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Our choice is not whether change will come, but whether we can guide that change in the service of our ideals and toward a social order shaped to the needs of all our people.

- Robert F. Kennedy
 
 
In addition to providing the returning incarcerated student with fresh hopes, new tools, and a positive attitude to funtion productively in society, prisoner education has real economic benefits as discussed below.

The Benefits of Correctional Education

Dollar Value of Education

  • "[S]imply attending school behind bars reduces the likelihood of re-incarceration by 23%. Translated into savings, every dollar spent on education returns more than two dollars to the citizens in reduced prison costs." Steurer et al.

  • The study examining the return on public investment in vocational and educational programs in Florida prisons concluded that those who completed certain educational programs produced a return of $3.53 per $1.00 invested. Florida Dept. of Corrections

  • "A Rand study concluded that education is the most cost-effective crime prevention program available..." Blumenson

Recidivism Rates

  • A psychiatrist who directed the Massachusetts Prison Mental Health Service reports that:
    “the most successful of all [anti-recidivism programs], and the only one that had been 100 percent effective in preventing recidivism, was the program that allowed inmates to receive a college degree while in prison. Several hundred prisoners in Massachusetts had completed at least a bachelor's degree while in prison over a 25-year period, and not one of them had been returned to prison for a new crime.” Gillian

  • Recidivism rates within three years of release of 55% for the state's [California] general prison population and 0% for those who had completed a baccalaureate degree in prison. Chase & Dickover

  • Compare the recidivism rates in Table 1 of inmates generally with inmates who received prison college degrees: Stevens & Ward

    State

    Generally

    With Degree

    Alabama

    35%

    1%

    Maryland

    46%

    0%

    New York

    45%

    26%

    Texas

    36%

    10%

  • A study of a Canadian prison college program produced a recidivism rate of 14% compared to 52% of the matched group of non-student prisoners. Another study showed that inmates at the New Mexico State Penitentiary who took college courses had an average recidivism rate of 15.5% compared to 68% of the entire inmate population. Taylor

  • A City University of New York research study found that 7.7% of women inmates at New York State's Bedford Hills Correctional Facility who took prison education courses returned to jail, compared to 29.9% of those who did not. Fine et al.

  • A study of Texas inmates found that prison college program graduates had less than a 15% re-arrest rate, compared to a general Texas re-arrest rate of 60%. Tracy & Johnson

  • A similar finding is reported in A. Marks, When Inmates Push to Restore Educational Funds for Prisoners. Marks

  • It was reported that inmates who actively participate in education programs have significantly lower likelihoods of recidivating. Harer

  • The more educational programs successfully completed for each six months confined, the lower the recidivism rate. Harer

  • Compare an overall recidivism rate of 40% for Ohio inmates with 18% for those who completed the Associate Degree program. Piehl


Sources of Information:



Stephen Steurer et al, "The Three State Recidivism Study," (2001), available at www.research.umbe.edu/~ira/Recid_Study.doc.

Florida Dept. of Corrections, "Return on Investment for Correctional Education in Florida," (1999), available at www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/taxwatch/index.html.

Eric Blumenson, Professor, Suffolk Univ.Law School & Eva S, Nilson, Associate Clinical Professor of Law, Boston Univ. Law School, "How to Construct an Underclass, or How the War on Drugs Became a War on Education," 58 (2002). 24. See supra note 92: Peter W. Greenwood et al, "Diverting Children from a Life of Crime: Measuring Costs and Benefits," 37-41 (1996) (the Rand Study).

James Gillian, "Reflections from a Life Behind Bars: Build Colleges, Not Prisons," Chronicle of Higher Education, 16 October 1998, at B7.

J. Chase & R. Dickover, "University Education at Folsom Prison: An Evaluation," 34 Journal of Correctional Education, 3, 92-96, (1983).

Dennis J. Stevens & Charles S. Ward, "College Education and Recidivism: Educating Criminals Meritorious," 48 Journal of Correctional Education, (1997).

Jon. M. Taylor, "Post Secondary Correctional Education: An Evaluation of Effectiveness and Efficiency," 43 Journal of Correctional Education, 132 (1992).

Michelle Fine et al, "The Impact of College in a Maximum Security Prison," (2001), available at www.gc.cuny.edu/studies/studies_index.htm.

C. Tracy & C. Johnson, "Review of Various Outcome Studies Relating Prison Education to Reduced Recidivism, Windham School System: Huntsville, TX," 7 (1994).

A. Marks, "When Inmates Push to Restore Educational Funds for Prisoners," Christian Science Monitor, 20 March 1997.

Miles D. Harer, "Prison Education Program Participation and Recidivism: A Test of the Normalization Hypothesis," Federal Bureau of Prisons, (1995), available at www.bop.gov/orepg/edrepabs.html.

Miles D. Harer, "Recidivism Among Federal Prison Releases in 1987: A Preliminary Report," Federal Bureau of Prisons, 4 (1994).

Anne Morrison Piehl, "Economic Issues in Crime Policy," supra note 86, at 83 (unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Princeton University, 1994). 		 

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