One of our biggest burdens as U.S tax paying citizens, is the inability to afford higher education. There is much frustration behind this issue, seeing as tax payers have the capability to provide education for prison inmates but not for themselves. Housing inmates can cost anywhere from $15,000 to almost $100,000 a year depending on what state is being occupied. On average costing around $30,000 per year for a single inmates education. Compare that to an annual college tuition, which cost less then $9,000.
Which raises my first concern, why do we allow inmates to retrieve benefits from our hard earned money, but we can't expect the same? It's crazy to think you have to commit a crime to receive almost free education in America, but applying yourself, and digging yourself into debt will barley get you a college credited course. The worst part is the recidivism rate, or in other words the likely hood for inmates to return to prision after release is almost 67% and that's in just 3 years. With more time then a few years the rate only grows. Meaning all the money spent on education for them to further themselves in the future is basically wasted.
With America being in a tremendous amount of debt, budget cuts need to be made somewhere. Dropping all inmate annual education cost to the same rate as every other americans annual cost could not only save us billions of dollars, but also open the door to a wider spread of the population eligible for college, who simply can't afford it. Everything has a trickle effect, with more young well-educated people in our society there can only be a positive outcome, opposed to those inmates who will most likely never put it to use besides in their prison cell.
I would rather spend my tax paying money to help educate those imprisoned, instead of paying the taxes to imprison them due to lack of support.
ReplyDeleteI disagree with this critique on Higher Education. I don't see any proof based on the argument that, "One of our biggest burdens as U.S tax paying citizens, is the inability to afford higher education. There is much frustration behind this issue, seeing as tax payers have the capability to provide education for prison inmates but not for themselves." For example, the blog states that, "The worst part is the recidivism rate, or in other words the likely hood for inmates to return to prison after release is almost 67% and that's in just 3 years." So, because they are destined to fail they should not be granted education? I read an article about Learning to Reduce Recidivism, was by educating the inmates. There are studies that prove educating inmates helps their success rate and keeps them from returning to prison and costing the U.S. more money to imprison.
Also, I don't agree that all the education inmates received is wasted as stated. Look at how many non-incarcerated Americans have received education and not used it.. If we do not give inmates an opportunity for higher education wouldn't that create more chaos and more crime, costing America more money? Here is another article from the U.S. Department of Education that shows helping educate the inmates pays off.