On a sunny November morning in Washington, D.C., the usually somber halls of the Correctional Treatment Facility are humming with something rare: celebration. It’s graduation day for a unique cohort of students—not on a traditional campus, but inside the DC jail. These students have just completed an intensive 12-week college-accredited coding program jointly run by MIT and Georgetown University.

Laptops, certificates, and handshakes replaced caps and gowns. For these incarcerated students, today marks not just the end of a course, but the reclaiming of possibility.

They are part of Brave Behind Bars, a coding boot camp launched in 2021 that has already served over 200 incarcerated students across the country. Through secure laptops and a tightly supervised curriculum, participants learn how to build websites from scratch—gaining both technical knowledge and the self-confidence that comes from mastering a challenging skill.

Classrooms, not Cells

The classroom setup isn’t typical. Only whitelisted websites are allowed. Laptops are used under strict supervision, and students receive a fraction of the digital access their counterparts on the outside enjoy. But for those enrolled, the limitations are just part of the process—and a small price for what they're gaining.

“You learn patience and precision in coding,” says Marisa Gaetz, Brave Behind Bars co-founder and an MIT PhD student who co-launched the program during the pandemic. “You also learn how to believe in yourself.”

Gaetz traveled from Massachusetts to attend the DC graduation, wanting to personally honor the effort each student put into the course. As she congratulates each graduate, she reminds them that they are more than the worst moments of their lives. She’s not the only one who believes this.

In a nearby classroom, another group of inmates is learning to repair telecommunications equipment. Their instructor, Timothy Saunders, beams with pride: “These are six-figure skills if someone gives them a chance.”

But that's the challenge. Prison education programs have shown measurable success in reducing recidivism, but employment opportunities for the formerly incarcerated remain scarce. The stigma of a record can eclipse even the brightest potential. The 1994 crime bill stripped most educational funding from prison programs, and while funds were restored in 2020, access remains uneven, particularly for those who never finished high school.

At the DC jail, the education team—led by former school counselor Jason McCrady—is working to change that. With the help of secure tablets and digital access expanded during the pandemic, they are offering more opportunities than ever before. But ambition outpaces infrastructure, and the question remains: Will society embrace these second chances?

Coding a New Path

Inside the classroom, the projects are personal. One student created a site exploring the impacts of poverty. Another honored music’s power to heal. A woman named Iesha Marks, known as Tazz, built a website offering resources for domestic violence survivors—a mission rooted in her own experiences.

Tazz is awaiting trial on serious charges, but her participation in the program is cited by her attorneys as evidence of her personal growth. Whether it will impact her legal future remains to be seen. But in that classroom, scrolling through the site she created, she allowed herself to imagine a future where she could help others.

This isn't just anecdotal. In Maine, a group of formerly incarcerated women who graduated from Brave Behind Bars launched Reentry Sisters, a digital platform supporting women reentering society. Their success story is rare—but not impossible.

The Long Road Home

Steve Johnson knows how tough the road can be. After his release in 2021, he struggled to find work due to his record. A cold call to a college professor he once heard of led him to Brave Behind Bars. He’s since become a teaching assistant for the program, taken on contract coding jobs, and now sits on an advisory board for prison education reform.

Even so, Johnson admits that most of his work has come from organizations already invested in second chances. “I want to be hired because I’m good,” he says. “Not just because I have a past.”

He’s now enrolled in a 17-week incubator with Defy Ventures, aiming to launch his own business—one that will hire based on talent, not history. “If I can’t convince the boss,” he says, “maybe I’ll become the boss.”

The Double Sentence

Johnson calls it the "double sentence"—the punishment that continues even after time is served. Formerly incarcerated people are often locked out of housing, employment, and opportunity. Education, especially in fields like tech, can open doors—but only if society is willing to unlock them.

“If you want safer communities, hire someone who's done the work to turn their life around,” Johnson says. “The data backs it up. People with access to education and employment are far less likely to return to prison.”

The students of Brave Behind Bars aren’t asking for shortcuts. They’re writing code, solving problems, building websites, and—perhaps most importantly—trying to rebuild their lives. But their success hinges on a question none of them can code around: will we let them?


By wafricnews Desk