State Senator Ted O’Brien, a Democrat, has come out against a proposal by Governor Andrew Cuomo to give state prison inmates access to college degree programs.Â
“We should not spend taxpayer money on funding college classes for inmates when rising tuition rates are preventing so many hardworking young people who have done nothing wrong from going to college,” says O’Brien in a press release. “However well-intentioned, I cannot support a policy that would divert resources away from helping students in good standing and their families afford a quality education.”Â
Many people in the state’s jails and prisons will someday be released back into the community, but statistics show that 40 percent will end up back in jail or prison.
Those odds drop, Cuomo says, if former inmates have a college degree. It costs the state $60,000 a year to house an inmate, he says, but only $5,000 a year to provide an inmate with college instruction. Under Cuomo’s proposal, inmates would be able to earn an associate’s or bachelor’s degree in two-and-a-half or three years. Those degrees are about the minimum required to get a decent job nowadays.
“Someone who leaves prison with a college degree has a real shot at a second lease on life because their education gives them the opportunity to get a job and avoid falling back into a cycle of crime,” Cuomo says.
This article appears in Mar 5-11, 2014.
Ted O’Brien is trying to appease voters here. Cuomo is spending a little to save a lot. This education gives hope and help to people. Long-term, crime and numbers in prisons will go down. Cops and wardens will inevitably lose their jobs. And this is a GOOD thing!
It may not seem fair to educate prisoners, but if this leads to lower taxes and less crime, then I’m all for it.
Unless shown proof elsewhere, I’m sure the $5,000 comes out of our taxes. Instead of forcibly educating criminals who made a conscious choice to commit an act against our society’s laws, how about we take that $5,000 per inmate and put it into the chronically underfunded State University and City University system? Most criminals have rational choice. Very few are forcibly coerced into turning to crime. They could stay in school and go to college, without being a convicted criminal behind bars when they do it. I did. Thousands and thousands of other college graduates of the SUNY and CUNY system did. WHY ON EARTH should taxpayers have to pay $65,000 so a criminal with a better than 50:50 chance of reoffending can get a degree in painting or poetry or whatever? If they want to go to community college after they finish their prison sentence, take loans and fellowships like everyone else and get a college degree. But it is offensive to me and many, many others that we should have to pay for a convicted murderer or rapist or burglar to get a college degree from our tax dollars when many of us spend YEARS earning our degrees while holding down legitimate jobs and keeping out of trouble. This is offensive.
I would rather have some of my tax dollars invested in an inmate’s. education rather than a lifetime of unemployment benefits, food stamps and other public assistance.
I agree with Cuomo on this issue.
“Ted O’Brien is trying to appease voters here.” In other words, he’s representing his constituents, correct?
Sean…they are not planning to force all NY inmates into college courses. It will be an option for those interested and capable.
O’Brien is saying the right thing (opposing Cuomo’s plan) for the wrong reason (not enough ‘resources’). Many New Yorkers are insulted by the proposal to reward convicts with a free college education. O’Brien is following his constituents’ wishes but still playing to liberals (calling the plan ‘well-intentioned’).
The simple solution is to require those who ‘graduate’ from prison with a college degree pay the state back for the cost of their education – just like they would have to pay back a student loan. Why is the only option to give away FREE college degrees?
So giving free college degrees to prisoners is an “investment” to keep them off unemployment and welfare? How about we also give them jobs, cars to get to and from work and free mortages too. We have to spend tax dollars to house, guard, clothe and feed prisoners. We shouldn’t have to give them free college degrees.