18 Proposing a Solution

Prompt: When you chose your topic for community change at the beginning of the semester, you identified at a macro level a problem that exists (topic proposal), one that you would like to see solved through some sort of action. For this assignment, you will present the problem you have identified and pose a solution to the problem while drawing on the sources you have found. All of this will result in a 4- to 5-page proposing a solution argument.

Increase Prison Educational Opportunities

By Andrea Jimenez

Introduction

Have you ever thought about how a prison can create a better environment for inmates and create a way to rehabilitate them? Because about 600,000 inmates are released from prisons every year. And about 75% are rearrested within five years. That shows that the time that inmates spend in prison doesn’t change them because the correctional system  doesn’t teach them something different so they can survive outside the walls of prison. After doing research about this topic, I came up with the idea that in order to help inmates deal with their circumstances and prepare for their eventual release the criminal justice system should do more in providing higher education through increased federal funding and promoting college education through the use of program graduates as peer mentors, which will reduce the recidivism rates and empower inmates to have future job skills and financial security. The problem of inmate’s education is that the prisons don’t provide very many opportunities to inmates. It can be solved by providing more ED opportunities where they can learn different types of jobs and by informing the inmates about the benefit that this has.

Background

According to an article written by Dr. Betsy Matthews, rehabilitation for inmates started to form in the early 1970s. It started thanks to a report that was released at that time they thought that it was the perfect time to be released. The person that created the report that changed the way that rehabilitation was before the 1970s was Robert Martinson. After a long time reviewing different prisons and their specific way of rehabilitating the inmates he got to the conclusion that the methods of rehabilitation weren’t effective. They think that the rehabilitation efforts that were put in at that time just reinforced the behavior of the criminals. And the prison just punishes them by putting harsher sentences. Due to the lack of resources provided for the education of the inmates, they are denied the opportunity to get a job when they leave prison. That creates a high chance that the ex-inmates will return to commit crimes and get arrested again. According to Blackstone Career Institute, if all the inmates were provided with different opportunities of study or an internship where they can learn a type of job, that would give another opportunity to restart their life and not fall into the life of crime. In 2023 an American Journal of Crime Justice study created and reported about employment after inmates get outside of prison. They came to the understanding that the prisoners who were involved in a program of education during their time inside prison, those prisoners were 31% more likely to find a job when they were released.

Criminal rehabilitation means to teach and have inmates learn different ways of surviving away from crime by developing job skills. Having a better environment inside a prison is important not just for the inmates but also for the people working there or even people visiting. As the page Brennan Center for Justice says it should be a top priority, along with fostering constructive interactions that recognize individuals’ inherent dignity. That will increase the chances for inmates to succeed in different ways and make them able to do something when they go out of prison. The American leaders of criminal justice have traveled to European countries so they can learn different ways to make the system of reinforcement in the United States. They have traveled to countries like Germany, Netherlands, and the beautiful places of Scandinavia. Some things that the American leaders of criminal justice learned when they visit those different places and started to implement were, reducing solitary confinement and creating less harmful punishments for the inmates. Another thing that they have already started to implement is offering different vocational opportunities aligned with the modern job market; that way inmates can learn how to do a job and be prepared for when they go out of the walls of the prison. This will prevent them from resorting to committing crimes again.

Steps to Implementation

The solution for the problem of lack of education to prisoners is to start offering more opportunities of educational services to inmates and start informing them about the education system that they will be allowed to attend  so they can consider the advantages that this will bring them once they get out of jail. However, for this to start changing, the correctional officers could schedule educational opportunities for inmates such as classes taught by colleges or noncredit workshops taught by volunteers. Also, students from college who are taking the experience of what education is and the benefits that it has, could inform and recruit other inmates to take advantage of educational opportunities. This peer-to-peer sharing could help encourage them to attain their higher education needs as well.

Justification

One of the best ways that we can know if the system of educating prisoners is working is by doing studies. Doing studies that are long to come to the conclusion is a good way to get information about something in this case, having the opinion of someone or a variety of people that have experimented with the education given to prisoners. For example, San Quentin State Prison on the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay in Marin County, California offers an educational program for inmates who are serving time in prison. According to the article “nprED” several inmates want to transfer to these prisons so that they can complete their college education. Inmates do not have to pay college fees thankfully because education is part of the system, and thanks to the help of several private donations, inmates have been able to study to create a different type of life away from what put them behind bars. The donations also helped to obtain the necessary supplies that needed to have a normal education. Jerome Boone, an inmate from San Quentin State prison was sentenced to serve 15 years in prison for drug possession and distribution. He talks a little about his experience at college inside prison. He first started doing it just to “waste some time” and ended up liking it. He said that the more he showed up the more he liked it since he felt like he was actually learning something. After a few years Jerome completed the prison university project (PUP) program and earned his associates degree.

