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Rebutting the Austin Statesman on cutting vocational ed for prisoners

The Austin Statesman today editorialized against providing post-secondary vocational courses to Texas prison inmates, and made this flawed argument (rebutted over the last few days in the comments to this Grits post):So far, the state has spent $26.9 million on the program, which is based on the proven notion that recidivism rates can be lowered if inmates leave prison with more education than they had when they arrived.The cost of the program was to have been borne by the inmates in it. After being released from prison, they are supposed to repay the state for the college-level and vocational courses they took while incarcerated.Predictably, the repayment rate has been less than adequate. The American-Statesman's Mike Ward reported this week that only 6,630 of the 22,000 former convicts who took the courses have made full repayment...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on March 26, 2011 (boomark / email).