Hanna Gaskill, General Assembly Overrode Hogan’s Vetoes of Police Reform Bills. We Break Down the Votes, Md. Matters (Apr. 10, 2021), https://www.marylandmatters.org/2021/04/10/the-general-assembly-overrode-hogans-vetoes-of-police-reform-bills-we-break-down-the-votes/ (quoting Sen. Christopher R. West, a sponsor of the bill).

[8] Crim. Proc. § 8-110(d)(3).

[9] Id. § 8-110(d)(4)-(5).

[10] Catch-22, Merriam-Webster.com, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/catch-22 (last visited Sept. 19, 2022) (“ a problematic situation for which the only solution is denied by a circumstance inherent in the problem or by a rule.” This definition is derived from the eponymous 1961 novel by Heller in which soldiers, weary of war and wishing to go home, encountered the bureaucratic impossibility of release from the military.).

[11] Correctional Education Programs, Md. Dep’t Lab. 2, https://www.dllr.state.md.us/ce/ceprogramsbrochure.pdf (last visited Sept. 10, 2022).

[12] Division of Correction Case Management Manual, Dep’t Pub. Safety & Corr. Servs. 51, https://itcd.dpscs.state.md.us/PIA/ShowFile.aspx?fileID=578, (last visited Sept. 10, 2022).

[13] See Tiffany Robinson & Robert Green, Correctional Education Council: 2021 Activity Report 16, (2021) [hereinafter CEC Report], https://www.dllr.state.md.us/ce/cereport2021.pdf.

[14] Bowie, supra note 2.

[15] CEC Report, supra note 13, at 14.

[16] Pell Grants in Prison: A New Effort to Fund Degrees for People Behind Bars, NPR: Consider This, (June 28, 2022, 5:00 PM) https://www.npr.org/2022/06/27/1107782496/pell-grants-in-prison-a-new-effort-to-fund-degrees-for-people-behind-bars.

[17] Crim. Proc. § 8-110(d)(5).