Joe Student

Essay #2

Ms. Serwin

10/10/04

Doin’ Time…Tables

   In 1953, the University of Southern Illinois first started higher education in prison systems. Soon the number of higher education programs in prisons increased. However, by 1965, because of the lack of funding, there were only twelve post-secondary correctional education programs in U.S. prisons. During that same year, Congress passed Title IV of the Higher Education Act. It allowed inmates to apply for federal financial aid known as Pell grants (Education and Incarceration).

 In 1994, inmates received 0.64 percent of the $6.4 billion total Pell grant expenditure (Prisoners Have The Right…). The average award was $1,300 per inmate (Education and Incarceration). The same year, 1994, there was also controversy around inmates receiving Pell grants. Some Congressmen were trying to pass legislation to ban inmates from receiving Pell grants. Rep. Bart Gordon (D-Tenn.) wrote the legislation in the House of Representatives after an outraged police sergeant told Mr. Gordon that criminals he had sent  to jail were getting Pell grants, but his own son didn’t qualify (Prisoners Have The Right…).

In 1994 when the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act was passed, ending prisoners’ eligibility to receive Pell grants, Congress did so because they believed if prisoners were getting the aid, it took away from the law abiding non-inmates. However, “Pell grants operate as a quasi-entitlement program: Anyone who meets the financial criteria qualifies for a grant. The size of the grant depends on the overall financial circumstances of the applicant […]. David Evans, staff director for the Education Subcommittee of the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee said, ‘no law-abiding student is displaced because of inmate participation.’” Just like others who apply, if the prisoners or their spouses make too much money or have too many assets, they will be denied (Prisoners Have The Right…).  Even with the correct information some politicians and voters still argue against funding for prisoners stating that prisoners shouldn't be given a free ride. Particularly in an era when many families struggle to afford college tuition, they said, it was unseemly at best for prisoners to receive free tuition (Connors).

 The Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act ended prisoners’ eligibility for Pell grants after September 13, 1994. For the last school year of prisoner’s eligibility, 1993-1994, the number of inmates who received Pell grants was 25,169 (Education and Incarceration). 

        After the Act was signed, education programs in prisons were severely damaged. Some states picked up the loss of educating the inmates, but most programs were halted altogether (Garmon).  San Francisco assistant sheriff Michael Marcum said that one day most prisoners will be let out and they will be, “coming to my neighborhood and to your neighborhood. ... We need to make sure that the correctional system is correcting people rather than housing people and then dumping monsters back into society" (Gates). Is this your opinion too?  Are you using delayed thesis method, or explicit thesis?  You might want to mention what your position is here.

            There are approximately two million Americans currently incarcerated (Garmon). It costs about $25,000 annually to incarcerate one inmate. The post-secondary program in New York prisons costs about $2,500 per inmate per year (Prison Break). Advocates suggest if receiving education will keep some inmates from returning to prison, all Americans should consider the $2,500 a bargain. “In April 2001, Fortune magazine cited a study that explored three decades of prison college education; it found that every dollar spent on education resulted in $1.71 in reduced crime costs.”  Advocates say this reduction in crime costs is due to the fact that upon release the ex-inmates are getting higher paying jobs and feel they have more to lose if they return to a life of crime (Prison Break).

            In Camilla, Georgia, at the Autry State Prison, there was an inmate named Marcus Alexander, a former drug dealer. He was serving six years on a parole violation. He said, “I had a number of opportunities to get my GED, but being out on the streets, I resorted to a life of crime. I only looked at the dollars. I didn’t look at the consequences.”

Richard Marinick has first hand experience on how prison education can straighten out a life.  He started out as a bouncer in combat zone bars, and then earned a black belt in karate in Okinawa.  He came back to the United States, entered the Police Academy, and became a trooper.  He quit police work and drifted into gangster life in South Boston, developed a drug habit, and worked his way up from two-bit crime to enforcement beatings, truck-hijackings, bank robberies, and finally armored-car holdups.

His luck run out after a high-speed police chase, and he was sentenced to prison.   He decided while in prison to change his life.  He found religion and received two college degrees. He worked with a counselor to understand his past and get over it. He worked at being a writer. After ten years, he was released from prison, became a legitimate working man, got married, and finally realized his dream of publishing a book.  Marinick now is a mystery writer.  Marinick said: "I didn't want the old life. The longer I was in prison, the more education I was getting, my mind was being broadened, the less [my old life] appealed to me.  I knew I didn't want to go back" (Cop & Robber).

The RAND Corporation, a public policy think tank, released a study that states that out of all the methods of crime prevention, education was the most cost-effective. The study showed that the higher the education provided in prison, the lower the recidivism rate. Rates were 13 percent for those with an associate’s degree, 5.6 percent for those with a bachelor’s degree and 0 percent for those with a master’s degree (Garmon). In Texas, the overall rate of recidivism is 60 percent. That is about the nation’s average (Education and Incarceration). That shows that approximately 41 percent of the people who return to prison are the uneducated.

            High school students are forced to attend school. If found truant, the students and their parents could find themselves in trouble with the law. Some of these students may feel as if the walls of the school imprison them. They feel forced to learn. But what they do not realize is there are some people who are imprisoned who wish they could get an education.  Federal funding, including reinstating Pell grants for prisoners, needs to be allocated for the education of prisoners in the United States prison system.

Taking away the inmates funding for education has not solved anything. There is still a deficit.  There is still crime on the streets and drugs being sold to children. The fact is, whether we like it or not, most inmates will be released back into society.  The average inmate has only a sixth grade reading level (Salzar). Without receiving education while in the prison system, these people are put back into society at the same low educational level. Yet we expect them to get jobs and become contributors to the general public with only a sixth grade reading level. At that level they would probably have difficulty filling out a job application correctly. It is doubtful they would be able to get a job paying more than minimum wage. The frustration and humiliation of a minimum wage job could send the newly released citizen back to a life of crime. That crime affects all tax paying citizens. 

For some people, the prison system is a vicious cycle in their lives. Through state and federal aid, these people can break the cycle by getting an education. Higher education equals higher self esteem and higher paying jobs, thus making these people think about what they have to lose by returning to crime and ending up back in prison. While in jail, Marcus, the inmate from Autry State Prison in Camilla, Georgia began to work on his dream to one day open a bakery or restaurant (Salzar). With the help of the prison education system, one day his dream might become a reality. If he does realize his dream, he would have his business to lose if he went back to a life of crime. He would know that he had too much to lose if he reverted to his previous criminal lifestyle.

The cost alone to house an inmate vs. educate an inmate should encourage tax paying citizens to write letters to their Senators to try to revoke the laws. It is the money of the taxpayer, after all, that is paying to house the inmates. “Twice […] Governor Gray Davis had vetoed a measure that would grant all of California’s inmates access to college-level classes” (Prison Break). The last budget signed by Governor Davis before his recall in 2003 included a $35 million cut for the prison education budget.  Nearly 330 prison teachers received surplus notices because of the cut (Gates). The present is the time for change.  Funding for prison education must be brought back into our prison system. 

Works Cited

Connors, Lisa Leigh.  The Christian Science Monitor.  Boston, Mass.  14 Sep. 2004.  Section: Features, Learning; page 14.

“Cop & Robber.”  The Boston Globe.  28 Sep. 2004.  Third Edition; page E1.

“Education and Incarceration: A History.” The Common Review.  <http://www.greatbooks.org/tcr/boufis11a.shtml>.

Garmon, John. “The Power Of Prison Education.” Community College Week. 5 Aug. 2002. Vol. 14 Issue 26. p4, p2. Ebscohost MasterFile Premier. Cerritos College Lib., Norwalk, Ca. <http://search.epnet.com/>.

Gates, Niesha.  The Sacramento Bee.  3 Aug. 2003.  Page A3.

“Prison Break.” New Republic. 21 Oct. 2002. Vol. 227 Issue 17 p7,1p,1bw. Ebscohost MasterFile Premier. Cerritos College Lib., Norwalk, Ca. <http://search.epnet.com/>.

“Prisoners Have The Right To Learn Too.” The Minnesota Daily. <http://www.mndaily.com/daily/gopher-archives/…/prisoners_have_the_right_to_learn_too.tx>.

Salzer, James. “Makeover Changes Prison Education.” Augusta Chronicle. 30 Nov. 1997. <http://www.augustachronicle.com/stories/113097/met_prisonschools.html>.

  Your use of sources is very good.  I think you are using the delayed thesis approach where you mention your point closer to the end of the paper instead of the beginning.  Try to organize in such a way that the background is all together and then you argue for bringing back prison education.  Good job.