Tyrone Walker used to sit in his jail cell with a dictionary across his lap, studying.
Outside the bars, he’d hear fellow incarcerated men joking, a TV blaring, keys jangling. He’d keep his head down and continue reading for Georgetown’s Prison Scholars Program, which offers classes taught by Georgetown professors inside the DC Jail.
On May 15, after spending four years holed up in his office studying at night, Walker graduated from the School of Continuing Studies with a bachelor’s degree in liberal studies.
He is the first program participant in the university’s Prisons and Justice Initiative (PJI) to graduate with a degree from Georgetown. PJI, founded in 2016, offers access to education and employment for current and formerly incarcerated men and women.
“Nobody embodies PJI’s mission, values and programs better than Tyrone Walker,” said PJI Director Marc Howard. “He has proven that people can overcome their worst mistakes, and that with education, professional training and compassion, incarcerated and formerly incarcerated people can achieve tremendous success. I can’t wait to see him continue his journey while helping and inspiring others along the way.”
Walker is the director of reentry services for PJI. He provides support for incarcerated individuals reentering society. For Walker, his education means more than his own accomplishment.
“This is a big moment not just for me but for the population we serve,” he said. “They see somebody who came from the same population who has done it.”
Walker doesn’t plan to stop with his bachelor’s. In a few weeks, he’ll start class in the McCourt School of Public Policy to earn his master’s in policy management.
“When I started learning and started getting it, I told myself I was never going to let it go,” he said.
A Spark for Learning in Prison
Walker was arrested in 1994 when he was 19 years old for a crime he committed at age 17.
“I fired a gun that killed another human being,” he told a Maryland judge while testifying for the Juvenile Restoration Act in 2021. “I made the worst mistake of my life.”
He was sentenced to 127 years and 8 months in prison.
“My rehabilitation was spent over 24 years, 8 months and 15 days in prison for the crime that I take complete responsibility for,” he told the judge. “During that time, I spent it deliberately focused on becoming a better person, son, sibling, father, grandfather, community member and a better man for our society.”
Before his arrest, Walker had been a good student, he said, but stopped attending school in sixth grade. The DC native remembers one day in elementary school, his grandmother helped him with his homework. He got every answer wrong.
“I always knew I could do more. I told my grandma, ‘I can do better than this.’ That fueled me as a kid,” he said.
In prison, Walker met an older mentor who encouraged him to pursue a GED. His mentor reignited a hunger for learning that had sprung up with his grandmother.
“He instilled in me a hope of a new life through increasing my capacity of knowledge, wisdom and understanding,” Walker said in his testimony.
A Walking Encyclopedia
Walker earned his GED when he was 23, followed by a business certificate from Allegheny College. He then started mentoring and tutoring other incarcerated students studying for the GED and teaching some to read.
During those years, Walker would often go to the library at 5:30 p.m., leafing through encyclopedias and dictionaries in the quiet. He wanted to escape from the prison walls, and he wanted to learn things that fellow incarcerated people asked him about.
“I was always reading something to help somebody else,” he said. “Even when I didn’t know about [something], I’d be like, ‘Let me find out what that is.’ The more people you help, the more information you get.”
Walker enrolled in Georgetown’s Prison Scholars Program at the DC Jail in 2018. His favorite class was Shakespeare.
That same year, Walker was released through the Incarceration Reduction Amendment Act of 2016, which provides opportunities for reduced sentencing if an individual was convicted of a crime committed before the age of 18.
He walked out of jail at the age of 43 after serving 24 years, 8 months and 15 days.
On the Other Side
Five days after his release, Walker joined the first cohort of Georgetown’s Pivot Program, a 9-month business and professional development for formerly incarcerated individuals returning to the community.
“Tyrone’s sense of purpose was evident from the day he entered the Pivot Program,” said Alyssa Lovegrove, the program’s executive director. “He was eager to absorb all that Georgetown had to offer, and to use the opportunity to create a new future, not only for himself, but for others.”
After completing the program, he began working full-time for the Justice Policy Institute, where he collaborated with lawmakers and advocates for the Second Look Amendment Act, an expansion of the same act that had allowed his release.
In 2021, Walker was hired at PJI and started working toward his bachelor’s degree in earnest.
He took two and three courses every semester and summer while working full-time to help other formerly incarcerated individuals have a smooth reentry process. He even took a public speaking course four times (three times while incarcerated and once as an undergraduate); he enjoyed learning how to message in different formats.
Graduation Day
On a Thursday evening, Walker left a white tent on Georgetown’s Healy Lawn with his graduation cap and gown on. He walked with his daughter, who held gold balloons, and colleagues from PJI. The moment felt surreal, he said.
In reflecting on his graduation, he thinks about his mentor, who pushed him to learn. He thinks about his nephew, for whom he wants to set an example. But mainly, he thinks about the next step in his educational journey, his master’s, which will begin in a few weeks.
“Everyone’s like ‘take a break,’’ he said. “I have taken a break, but I don’t have to mentally detach from it. That’s where I believe my strength is in mentally attaching to things I know will bring me joy in my future life.”
Walker wants to keep learning and helping others, especially now that he can combine his academics with his lived experience to make a difference, he said.
“I just keep doing it. Keep doing it until it happens,” he said.
