Can a College Degree Stop the Revolving Door of Prison?

The United States has more people in prison than any other country in the world. In fact, while the U.S. has roughly only 4-5% of the world’s population, it has more than 20% of the world’s incarcerated population. According to the Vera Institute of Justice, 95% of those people will one day return home to local communities. However, the sad fact is nearly two thirds of those people will end up back behind bars within three years. Yes, the good old “land of the free, and home of the brave” is successfully running a multi-billion-dollar revolving door of failure.

For decades, the judicial system, as part of sentencing, has mandated that offenders take treatment classes while serving their sentences, such as anger management and drug and alcohol treatment. The hope is that this will prevent men and women from returning to their old lives and back to prison. It is not going very well.

But what if there has been an alternative in existence for years that has real success rates? Earning an education, more specifically a post-secondary education.

According to a Federal Bureau of Prisons study, the more education earned while incarcerated, the less likely an individual is to be re-arrested or sent back to prison. Residents who achieve a high school diploma or GED have less than a 54.6% recidivism rate, whereas 13.7% of prisoners who obtain an associate’s degree reoffend, and only 5.6% of prisoners with a bachelor’s degree reoffend. The recidivism rate for prisoners who earn a master’s degree is a jaw-dropping 0%. These percentages reflect a substantial decline of recidivism rates that were more than 60%.

The North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is attempting to drop their numbers by offering residents the opportunity to participate in the Prison Education Program. While residents housed at the North Dakota State Penitentiary, Missouri River Correctional Center, and the Heart River Correctional Center are partnered with Bismarck State College, residents at the James River Correctional Center take classes through Valley City State University.

“The overall goal is to get people to earn their associate’s degree, with the intention of expanding degree options,” said Michelle Pfaff, NDDOCR superintendent of correctional education. “A college credential improves employability. When people can support themselves in a living wage job, they are far less likely to reoffend. We have a workforce shortage in North Dakota right now. This helps to prepare motivated job-ready graduates. For every dollar invested in prison education, taxpayers save four to five dollars due to reduced incarceration costs.”

Classes are taken in both online-only and hybrid formats, with some professors coming to the facility to teach certain classes. There are currently 44 students enrolled in the program statewide.

If upwards of 95% of incarcerated people are returning home to local communities, shouldn’t the prisons want to create the best neighbors possible? Which sounds like a better option: the person who spent years behind bars focused on nothing other than being angry at the world that they’re in prison, or the person who spent their time completing higher levels of education and becoming the best version of themselves as possible?

The right choice seems pretty straight forward.

As former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger once said, “to put a man behind walls to protect society and then not try to change him is to win a battle and lose a war.”