America’s Recidivism Problem Will Be Fixed Through Prison Education Programs

The United States' prisoner recidivism problem has been prominent for long now. The country's government believes that reforming the criminal justice system and introducing correctional education programs will solve this problem.

Prisoners Are Ill-Prepared To Get Out Of Jail

Recidivism pertains to a prisoner's relapse into criminal behavior after he/she gets sanctions or undertakes intervention for a past criminal offense. This year, over 600,000 people will go out from prison and return to American communities, and around one-third of those individuals are expected to be rearrested during the first year out of jail, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. Half will be rearrested within three years, and over three-quarters in the course of five years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics noted.

The problems faced by the criminal justice system begin long before prisoners get out of jail. Majority of the 2.2 million people locked in jail currently don't have a high school degree and don't have the necessities needed to get their lives back on track after prison. That includes lack of education, skills and work experience, a separate report from the Bureau of Justice Statistics stated.

Programs To Reduce Recidivism

The criminal justice system is working on this problem by providing prison education and re-entry programs focusing on technical training and other resources to help imprisoned people adjust well to a life outside of jail. Those programs include college and GED courses, seminars on Shakespeare, life skill classes and entrepreneurship courses. These don't just help prisoners adjust to society, but it also reduces incarceration cost in the U.S. by almost $80 billion annually, according to the U.S. News & World Report.

Two programs have been launched to reduce recidivism. California's San Quentin Prison has the Prison University Project while Texas offers the Prison Entrepreneurship Program. Both of these prison programs saw successful results in recidivism.

At North Idaho Correctional Institution, a therapy-based treatment for recidivism is seeing positive outcomes. The program redirects prisoners' aggressive thinking into a more socially acceptable one that helps them stay out of trouble. The program is made up of four components: Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Substance Abuse, Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Substance Abuse, Thinking for a Change and Aggression Replacement Training, Twin Falls Times-News listed.

Numerous bills like the Recidivism Reduction Act of 2016 (H.R. 759) and the Sentencing Reform Act (H.R. 3713) were launched as proof of the commitment to criminal justice reforms. Those bills have passed the House Judiciary Committee with the help of several senators and even House Speaker Paul Ryan.