Liberal Democracy

Liberal Democracy
The Free State

Friday, January 6, 2012

University Behind Bars: 'When You Learn, You Don't Return'


Source:University Behind Bars- talking about education in prison.

"Listen to the voices of students from a sociology course, "Sociological Imagination", as they explore the greater sociological, historical, and personal implications and antecedents of incarceration. Through the University Behind Bars, prisoners in medium security custody of a Washington State Prison are offered free education and an opportunity for greater insight and understanding of themselves and society. Please visit:SEDU for more information. 

In Development: A feature length documentary exploring the effects of liberal arts education on transformative experience in prison and its impact on the inmates sense of agency in community issues." 


Education alone won't prevent inmates, especially violent inmates from ever committing another felony, especially a violent felony and returning back to prison and now serving an either longer sentence than they had before and becoming a even more of a drain on the free society. But without a real education that includes high school, but college or vocational, as well as real work experience in the legitimate field that they've been trained to work in, these men will definitely return to prison. 

If the only thing that prison inmates learn in prison is how to survive in prison and become better criminals and pick up additional criminal skills in prison, then that's what they're going to return to on the outside, if they're released from prison. And most people in prison today will be released from prison. And most of those folks today will return to prison in the future, especially if all they learned in prison was how to become better criminals.