About 46 percent of the total number of persons arrested in New York City live in the neighborhoods served by the City's 16 poorest performing schools. Over half of New York State's prison inmate population comes from a geographic area which contains eleven of these poor schools.
90 persent of all inmates in New York City jails have no high school diploma or its equivalent, and 50-70 percent of the adult inmate population in the City's jails read English below the sixth grade level. (State Senator A. Waldron, "Unhealthy CHoice, - Prisons Over Schools in NYS," April, 1996)
It's been estimated that 50 percent of all state inmates are unable to read. Two-thirds of prisoners nationwide have not completed high school. Only 55 percent of state prison inmates were working full time at the time of their arrest. More than half of all prison and jail inmates had a reported annual income of less than $10,000 prior to their arrest.
Educational programs in prisons are a real rehabilitation tool, as shown repeatedly by both national and statewide studies of recidivism. Since education is able to increase dramatically an inmate's chance of success upon release, correctional education programs should be of high quality and be held accountable for outcomes.
A 1994 report by Miles Harer, ("Recidivism Among Federal Prison Releases in 1987," Fed. Bur. of Prisons, Office of Research and Evaluation, 1994) concluded that recidivism rates were inversely related to educational program participation while in prison. The more educational programs successfully completed for each 6 months confined, the lower the recidivism rate.
A report of the Adult Probation Dept. of the Superior Court, Pima County, Arizona concludes that offenders given literacy training in 1994 had a lower new felony arrest rate (23%) compared to a control group (40%). Offenders given a GED education in 1994 had a lower new felony arrest rate (15%) than a control group (40%). The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports a 43% recidivism rate for adult offenders on probation nationally in 1994 (based on felony arrests).(from "The Impact of Correctional Education on Recidivism, 1988-1994" Office of Correctional Education, U.S. Dept of Ed.)
A 1994 State of Texas report (Tracy and Johnson, Windham School System) found that the recidivism rate for those who received both a GED certificate and completed a vocational trade was over 20% lower than for those who did not reach either milestone. (ibid))
That Texas report also showed that two years after release, the overall recidivism rate for degree holders was a low 12%, and inversely differentiated by type of degree: associate, 13.7%; baccalaureate, 5.6%; masters, 0%.
A 1991 study by the NY State Dept. of Correctional Services showed that three years after earning a college degree in inmate college programs, offenders were significantly less likely to recidivate (26%) than non-degreed inmates (45%). (ibid)
In a letter to the Utah State Legislature, Jeffrey Galli, of the Utah State Office Of Education (and formerly a prison warden for 22 years) writes: "Data received from independent evaluators indicate that Project Horizon (a comprehensive education and training program) reduces recidivism from 20 % to as much as 26%. (ref.: KT Adult Learning Quarterly,winter 1996).
A 1983 study at Folsom Prison in California showed that none of the prisoners there who earned bachelor's degrees recidivated, compared to the 55 percent recidivism rate of the rest of the prisoners released (Lawyer and Dertinger, "Back to School or Back to Jail," ABA Criminal Justice, Winter 1993, p. 21).
Rearrest of young parolees has also been shown to be related to the amount of prior education. Based on a sample of parolees between the ages of 17 and 22, who were paroled from prisons in 22 states in 1978: an estimated 48% of the parolees who had attended some college were rearrested, compared to 61% of the high school graduates, and 71% of those who had not completed high school. (Bu. of Justice Statustics Special Report, "Recidivism of Young Parolees.")
Not all prison programs are of high quality and of sufficient duration, to give good results. A 1993 report (Gerber and Fritsch, "Prison Education and Offender Behavior" Prison Education Research Project Report 1, July 1993) gives the results of 72 studies, most of them conducted in the 1980s and early 1990s.
Basic and Secondary education:
Of 14 findings regarding recidivism, 9 showed positive effects.
Of 4 findings regarding post-release employment, 3 showed positive efffects.
Vocational Eduction:
Of 13 findings regarding recidivism, 10 showed positive effects.
Of 7 findings regarding post-release employment, 5 showed positive effects.
College Education:
Of 14 findings regarding recidivism, 10 showed a positive effect.
Of 3 findings regarding post-release employment all 3 showed a positive effect.
These findings dramatically support the value of education in prisons. However, they also point out that success will depend on the quality and durations of these programs, as well as on follow-up in job placement.
Recent findings by the RAND Corporation are that a $1 million investment in graduation incentives for disadvantaged students could prevent 258 serious crimes per year. Investing that amount in parent training could prevent 160 crimes a year, while the same $1 million spent on building and operating new prisons for one year coud prevent 60 crimes. ("The Violent Juvenile Offender: Policy Perspectives," Campaign for an Effective Crime Policy)Another RAND report shows the effectiveness of education incentives. That is indicated by the results of a FORD Foundation program for at-risk youths which granted modest cash and scholarship incentives to provide short term motivation. Graduation incentives were found to significantly increase high school graduation and college-enrollment rates among participants. The program also had great success in reducing crime. Observed arrests for participating students were only three-tenths that of control students.
The cost effectiveness of the graduation incentives, in serious crimes averted per million dollars spent, was calculated to be five times better than that of the 3-strikes program. (Peter W. Greenwood et al, "Diverting Children from a Life of Crime," RAND, 1996. )
"Only individuals who had completed Associate Degrees (two years of college) were included in the college sample since there were too few Bachelors completers to comprise an adequate sample size. While the overall recidivism rate was 40%, college recidivism rates were at 18%."
"Other calculations suggest that graduating from college programs - in contrast to no participation in prison education at all - reduces recidivism by roughly 72%."
Under the new Ohio plan, the Dept. of Rehabilitation and Correction will fund 2623 inmate college students, based on a formula where 10% of the population of minimum security institutions, 8% of the population a medium institutions, and 4% of the population at close security institutions will be eligible for post-secondary classes.
(from an article by Mary Ellen Batiuk, "The State of Post-Secondary Education in Ohio," Journal of Correctional Education, Vol. 48, Issue 2, June 1997, pp. 70-72.)
Want the potential national dollar value from post-secondary correctional education? Click National Value Post-Secondary.
"We have followed up the post-release lives of 654 federal inmates during the period 1973-1993. All were men who had completed at least two university courses for credit while in one of several federal prisons. An immediately interesting fact about the prisoners in this study is that as a group they did better than the norm in that only 25% of the 654 subjects recidivated in the three years following their release - a 50% reduction compared to the Canadian recidivism rate."
"Utilizing the recidivism prediction system (SIR), we were able to compare how groups of prisoner-students were predicted to perform with how they actually performed after release. (The SIR score uses indicators such as type of offense, number of offenses, age at first arrest, and marital status.)"
(taken from an article by Stephen Duguid, "Cognitive Dissidents Bite the Dust - The Demise of University Education in Canada’s Prisons," Journal of Correctional Education, Vol. 48, issue 2, June 1997, pp. 56-68.)
The Federal Bureau of Prisons introduced in 1991 mandatory literacy programs for all prison inmates who are functionally illiterate but mentally capable. At first, this was mandatory for the period sufficient to reach an 8th grade level. This was later raised to a 12th grade level, evidenced by receiving a GED.
New York lags many states in the attention it gives to prison education. According to the January 1996 report of the Policy Information Center of the Educational Testing Service:
Education is such a keystone to solving the nation's crime and economic problems, a comprehensive vision and plan for education in NY State prisons is urgently needed. Ingredients of such a plan should include the following:
We strongly recommend a greater emphasis on job development and placement of trainees in jobs for which thehy were trained. It is also importanat that higher paying jobs for trainees be developed. A minimum wage job offers little incentive to pursue legal activities. (H. Markley, K. Flynn and S. Bercaw-Dooen, "Offender Skills Training and Employmet Success: An Evaluation of Outcomes.")
"We are what we watch " is becoming the wisdom of the day. TV has become a primary educational tool for adults as well as children.
