Post-Secondary Education And Correctional Programs

Although the justice system is supposed to enforce and prohibit flaws in our country's system there still is much discrimination and injustice towards people of color. The text “Fact Sheet: How Bad is the School-to-Prison Pipeline” shows how the school-to-prison pipeline, which refers to the inequality giving to the students who are doing poorly in school, is one of the many problems affecting the justice system. For example, “Others blame educators, accusing them of pushing out students who score lower on standardized tests in order to improve the school’s overall test scores” by Amurao Carla. This is important because it shows how educators are excluding students who need more help because their test scores are low. Those students are losing

Last, in most prisons they have disciplinary credits. This is a system originally created as an incentive for good behavior. It gives inmates the opportunity to take educational classes, such as GED instruction, literacy education, and substance abuse treatment. There are also vocational programs that inmates can take to learn a trade or skill. Each class or program that is completed the inmate receives points or credits. Points can be used to shorted the inmates time spent behind bars. A lot of these degrees have nothing to do with future behavior, it 's just a way for the inmate to get out early. Inmates will pile up class after class, which when many are completed can take years off a long sentence. Inmates have been

For prisons to be safe and secure there must be sufficient physical security, consistent implementation of security practices, established methods to control inmate behavior, and adequate preparation to reduce the likelihood or to respond to inmate unrest. For prison staff to provide effective rehabilitative services there must be an assessment of the needs and best practices of a programs focusing on substance abuse, mental health, religious services, education recreation, rehabilitation, and work opportunities. Fully understanding the importance of these programs and implementing them effectively is crucial for prisons to accomplish their dual mission of confinement and rehabilitation.

The prison system realizes that an immense majority of inmates will be released; we need to prepare them for outside life. Without the efforts of educational programs, a prison can become a “revolving door, with inmates having nowhere to go but back” to the prison with no future (Young 1). A majority of the states offer a GED program, but North Carolina profits from a Community College system that offers classes in academics, auto mechanics, masonry, wiring, plumbing, and computer literacy. The Community Colleges offer two-year degree programs in many areas. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill offers business association classes to inmates over twenty-five years of age. Because of the excellent programs they have to offer, more than five thousand of about thirty thousand inmates are in the education program and these numbers continue to grow.

Although several educational programs are widely available, many inmates are unable to take advantage of them, do not complete them, or lack follow up in the form of ongoing support services once released from the correctional system. The following table displays this concern: Table 2. national and state data on inmate participation and completion . Approximate Numbers 1993-2007: Institution Type Total Number of Inmates System 165,000 167,717 Number of Inmates Enrolled in Education Programs 54,000 87,624 Rate of Attendance, At Completion of Course 50% 60% Rate of Completion

Once the offender is released from prison with still no understanding of how to re enter society they resort back to what they know. However, some state and federal facilities are offering rehabilitation programs within the prison systems. Some federal prisons offer GED programs, college classes, and apprenticeships. There are also many of prisons who offer drug classes such as nonresidential drug abuse programs as well as the drug education class, 500 hr residential drug program. Some also offer classes that will get an inmate mentally ready before they release. In the state prisons they offer college classes in some as well as apprenticeships, and a drug class. What I have seen is that federal prisons are still offering a good bit of programs threw the poor economy while the state is cutting programs from left to right. I witnessed this statistic in person January 2010,21 inmates at Greenville Federal Prison Camp completed a 500-hr residential treatment program out of 21 inmates who was released in the same three days only one has returned back to prison to this exact day. However the first three years out for an

The article "The Impact of Career and Technical Education Programs on Adult Offenders: Learning Behind Bars" by Howard Gordon and Bracie Weldon (2003) studies of how prisoners receiving educations in prison reduces the recidivism rate. Gordon and Weldon studied the inmates who were participating in the educational programs at the Huttonsville Correctional Center in West Virginia and claimed that inmates who participated in the educational programs were less likely to recidivate once released back into the population as compared to inmates who did not participate in these programs (Gordon & Weldon, 2003). This study provides valuable information as to the effectiveness of educational programs in prison and how they affect prisoner's lives

We’ve all seen it at least once. We’ve all passed by a middle or a high school and seen a police car on campus. Sometimes we even happen to see a teen in handcuffs getting detained. When you see things like this happen do you ever just stop and think whether students that are detained or incarcerated get the education they need? There are few experiences in the lives of children as critical as education. While all children learn directly and indirectly from their families, neighbors, and peers, formal education and school experiences provide the foundation and establish the trajectory for post-secondary education, employment, and wellbeing in adulthood. Historically, one group of students in the United States has received grossly inadequate education: children in juvenile correctional facilities. Little to nothing is known about educational programs in juvenile detention centers. Limited information is available on best practices for educating youth in the juvenile justice system whether committed or detained. Koyama cites that existing empirically based educational practices do not readily transfer to the unique environment of a secure setting or adequately address the intense needs of court-involved youth (ctd. in Koyama 36).

There are numerous programs available for inmates who are incarcerated, and the individuals who capitalize on these programs show subsequent improvement after being released. However, these programs only help those prisoners who are willing to change. While incarcerated in the Federal Bureau of Prisons, or BOP, there are numerous programs inmates can take advantage of that will help them in a variety of fields such as, “Education and Vocational Training, English-as-a-Second Language Program, Drug Abuse Education, Sex Offender Treatment Programs – Nonresidential, Skills Programs,” and more (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015). On the educational side, the BOP offers a program called the Bureau Literacy Program (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2015).

Inmates need to be educated and rehabilitated in order to be released back into society. If prisoners receive a good education they are less likely to commit misconduct in the future. The Three State Recidivism Study

Many programs have been initiated to help the problems of overcrowding and negligence. These include education, rehabilitation programs, work-release programs, and other preventative measures. Numerous education programs are offered to inmates. Some prisons even mandate the completion of a GED if the offender never finished high school. Many colleges in the prison’s community partner together with each other to enable higher learning as a possibility for offenders to obtain college credit. These services help inmates succeed in an inmate’s preparation to reintegrate into society with less chances of being arrested again. Offenders that are more prepared to leave prison are not as likely to commit a crime which improves the safety of the public and also saves money from taxpayers. (Office of Vocational Adult Education, 2009)

While in prison, education would provide a crucial key for inmate rehabilitation. Part of that rehabilitation can be in the form of education. Education in the prison system generally geared

Q= what types of rehabilitation programs are offered in prisons? What programs are most successful? What are the principles of effective programs?

In this table, the authors are describing the characteristics (gender, race, age, priors, offense, and education) of the sample of Ohio inmates who completed the various correctional educational programs included in their study (college, GED, vocational, and high school) and those who did not participate in correlational educational programs (non-education).

Education is not a fix all by any means, but it is the best start to solving the large literacy rates of US prisons. Of course, it will require much hard work on the part of the prisoner getting out, and there may be a large percentage who do not desire to take advantage of such programs, but Americans should encourage and give these individuals tools to help them back into society. Pont sums it up best, “Our aim should be to propel offenders into, rather than away from, successful participation in the labor force” (23). Stimulation of involvement in the work force will encourage offenders of the law to stay out of trouble rather than to take the revolving door that always leads back to the same place.