Should prisons offer degree-granting courses to convicted felons?

[grumbler]

Let them rot.

Touche, an elegant and detailed rebuttal.

Humor is a lost art here.  11B obviously is not so idiotic as to believe his stated position; he is clearly just pretending to be a troll to make us lol.

[PDH]

I have taught some distance course, and some of the students were long-term guests at various prisons around the region.  I found, to be honest, that the work done by them and the communication with them showed such people to be among the smartest and best adjusted meth dealers and killers I had ever worked with.

[DontSayBanana]

I would rather see a poor person, that doesn't have a chance to get a degree, get one. Not some POS criminal. Do that, then worry about the criminals. Every POS criminal you think about offering this to, instead offer it to a poor person.

And you realize how many poor people that "doesn't[sic] have a chance to get a degree" you would be rendering ineligible by excluding felons?  There's huge overlap between the two groups.

Maybe exclude violent offenders or offenders who have been denied parole at least a certain number of times, but a lot of our prisoners are in for basic vice offenses, and many have gotten into vice trades by dint of not being able to afford post-secondary education or being able to start a career.

[DontSayBanana]

Actually, let me backtrack a bit.  I'd narrow the eligibility further by adding a breach of trust requirement.  So inmates convicted of nonviolent crimes not centrally involving a breach of trust (which is mostly white-collar crime, but there are some scam artists out there who shouldn't be working toward any fiduciary responsibility anytime soon).

[The Minsky Moment]

No, they should rot.

Cuts recidivism by 43%. That's a lot fewer crimes committed against innocent citizens, and a lot less of our tax dollars spent on supporting these guys in prison.

Are they committing fewer crimes on release or are they simply getting caught less because they are more clever and deliberate?   

 

[The Minsky Moment]

More seriously I would be cautious re the recidivism statistics until verifying what efforts the study design made to eliminate selection bias.   I.e. the sorts of people most likely to seek out and stay in such programs are also the people that are a priori less likely to reoffend on release, regardless of whether the programs were available or not.

[grumbler]

More seriously I would be cautious re the recidivism statistics until verifying what efforts the study design made to eliminate selection bias.   I.e. the sorts of people most likely to seek out and stay in such programs are also the people that are a priori less likely to reoffend on release, regardless of whether the programs were available or not.

The study this references can be found here: http://www.rand.org/news/press/2013/08/22.html

As one would expect for such a study, it argues that the

... estimate is based on studies that carefully account for motivation and other differences between correctional education recipients and non-recipients.

How successful those studies are at such accounting remains unknown, of course.

I would note that the Rand study isn't about "degree-granting" programs as implied by the title of the thread.  The lowered recidivism rates were also from studies about the even more popular education programs offered GED completion (which i don't think even Neanderthals/Republicans would oppose).

[Siege]

I don't believe in reeducation.
They should pay for their crimes, and pay hard.
This school thing would come out of our taxes, s0o fuck no.

[alfred russel]

Other than the ability to afford it, I struggle to think of a single argument against it.

How will law abiding citizens be able to compete with hordes of criminals with degrees on their resume from the local corrections facility?

[11B4V]

Other than the ability to afford it, I struggle to think of a single argument against it.

How will law abiding citizens be able to compete with hordes of criminals with degrees on their resume from the local corrections facility?

They go do a stint in prison of course.

[Josquius]

Of course they should.
The old Victorian idea of prison purely as a place of punishment just doesn't work. Prisons exist to try and cut down crime- both my taking dangerous people temporarily off the streets and trying to make them less dangerous when they get out. Givin them options beyond crime and taking them away from the university of how to be a better crook is a sensible way to do this

[viper37]

No, they should rot.

Cuts recidivism by 43%. That's a lot fewer crimes committed against innocent citizens, and a lot less of our tax dollars spent on supporting these guys in prison.

I would rather see a poor person, that doesn't have a chance to get a degree, get one. Not some POS criminal. Do that, then worry about the criminals. Every POS criminal you think about offering this to, instead offer it to a poor person.

well, you already got the building, likely a few computers, gym, showers, dormitories, so all you need really, is  a few teachers at 70k/year doing it part time.  No big deal in terms of costs, imho.

And since, as Mono said, you're going to release them someday, might be better of if they don't return, it will save badly needed space.  Cost efficient measure, I fail to see why we should oppose that.  In fact, I thought it was already the case.

[viper37]

I don't believe in reeducation.
They should pay for their crimes, and pay hard.
This school thing would come out of our taxes, s0o fuck no.

what about people who poison wells?

[jimmy olsen]

You know, we've been hear so long. I forget the origin of that meme. Did Siege actually claim to poison wells while in the IDF?

[11B4V]

here