Inmate Education Called Best Deterrent

A new study reports that prison education programs are the cheapest, most effective means of cutting recidivism. With national rearrest rates for adult offenders at 60% and nearly 80% for juveniles, the study finds that inmates with at least two years of college education had better chances of getting jobs and a recidivism rate of only 10%. Nancy Mahon, director of the Center on Crime, Communities and Culture, said that the study by the nonprofit group showed that prison-based education “may be the single best crime prevention approach we have.”