Inmates and College the Rehabilitation

Inmates and College

The rehabilitation of the nation's prison population has been a hotly debated issue for many years. On one side of the debate are those who believe inmates should be given bread and water and be thankful for it, while the other side of the debate believes the only way to reduce the rate of recidivism is to rehabilitate and help the inmates become productive members of society upon their release. Somewhere in between is the question of education. For several years now politicians have argued both for and against the provision of funds for inmates to attend college classes in a distance learning environment. News shows broadcast inmates who manage to get degrees in just about every field imaginable and do so at the cost of the taxpayer. People often argue that taxpayers should not pay to provide a college education for inmates but recent studies show that in the long run it actually saves the taxpayer dollars by reducing the cost of recidivism rates.

Studies conducted on 3,000 inmates in prisons in Maryland, Minnesota and Ohio examined how likely inmates were to return to prison if they were able to obtain a college education while incarcerated (Klug, 2002).

The study concluded that "three years after their release, 22% of the inmates who had taken classes returned to prison, compared with 31% of released inmates who had not attended school while in prison. Another study, conducted by the Open Society, found that fewer than 8% of female inmates at the Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, New York's only maximum-security prison for women, who attended college classes in prison returned to prison after three years, compared with nearly 30% who had not participated in the college program (Klug, 2002)."

This is a strong argument for providing college classes to that population.

Utah's prison system began offering college courses to inmates in 1985. Today there are approximately 150 full time inmates continuing their education at any given time.

The Utah colleges use a distance learning program to teach the inmates and offer a variety of courses aimed at specific degrees that will make the inmate marketable when he or she is released (Gray, 2001).

Each semester the prison system has about six inmates obtain college degrees and their average income after leaving prison is more than $30,000 each in whatever field they enter.

The program has saved Utah taxpayers more than $1.5 million in what it would have cost to continue to house inmates and to receive them back had they returned to prison.

When inmates take courses or obtain a degree from USU, the rate of recidivism becomes less than 1%. Lowering this rate is the base of the whole program (Gray, 2001)."

Those who are against the program believe it is wrong to reward a criminal by paying for an education that many law abiding citizens are unable to afford. In their argument the prisoners should not be allowed to attend classes while in prison at the cost to the taxpayer. They believe the inmates should work in prison and repay their debt to society by doing their time without any perks.