Graduation behind bars: University of Baltimore students are first to earn degrees at Jessup Correctional Institution

Five men in graduation caps and gowns filed into front-row seats to cheers and applause. As University of Baltimore faculty sang the men’s praises, large loops of barbed wire were just visible through windows bookending the podium. It was graduation day. Time to celebrate earning bachelor’s degrees in what their valedictorian called the “worst environment possible”: prison. The students marched across the maximum security prison’s library, where they’d taken more than half of their college credits.