Anyone who spends time in prison knows that the hours that prisoners spend watching TV, day after day, is full of sex, violence, and sports. Why do we make this kind of 'recreation' the steady diet of those we're trying to re-educate?
Wouldn't it make more sense to limit TV watching by prisoners, at least some of the time, to educational materials such as are regularly found on the Discovery Channel, the Learning Channel, and Public TV?
And why are the prison libraries filled mostly with paperback novels for the amusement of inmates? Why can't the libraries also have copies of GED tapes and VCRs for inmates to study there?
The Governor also vetoed wording in the budget that would have hindered the construction of a $180 maximum-security prison in the Finger Lakes Region.(2)
The vetoes were emblematic, not only of the current administration's priorities, but of trends in the Empire State and across the country, of funding the expansion of corrections, at the expense of other worthwhile social projects like higher education.
Since fiscal year 1988, New York's public universities have seen their operating budgets plummet by 29% while funding for prisons has increased by 76%. In actual dollars, there has nearly been a dollar for dollar tradeoff, with the Department of Correctional Services receiving a $761 million increase during that time while budgets for New York's city and state university systems have declined by $615 million. Although New York spent more than twice as much on universities than on prisons in 1988, the state now spends $275 million more on prisons than on state and city colleges. The 1997 figures include only the corrections operating budget, and do not include the cost of the $180 million dollar new maximum-security prison, or the cost of the 3,100 prison spaces that the legislature approved for construction in 1997-something which will cost $300 an additional million.iii
Of the 20,800 people imprisoned in 1997, half were arrested for drug offenses. There are now 8,880 drug offenders serving time in New York under the Rockefeller Drug Laws, at a cost of $265 million a year.v By way of comparison, CUNY's annual budget is $225 million lower today than it was in 1988.
The imprisonment of non-violent offenders in New York is not an abstract matter for taxpayers and students. While the current administration has been throwing money into the corrections budget, students at New York's colleges have been hit with tuition increases, hikes in incidental fees, and composite cuts in student aid. One of Gov. Pataki's first acts in office was to raise tuition fees in the SUNY system by $750. As a result of that decision, 10,000 students were immediately unable to return to school in the fall of 1995. According to data compiled by the Student Association of the State of New York, tuition has been rising at above the rate of inflation since 1991: the last three years have seen the biggest jumps in tuition in New York history. Students and their families are now paying $3,700 each year to attend classes in the SUNY system-double what it cost in 1991. vi Including books, extra fees and room and board, the cost of attending the SUNY system for an undergraduate jumped from $7,319 in 1991, to $ 11,201 by 1997. As New York State's median income declined over the 1990s, this meant that the cost of sending children to state schools increased for families: The Student Association of the State of New York reports that the proportion tuition would be of the state's median household income rose from 11.25% in 1995, to 25% today.vii
New Yorkers are literally throwing millions of dollars away locking-up petty drug offenders for long mandatory sentences, when other cheaper, and more effective crime control methods exist, which are more likely to rehabilitate ex-offenders, and integrate them into society. It is painfully clear that reliance on these expensive laws has forced New York's politicians to choose between funding libraries or prison, classrooms or cell-blocks- books or bars.
1 Pleven, Liam. "Cut and Slash: Pataki vetoes $760 million from election-year budget." Newsday, April 27, 1998.
2 Ibid.
3"Mandatory Sentencing Laws and Drug Offenders in New York State," The Correctional Association of New York. New York: New York, 1998.
4Ibid.
5Ibid.
6"The SASU Response to the Governors Budget," The Student Association of the State University of New York. Albany, New York: February, 1988
7 While Gov. Pataki has made much of the fact that this year, SUNY is budgeted to receive 84 million more dollars making this the first time in a decade that SUNY hasn't been cut most of this money will go to covering the costs of salary negotiations by university professors. Ibid.
8"Mandatory Sentencing Laws and Drug Offenders in New York State," The Correctional Association of New York. New York: New York, 1998.
The CURE-NY recommendations on education are part of the seven recommendations included in the What Works page.
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