Devon Fuller
Hope McCarthy
English 3371-001
31 October 2017
Reporting The Issue: Prison Education Have you ever seen a law show and wondered what led an individual to their present position in life: looking up on a platform at a judge, who once convicted of a crime, would determine their fate of how much time behind bars they would be sentenced? As most of us can probably say yes, I have experienced a sentencing in real life. As the cousin of a young man who was sentenced to 15 years of prison at the tender age of 18, I wondered what it took to transform my dear family member from a life of crime to a law-abiding citizen. Seeing as though he had a 10th grade education and did not gain the skills pertinent to become something “great” in life,
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During an investigation by the Prison Policy Initiative, they discovered that those serving time in prison received 41 percent less income than people on the same socioeconomic status prior to being incarcerated (Galvin 2016). And if that isn’t surprising enough, many people in prison have never had the experience gained through having a job. The issue regarding if individuals who commit crimes and are sentenced to prison deserve to simply be punished to a cell that limits contact and recreation outside of the measly minutes allotted for such activities, or if more can be done to rehabilitate these people back into society, making them law-abiding and valuable assets, has been unending. Just as it is today, the vision of past cultural and governmental institutions believed that people who committed crimes needed to be locked away as a form of reprimand and retribution, allowing them to reflect on their past mistakes and reform their behavior. In early colonial periods in America, penalty included exile, public punishment, and death. It was not until the 19th century that the penal system began to focus on education and training as a form of rehabilitation, which has progressed today into more formal programs to change the nature of individuals instead of focusing on the severity of punishment (320). Although prison is a form of punishment, by shifting the focus from strictly chastisement to developing the character and life skills of those incarcerated, prison education can be a resource for the betterment of society. Those most interested in the issue are policy makers, public officials, and correctional educations because they see how prison education can reduce cost toward warehousing inmates, create a more harmonious environment for those incarcerated, and eliminate those individuals from returning to prison by equipping them with the skills to gain jobs once