Reversing the Poverty-to-Prison Pipeline: Correctional Education as a Means of Rehabilitative Justice

• In Event: Addressing Educational Challenges: Justice, Rural Higher Ed, Pandemic Impact, Attention Economy, and Urban Gentrification

Abstract

For centuries now, the American prison system has been a topic of great contention, with the emphasis and purpose of it shifting constantly between punitive measures and rehabilitative justice. This study briefly explores this shift through the historical context of reform efforts during the Antebellum Era and, more recently, the Law and Order Era in order to make sense of the current state of prisoner rehabilitation efforts in the United States. One purpose of this study is to highlight the inadequacy of the "tough-on-crime" philosophy that dominated the Law and Order era by discussing the benefits of correctional education that it initially hindered, including social mobility, personal development, and self-efficacy, which have all recently been contributing to reduced recidivism rates for formerly incarcerated individuals and other positive societal outcomes since the resurgence of prison education programs in the twenty-first century. To come to this conclusion, the author used the historical & social mode of inquiry along with information gathered from interviews, other scholarly journals, and statistical meta-analyses of the U.S. prison population and other demographics. The controversial nature of the aforementioned political philosophy, as well as correctional education itself, warrants argument as both are polarizing topics in today’s social climate. Despite the challenges and potential drawbacks discussed, the author ultimately adopts a perspective in favor of correctional education, with the paper arguing for democratizing it to ensure its widespread accessibility, suggesting various funding options along with the expansion of technological resources as potential methods to achieve this goal. The paper is scholarly significant in the sense that it offers correctional education as a solution needed to break the cycle of mass incarceration that has plagued the United States and create a more just and prosperous country, highlighting the transformational impact it can have on incarcerated individuals and society as a whole.

Author

• Nkechinyelum Nwoye, The Pennington School