Many people would agree that continuing an education is key to surviving in society. Therefore, education is essential and every individual needs to acquire some type of skill or degree, regardless of how or where they obtain it. Even though people believe that education is important, others disagree with education being taught in prison. Prison education is providing inmates with an opportunity to enhance their education. They are offered general education courses needed to attain a G. E. D, and courses they need for a higher education. Many of the inmates are high school dropouts and only have an eighth grade education or less. Providing prisoners opportunities for education it will benefit society as well as inmates. Education will help them adjust to civilization, reduce inmate recidivism rates, and provide job skills they can use in the work force after being released and contribute as a productive taxpayer.
Since 1980, the inmate population has multiplied sevenfold. As a result, California has built twenty-one new prisons and only one university. The cost for these new prisons was $5.3 Billion dollars. In the United States it costs about $20,000 per year to imprison an inmate. Multiply this number by $1.6 million, the number of people locked in prison in this Country, and you will see how expensive incarceration can be (Garmin 2002). For that reason, by educating prisoners it provides an opportunity for them to learn how to become productive citizens in society while also saving taxpayers millions of dollars.
For many people to succeed they have to be motivated, it is hard to stay focused when so many obstacles are put in front of anyone. Education can reinforce goals they may have, their cultural beliefs, also implicate how important getting an education really is. Many people lose that focus when they feel that they are not meeting up to the expectation given to them, once that occurs they lose their desire to have a gratifying and productive life.