Prison Education

Prison serves many people's desire to punish those who have committed crimes just as much as it serves their desire to stop crime. However, from a practical standpoint, there is no contest for those who are more concerned with deterring crime and recidivism. According to Audrey Bazos and Jessica Hausman's 2004 report, "Correctional Education as a Crime Control Program," whereas investing $1,000,000 in a larger prison system on average averted 350 crimes, the same sum was used to stop 600 crimes of a similar severity through correctional education.

Currently, there are issues with how jails regulate the education that criminals receive. For instance, according to a 2017 article by Mother Jones, two books by David Duke, the former leader of the Klan, were permitted into the same system despite the fact that Freakonomics had a statement from a member of the organization that led the Ku Klux Klan. Since the 2008 financial crisis, funding for prison libraries has also been drastically reduced countrywide.

For example, the state of Illinois reduced its annual prison library budget from $750,000 in the early 2000s to $276 for 28 facilities by 2017. Sadly, it appears that the US jail system is either letting this chance pass them by or is at the very least being incredibly sloppy with it. Get a copy of Return of the Living, ski's post-apocalyptic supernatural comedy, right away to put it to the test for yourself.