Congress funds prison school programs to cut crime.
H.R. 10543 — PREP Act · Filed by Madeleine Dean (D-PA) · Introduced Sep 24, 2026 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill creates a new Office of Prison School in the Bureau of Prisons. It sets up a program that works with schools and employers. The program teaches reading, high school diplomas, job training, and college classes. The bill pays $170 million per year through 2033. It tracks how many people find jobs and get housing after they leave prison.
Who it affects
People in prison get access to school programs. The public benefits from lower crime and lower prison costs. Schools, groups, and job training programs get federal money to run the school.
One thing to notice
The bill stops some veterans in prison from getting certain VA money for school. States and other groups must pay 25 percent of costs. This may slow growth in areas with less money.
From the analysis of the bill text, linked under Primary records below.
Where it stands
- Sep 24, 2026 — Introduced · Congress.gov: “Introduced in House”
- Sep 24, 2026 — Referred to House Committee on Veterans' Affairs and House Committee on the Judiciary · Congress.gov: “Referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and in addition to the Committee on Veterans' Affairs, for a…”
Dates and quoted wording are Congress.gov's action record; the timeline shows status changes, not every procedural step.
Words to know
- Bureau of Prisons — The federal government agency that runs federal prisons.
- federal — Run by the U.S. government, not by a state.
- job training — Classes that teach skills for work like plumbing or nursing.
How this was measured
Analysis — Quorum's AI read the bill text published by Congress.gov (23,995 characters) on Sep 26, 2026. Section numbers in the findings refer to that text, linked below; transparency and hidden-provision scores are compared against the median of 15,166 analysed bills.
Status and sponsors — Congress.gov's bill record — actions, committee referrals and cosponsors — loaded nightly. The timeline shows status changes, not every procedural action.
As of — page rendered 2026-09-26.
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