A GED program on North Carolina’s death row: A dream deferred

[Editor’s note: After this commentary was published, the Department of Adult Correction provided a response to this commentary, relevant parts of which appear below.]

Nearly a year ago, Gov. Roy Cooper responded to a death row prisoner’s plea for access to a GED program. Ordinarily, people incarcerated in the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction (NCDAC) are required to attend a GED program if they do not possess a high school diploma or GED. The NCDAC Mandatory Education policy applies to all intellectually capable residents in the state prison system, except those housed on death row. Moved by the letter, Gov. Cooper directed Secretary of Prisons Todd Ishee to make a GED program available to death sentenced prisoners housed at Central Prison in Raleigh.

Establishing a GED program on death row became the responsibility of NCDAC Director of Education and Rehabilitative Services, Dr. Brooke Wheeler, and Central Prison’s warden, Jamel James. From the beginning, both prison officials expressed enthusiasm about bringing more educational programs to Central Prison. They secured the necessary books and laptops for GED instruction, and even designated a cell block to be converted into an education center, with the hope that if one program succeeded, more would follow. When a GED sign-up sheet was posted, more than thirty prisoners put their names on it, eager to prove themselves capable of change.

Months passed.

On January 29th, 2024, Gov. Cooper signed Executive Order No. 303, which aims to strengthen education, rehabilitation, and reentry services for incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people in North Carolina. In the midst of signing the order, Cooper stated that everyone deserves the chance to be redeemed.

However, just as suddenly as the prospect of a GED program on death row unfolded, it quietly disappeared beneath delays and excuses for more delays. An instructor could not be found. Wake Tech Community College no longer provided the service as it once did. A regional director of prisons refused to let the warden clear out a cell block and use it as an education center because there were too many prisoners and not enough bed space. In April, a minimum custody prisoner, who should not have been housed at Central Prison, died at the hands of a maximum custody prisoner. When asked about the delays and whether the GED program on death row would ever happen, the warden still seemed interested, but it was further down a list of management priorities.

The usual gamut of excuses for denying yet another program on death row held the undertone of “lesser than” and “undeserving” — a stigma that is sometimes bluntly stated by prison administrators: you are not here to be rehabilitated.

Despite Gov. Cooper’s order, and the claim that everyone deserves a second chance, that sentiment is not shared by everyone that works for the NCDAC. This group is apathetic toward change and uninterested in supporting rehabilitative programs. They are of the general belief that people in prison should suffer, and people on death row should die. Learning is irrelevant.

I was exposed to this anti-intellectualist belief system on my own educational journey. Since 2004 I have enrolled in privately funded college correspondence courses. The courses provided me something productive to do while the state carried out executions. Over time I earned an associate’s degree and worked toward completing my bachelors. My access to higher education was an anomaly though, one that was resisted by some staff for the same reason the GED program now seems to have been scuttled. Throughout my journey, I was at times told I did not deserve an education, that the privilege was wasted on me. Some prison administrators tried to undermine and even stop my access to these courses for no better reason than they did not want me to learn. Fortunately, I persevered and there were enough staff supportive of prison education to help mine continue.

When Marcus Mitchell wrote his letter asking Gov. Cooper if he would support a GED program on death row, it was out of frustration, not any belief he would receive a positive outcome. Mitchell tried and failed a number of times to get the Central Prison Programs Department to extend the mandatory education policy to death row. He had friends on the outside research GED and HSE correspondence course programs. When one was found, it was around the same time then director of Rehabilitative and Educational Services Sophia Feaster (Dr. Wheeler’s predecessor) restricted access to correspondence courses for people on death row: only one per prisoner, per year. It made earning a diploma or degree unlikely.

Mitchell, who has been on death row twenty-five years, cited some important facts in his letter to Gov. Cooper:

• Since 1977, approximately 71 percent of all North Carolina death sentences have been reversed on appeal due to constitutional rights violations; the overturned sentence usually resulted in life imprisonment or less.
• Since 1973, 12 people have been exonerated from North Carolina’s death row.
• Once removed from death row and placed in the regular prison population, they would be required to attend a GED program anyway.
• Whether preparing to reenter society or another prison, attaining an education is a critical step in the rehabilitative process, one that begins with a GED.

When asked what most undermines rehabilitative programs in North Carolina’s prisons, those staff I have asked — people who generally support constructive, pro-social activities — typically give the same answers. They blame poor training, low wages, low morale, a hostile work environment, and poor leadership. Maybe most importantly, NCDAC leadership, disconnected from its rank-and-file officers and the prison population, make decisions contrary to the needs of the system. The nearly year-long delay of the death row GED program is yet another example. Leadership and effective communication are what it will take to carry out Governor Cooper’s Executive Order No. 303 in every North Carolina prison.

For now, the GED program on death row is a dream deferred. Maybe soon, NCDAC leadership will awaken to its responsibilities and fulfill the Governor’s order, and their promise.

===

The Department of Adult Correction offered the following response: