New York Governor Andrew Cuomo wants prisons to focus on rehabilitation, and to that end, to restart a program for prisoners to take college classes.
A previous effort in 2014 failed to gain support, but Cuomo sells it as economically beneficial for New York and a way to lower crime rates long-term, according to the Christian Science Monitor.
“Prisons were not supposed to be a warehouse,” Cuomo said. “It was supposed to be about rehabilitation. It was supposed to be an opportunity to help people.”
The thought process is straightforward. If a prisoner can develop skills while incarcerated, it will be easier to find gainful employment when their prison term ends. When someone has a job, they are less likely to commit crime. Less free time and a better salary keeps them occupied. The New York initiative wouldn’t unprecedented, either.
College programs in prison were common, but a 1994 law signed by then-President Bill Clinton revoked funding for them. A “tough on crime” approach saw the programs as inappropriately directing funding to people who didn’t deserve the support, unlike Americans who hadn’t committed a crime.
Opponents to the plan see it as unfair. Prisoners should not receive government funding, especially as those who haven’t committed a crime struggle to pay their tuition bills. The tension can break between prison as punishment and safety for the public, and prison as rehabilitation. If prison exists to punish individuals for harm they’ve brought against another person or society at large, programs that target self-improvement seem like a waste of money.
The Second Chance Act of 2007 included a provision to improve education in the American incarceration system. Since then, some pilot programs, or efforts to create them, have appeared.
In California, four prisons have partnered with community colleges to provide classes in an effort to reduce recidivism. The program receives funding through the Pell Grant system, the largest category of federal grants available. Connecticut has made similar moves.
Support for prison education programs has been difficult to find, and executives on the state and federal level have found it easier to bypass the political fight. For Cuomo’s second attempt at prison education, he wants to rely on private foundations, as well as criminal forfeiture funds as a way to avoid the state legislature. When President Obama expanded access to Pell Grant funding for prison programs last July, he did so with an executive action to avoid Congress.
If the debate centers on the effectiveness of the policy, however, it could gain traction. Further research is necessary, but a 2014 study from the RAND Corporation found that “inmates who participated in correctional education programs had a 43 percent lower odds of recidivating than inmates who did not.”
If the gains are that dramatic, then prison college programs could dramatically decrease the level of crime in America, which has been in decline since the early 1990s. From an economic perspective, education could save prison costs. RAND noted that “direct costs of reincarceration were far greater than the direct costs of providing correctional education.” Indirect costs could alter the cost/benefit breakdown, but to make the country safer, the first step could be education for prisoners.