Opposing Views

Some people think that giving education to prisoners is a perfect idea because they think that they will change for the better and also may decrease the crime rate. They do that to create another opportunity for them in society. On the other hand, there are people that think the opposite. In the document written by Kara Henson it says that there exists a large group of people who are not willing to proportionate or to help to give free college education to prisoners. These people have their unique thoughts that it is not fair for others that the inmates will have free access to a college education, when there are people who have never committed any type of crimes and still have to pay for getting an education after secondary school, for example going to a college, university and a training school. However this brings controversy since they refer to inmates as “ criminals,” those who will never change and who do not have the right to access an education or at least not be free at all. The people think that giving free education to prisoners defeats the purpose of serving a type of sentence to the crime committed. Another naysayer to this idea would be the budget. There is not enough funding to help inmates with their education, and finding the financial resources for an increased education budget is always a valid concern.

Rebuttal

But there are other members of the society that say, by offering those types of services they keep the inmates sane, not treating them as just criminals if not as people that have chosen bad decisions that they can change in the future.  For example Stephen Steuer said “Education does change minds, teaches people how to think better, how to find alternatives to the way they used to do things.” As to the budget point, in order for this to work, staff can lobby the legislature in order to get more money to pay professors and tutors. Inmates could also help pay for their education by working inside prison with all the job opportunities that they are offering inside. Expanding and making programs that already exist free could help extend the budget; also it could make inmates want to participate more if they get educated for free. Moreover, the benefits that this could bring to us is that correctional education programs can reduce crime, save money in the long run, and change lives. According to RAND, for every dollar spent on correctional education, four to five dollars may be saved on three-year reincarceration costs. However, there are certain jobs that inmates are not allowed to do but for those who do decide to keep going with their education there are several jobs that are available, where they could earn money to offset some of their education costs. The majority of inmates’ first job starts by a group of inmates working together to see how they can adapt to the work environment. Inmates often work in most areas of the correctional facilities. According to Idaho Correctional Facility, Correctional Industries teaches job-keeping skills to inmates through meaningful work experience. This work experience reduces residents’ idle time during incarceration while preparing them for a successful transition into society.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we should create more programs to educate inmates and offer them more educational opportunities since this reduces recidivism, ensuring that more than half of the prisoners who received an education in prison do not return to commit a crime and in fact, learn how to survive out of prison. It has already changed the life of some ex-inmates, the criminal system should keep those programs open and create more. Even if there are some people who don’t think the same because they don’t like that people donate money to give education to prisoners that obviously did something bad to be there, for the particular reason that there are so many good people who struggle to obtain the money to get into college or something similar. We could save more money by offering inmates a type of education which can also reduce the crime rate in the US, which will be also one of the less violent rehabilitation methods that has ever been. So I think that giving opportunities to inmates is a good idea but they should find a way to make prisoners pay for their education in some way.

Works Cited

“Prison and Jail Reform.” Brennan Center for Justice, 24 Oct. 2023, www.brennancenter.org/issues/end-mass-incarceration/prison-and-jail-reform.

State, Minnesota. “Justice Administration Sample Paper | English 251 Open Textbook | Southwest Minnesota State University.” Smsu.edu, 2014, otb.smsu.edu/annotated-works1/justiceadmin-student-annotated-Justice%20Administration%20Sample%20Paper.html . Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.

“Residents at Work | Idaho Department of Correction.” Idaho.gov, 2021, www.idoc.idaho.gov/content/prisons/residents_at_work. Accessed 8 Nov. 2024.

5 Benefits of Inmate Education. blackstone.edu/5-benefits-of-inmate-education/.

‌Westervelt, Eric. “Why Aren’t There More Higher Ed Programs behind Bars?” NPR, 7     Sept. 2015, www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/09/07/436342257/prison-university-project.

Shelley, Sarah. “What Is the Criminal Justice System? Insights for Aspiring Legal Minds.” Www.ucumberlands.edu, 24 May 2024, www.ucumberlands.edu/blog/what-is-the-criminal-justice-system.

Matthews, Betsy. “Corrections, Rehabilitation and Criminal Justice in the United States: 1970-Present.” EKU Online, 3 Feb. 2015, ekuonline.eku.edu/blog/corrections/corrections-rehabilitation-and-criminal-justice-united-states-1970-present/.