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The scholarship covers tuition and books for one federal prisoner to take one course at the regionally accredited Adams State University.

‘Commitment to Change’ College Scholarship for Federal Prisoners

On June 14, 2014, the Law Office of Jeremy Gordon, in conjunction with the national criminal justice reform organization Prisology, announced the latest installment in their Commitment to Change College Scholarship. This scholarship covers the cost of tuition and books for one federal prisoner to take one course at the regionally accredited Adams State University, a university highly regarded by most incarcerated students for its prisoner-friendly correspondence policies and recommended in both Education Behind Bars(Sunbury Press, 2012) and the Prisoners Guerrilla Handbook to Correspondence Programs in the U.S. and Canada (Prison Legal News, 2009).

prisoner-educationThis scholarship is offered four times a year to one federal prisoner who submits either an essay or a piece of artwork for judging. There is no entry fee. Due to Prisology’s significant reform efforts during the first quarter of 2014 — which consisted of testifying before Congress concerning the two-point sentencing reduction for federal drug offenders and its potential retroactivity, and other non-Congressional outreach concerning clemency petitions and various federal sentencing legislation and initiatives — this quarter’s scholarship will be awarded to not one, but two federal prisoners, the first and second place winners of the current contest.

The Commitment to Change College Scholarship contest criteria are as follows:

• Participants must be incarcerated in a federal prison;
• Participants must possess a GED or high school diploma prior to entry;
• Participants may not already possess a Bachelor’s, Master’s, or Doctorate degree;
• Participants must submit a piece of writing or artwork (e.g., a painting or drawing) that illustrates the goodness of human nature; and
• A title should be provided for each entry regardless if the entry is an essay or a piece of artwork.
• All entries must be postmarked by July 15, 2014.

This contest is open to any of the 217,000 federal prisoners incarcerated in any of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ 119 facilities, as long as they qualify for contest entry, as outlined in the above contest criteria. All contest submissions should be made to:

Jeremy Gordon
Attn: Scholarship
215 W. Franklin Street, Suite 100
Waxahachie, TX 75165

More information about the Commitment to Change College Scholarship, the Law Office of Jeremy Gordon, and Prisology’s prison reform efforts — including their recently filed case against the Federal Bureau of Prisons (Prisology v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 14-969) — can be found online at Gordon’s law office website and Prisology.org.

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About Christopher Zoukis

Christopher Zoukis, MBA, is the author of the Federal Prison Handbook., Prison Education Guide, and College for Convicts. He is currently a law student at the University of California, Davis School of Law, where he is a Criminal Law Association and Students Against Mass Incarceration board member, and a research editor for the Social Justice Law Review. Learn more about him at Federal Prison Consultants.

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