I started my sentence in 1993 at FCI Manchester, a medium to high-security facility in the mountains of Kentucky. It was a brand new prison, just opened. My only goal was to enroll in college courses, and I was happy to learn the education department there offered classes through the University of Eastern Kentucky. I signed up for courses in the fall of 1994. The university professors came right into the prison compound. It was almost like attending a real college. Pell Grants funded my classes and I was on my way towards an associate’s degree. After three semesters (holding down a 4.0 all the way), the prison administrators informed us that classes would be immediately discontinued. Apparently, some congressman decided prisoners shouldn’t have access to Pell Grants. Overnight, I had no funding and no school.

It seems the BOP doesn’t want me to gain an education. They don’t want me to be rehabilitated. They want me to work in Unicor (the prison’s work program) and watch Jerry Springer. They want me to be complacent. Education frees my mind, and the BOP wants me imprisoned. The higher the education, the more free I become. And the BOP doesn’t want that. They want me ignorant. The worst thing to them is a prisoner who can think.

-SETH M. FERRANTI, a prisoner sentenced to a minimum 25-year sentence for drug charges, when he was 22. In 2004, he had already spent 11 years in pursuit of a Bachelor’s degree within the prison system.