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Prison Education Essay

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Recommended: Voting rights in the United States

Further on the topic of lack of proficiency, many prisons don’t possess the resources to adequately reintegrate prisoners back into society. There has been a steady decline in the availability of prison education programs and since 1994, the number of available prison college-degree programs has went from 350 to only 12 (Zoukis, 2015). Furthermore, if a prisoner wants to get into one of these programs they are likely to be subjected to an extensive waiting list. One of the most popular prison education programs within the U.S. has a waiting list of over 10,000 people (Horwitz, 2015). This can be difficult for certain inmate populations with short sentences. Some programs require certain time periods to complete GED education and those with shorter sentences were ineligible to participate …show more content…

This type of disenfranchisement is the only type of ballot restriction placed upon the American population (Uggen, p. 300). There exists an expectation for former felons to reintegrate back into society as an American citizen but the stripping away of the right to vote and participate in the wider part of American politics essentially denies any path for full reintegration and participation into social standings. Alongside civic restrictions felons also contront legal, parental, and public service access restrictions. Felons often have difficulties obtaining loans or financial aid or if they do there are often stipulations and heavy restrictions placed on them. Adding to these difficulties is the fact than many states mandate the public release of criminal history records. Meaning anyone can look up and view the criminal record of a felon (Uggen, 284). The population of prisons has a very large African American man holding , with data showing that felony conviction rates show that one in three african american men now hold a serious criminal record filing (Wakefield,

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