Recently the Obama Administration took a step to try to deal with one of the nation\u2019s most intractable problems: how to reduce the recidivism rate of those released from prisons.\u00a0 There are approximately 1.5 million people in state or federal prisons.\u00a0 Those prisoners are serving time because they have been convicted of a serious crime.\u00a0 But the question is \u2013 what happens when their time is up and they are released back into our communities?<\/p>\n
The statistics are grim:\u00a0 Despite prisons being called \u201ccorrectional facilities,\u201d they do a dismal job in turning lives around. \u00a0According to the U.S. Department of Justice, nationwide about two-thirds of released state prisoners were re-arrested within three years and three-quarters within five. \u00a0Prison is a revolving door.<\/p>\n
And it\u2019s a revolving door that impacts certain communities worse than others.\u00a0 According to the Cuomo Administration, nearly half of New York inmate population is African American, nearly one quarter is Hispanic, and nearly one quarter is white.<\/p>\n
The revolving door too often sends recently-discharged inmates into communities in which they will commit a future crime.\u00a0 As a result, neighborhoods are less safe and people\u2019s lives are too often ruined.\u00a0 The currently high recidivism rate helps no one, so what should be done?<\/p>\n
The Obama Administration recently unveiled a pilot program that will allow Pell Grants (the federal college subsidy program for the poor) to be issued to a small number of colleges to offer college courses to eligible inmates.\u00a0 While prisoners can sometimes get access to educational courses now, they are ineligible for the federal Pell Grant program as well as the New York State Tuition Assistance Program (TAP).\u00a0 Since the vast majority of inmates are low income, they usually cannot afford college courses while in prison.<\/p>\n
Why offer college classes to prisoners?\u00a0 The connection between higher education and reduced recidivism has been well established. \u00a0In one study, individuals who earned an Associate\u2019s degree were 62 percent less likely to return to prison than those who did not.<\/p>\n
A study conducted by the University of California at Los Angeles found that \u201c[a] $1 million investment in incarceration will prevent about 350 crimes, while that same investment in education will prevent more than 600 crimes. Correctional education is almost twice as cost effective as incarceration.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Cuomo Administration has cited benefits to educating prisoners as well.\u00a0 The Administration has found that formerly-incarcerated people who did not take classes while in prison were almost four times more likely to be re-arrested than those who did.<\/p>\n
Thus, the Obama Administration\u2019s plan.\u00a0 The reason that it is a pilot program is that under a twenty year old law, the Congress prohibited Pell Grants for prisoners.\u00a0 The President\u2019s pilot program is allowed, according to the Administration, because of a provision in the Higher Education Act that allows the Education Department to study the effectiveness of a student-aid program without approval from Congress.<\/p>\n
Similar efforts have been tried (unsuccessfully) in New York State.\u00a0 Earlier this year, the Cuomo Administration urged passage of an initiative to give incarcerated individuals the opportunity to earn a college degree through funding college classes in prisons across New York.\u00a0 That plan failed<\/p>\n
Not surprisingly, there has been opposition to these types of reforms.\u00a0 Some in Congress argue that the Administration is operating outside of the law.\u00a0 Others \u2013 both at the national and statewide levels \u2013 argue that it is not right for prisoners to get financial aid, when the cost of going to college is skyrocketing which has led to a trillion dollar college debt.<\/p>\n
And they do have a point.\u00a0 In New York State, while the governor offered his own plan to help incarcerated individuals take college classes, his Administration has been advancing plans to annually hike tuition \u2013 thus driving up the cost of going to college for all.<\/p>\n
But the debate is not really about how to keep college affordable, it\u2019s about how our society treats those behind bars.\u00a0 It is obvious that the current approach has not worked.\u00a0 Punishment alone will not reduce the nation\u2019s recidivism rate.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently the Obama Administration took a step to try to deal with one of the nation\u2019s most intractable problems: how to reduce the recidivism rate of those released from prisons.\u00a0 There are approximately 1.5 million people in state or federal prisons.\u00a0 Those prisoners are serving time because they have been convicted of a serious crime.\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1538"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1539,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1538\/revisions\/1539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nypirg.org\/capitolperspective\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}