Education of Prisoners

Overview of the topic

In the contemporary United States, black men are disproportionately more likely than white men to be arrested for crime and to be incarcerated. This racial gap in incarceration has been apparent in the data since the late nineteenth century. In 1910, blacks made up only thirteen percent of the population but twenty-seven percent of those in prison. The gap between white and black incarceration rates was evident as early as 1890. In 1890, blacks were 3.2 times more likely to be incarcerated than whites. Contemporary observers attributed this difference in crime rates to a variety of factors: poverty, discrimination, lack of education, “moral degradation”, etc. Therefore, all the issues related to education of prisoners will be discussed in detail.

Discussion of Various Factors

The entire U.S. corrections community is focused on events unfolding around California's corrections system because its overcrowding problems exemplify the nationwide incarceration crisis. The past 40 years have been marked by a draconian approach to criminal justice, which has included excessive sentencing regimes, strict parole policies, and a prison construction boom, all ultimately resulting in the nation's era of mass incarceration. As discussed above, this mass incarceration has in turn contributed to and been exacerbated by high rates of recidivism and criminal acts that increase threats to public safety, expand state budgets, and aid the exponential growth of a powerful private prison lobby which profits enormously from this dismal state of affairs. In January 2010, New Jersey enacted important, prevention oriented legislation to aid offender reentry into the community, and thereby, decrease incarceration and recidivism. However, recently, this legislation, which is comprised of three bills, has been the source of controversy and a very public battle between the state's current governor, Chris Christie, and prison reform supporters like Assemblywoman Bonnie Watson Coleman, who sponsored the legislation. This conflict led to the repeal of part of the legislation, an unpopular early release program (Ayers, 123).

Dramatically high rates of recidivism are a major consequence of mass incarceration, as well as a major driver of higher incarceration rates. For example, extended incarceration of low-level drug offenders has been shown to “acculturate and socialize these offenders into criminality”. This type of criminality in turn leads to re-arrests, re-convictions, and ultimately, re-incarceration. Additionally, research has long demonstrated that prison overcrowding (a major consequence of aggressive incarceration policies) also results in increased recidivism. Education as a rehabilitation strategy has been a part of the U.S. prison system from the beginning, but the emphasis placed on it and other rehabilitation measures has fluctuated with general social attitudes. For example, in the 1960s, the U.S. Congress passed Title IV of the Higher Education Act, which granted prison inmates access to financial aid for college education in the form of Pell Grants (Cohen, 324).

In the 1970s, correctional education flourished, and research repeatedly demonstrated that inmate access to educational programs reduces rates of recidivism and costs associated with crime and incarceration. By 1982, correctional education programs were available in 90% of ...