John B. King Jr., President and CEO, The Education Trust, discusses the need to increase access to education to end mass incarceration.
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world with more than two million Americans incarcerated today. To end mass incarceration, access to education must be expanded.
Structural barriers limit access to opportunity for marginalized communities, including inadequate educational experiences, insufficient job training, and institutional bias. We need to rethink our approach to reentry to enable formerly incarcerated people to find career-pathway jobs, pursue educational opportunities, and secure housing. Instead of doubling down on mass incarceration, states and communities should rethink public funding decisions by investing in education and dismantling the school to prison pipeline to make universal, high quality, early childhood education a reality. Additionally, the restoration of Pell Grants for prison education would support and grow higher education programs for those who are incarcerated and formerly incarcerated. The RAND Corporation study shows that participation in education programs while incarcerated lowers recidivism by 43%. Education in prison provides skills for success for returning citizens, as well as a vision for the future.
