The current United States’ prison system has led to mass incarceration and a very high recidivism rate. Mass incarceration refers to the U.S having the highest incarceration rate in the world, and has led to a prison population growth of five hundred percent over thirty years. Including those in local jails, there are more than 1.9 million Americans incarcerated today. The United States also has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. In a ten-year study done to measure re-arrest recidivism for persons released from state prisons, over eighty percent of people who had been incarcerated were arrested again before the end of the study. There is a saying often heard when talking about prisons that refers to prisons as schools for crime. With all of this in mind, the question of how to end mass incarceration and the high recidivism rate in the U.S must be answered, or at least we must be blaringly loud in asking this question of our elected officials. I believe that providing education and vocational training programs within prisons is an important and necessary (but not sufficient) good first step.
Not only do I believe that educational programs in prisons would be beneficial from my own morals and worldview, but the statistics support this idea as well. Researchers have found that inmates who participate in educational programs while in prison have forty-three percent lower odds of being reincarcerated than those who did not participate in the education programs (Davis, et. al. 2013). The RAND study also found that education and vocational programs helped with employment for inmates after their release. Employment after release for those who participated in said programs was thirteen percent higher than those who did not. Inmates who participated in vocational training programs were twenty eight percent more likely to gain employment after release than those who did not have the vocational training (Davis, et. al. 2013).
Not only has the research shown that education and vocational programs within prisons help to lower recidivism rates, but they’re also cost effective. Results from the largest meta-analysis of education programs in prisons showed that with “a one-dollar investment in prison education reduces incarceration costs by four to five dollars the first three years post-release” (Davis, et. al. 2013). Findings from this same study have also shown that the cost per inmate for education programs is about one thousand and six hundred dollars. Re-incarceration costs are about nine thousand dollars per inmate, showing another reason as to why education programs in prisons are cost effective.
Education is something that everyone should have access to. Without proper education, the options for someone to make a successful living become smaller and narrower. Now add the burden of having a prison record on top of that and your options are depressingly limited. Without the opportunity for education, you have no opportunity for growth. As it has been said many times before, knowledge is power, and knowledge has the power to change someone’s life. I ask my readers to take the information given about how beneficial education and vocational programs in prisons can be and reflect on how this could improve both individual lives and society as a whole. Education and vocational training programs within prisons can help save money, reduce U.S recidivism rates and tackle mass incarceration, and open the doors to a new life for many people. The next time you are given the opportunity to vote on policies and laws relating to the criminal justice system, keep these things in mind.
Reference
Davis, L. (2013, August 22). Education and vocational training in prisons reduces recidivism, improves job outlook | Rand. https://www.rand.org/news/press/2013/08/22.html
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