From A Life Behind Bars: Build Colleges Not Prisons Analysis

In the essay, Reflection From a Life Behind Bars: Build Colleges, Not Prisons, the author James Gilligan was a director of mental health for the Massachusetts prison system, and he argues that prisons should be torn down and become boarding schools for the inmates to receive as much education as they want. He explains how kids who experience violence, grow up as violent adults, and he questioned why we continue to use violence against adults hoping it stops them from being violent. There’s evidence that the most successful programs for preventing recidivism are ones where inmates receive college degrees. The prisons are also extremely inhumane in the environment, as Gilligan compares them to zoos. All these reasons Gilligan gives for his argument

Gilligan commented, “ While several programs had worked, the most successful of all, and the only one that had been 100 percent effective in preventing recidivism, was the program that allowed inmates to recieve a college degree while in prison” (3). While this may be true the keyword is that they were allowed to get a college degree meaning that not every inmate had to complete their education. These inmates must’ve not been your average inmates and had the motivation and determination to change their lives. It makes sense why they didn’t re-offend because they chose to switch their lives around. I met a guy who is involved with a program similar to the one Gilligan mentioned and he said there are complaints from the average person who complain that these inmates get free education but their kids don’t get that same privilege. There are many flaws to basing how successful it would be to make prisons boarding schools and good questions I’ve heard been asked about similar

No humane society permits animals in zoos to be housed in conditions as intolerable as those in which we cage humans” (3). I agree that some of the conditions where the health of the inmates is in danger, like if there was mold, there is raw sewage leaking, or things of that nature are too much and should be taken care of, the environment of prisons deters people from committing crimes. I have heard many people jokingly say that they wouldn’t survive prison, but that genuine fear could deter people from committing crimes. The threat of prison stops the average person from committing crimes and by replacing prisons with boarding schools, that fear is gone. It sounds somewhat pleasant to be punished with free schooling and people shouldn’t have the mindset of the consequences aren’t that