When I was in prison in the 1990s, I did a research paper on this subject for a college class (which I had paid for privately in order to complete an A.A. degree before my release). I got most of my information from the files of the Education Director at TRCC in Washington state. He had compiled a considerable amount of information from numerous studies (paid for by various agencies both for and against education in prisons) in support of an ill-fated attempt by the Correctional Education Association (C.E.A.) to promote more spending on education programs in prison. The C.E.A. proved that even the most conservated estimates of reduced recidivism would save more money on incarceration costs than would be spent on the education programs (i.e. the education programs more than paid for themselves, not to mention reducing crime at the same time).
This has often made me wonder why education programs in U.S. prisons were so dramatically reduced and often even eliminated in the late 80s and early 90s. It makes me suspect that "someone" is more interested in the money that can be made (and IS made) off of incarceration in America (or, as politicians like to call it, "the economic boost").
As for improving the lives of those who are never getting out... Well, we could start by changing the basic view that most people in the U.S. have of prisoners in general. In this country, prisoners are by law considered less human, insofar as they have less rights, not more as is commonly believed, than a "free" citizen. The Supreme Court has ruled that prisoners only have a limited set of the same rights of other Americans guaranteed by the "Bill of Rights" in our constitution. Things like, "limited due process" and "significant loss of liberty interest" are used to define and qualify these "special" rights of prisoners. And when you treat a clearly defined class of people as "less important" than everyone else by legal decry, you should not be too surprised when the people in that "class" as a general rule have little ot no respect for your "laws". So, "recidivism" is effected as well (big surprise).
I refer again to the laws of most European countries, where they learned the hard way what "human rights" are, and why it is so important that they be applied equally to all people, in the last century. In those countries the prisoners have the same full rights as any other citizen. And prisoners consequently retain many of the "privileges" that are routinely stripped from U.S. prisoners, such as computer and Web access; which let the prisoners continue to feel like they are a "part of society", instead of an "enemy". As I've said on this blog before, there is no such thing as "prisoner's rights", only "human rights". In the U.S., we have clearly forgotten (or perhaps never learned) what that means.
[J.D. Dec. 6, 2016]
