For this reason, educating inmates or prisoners saves the public a lot of finances in the long run and the community can feel much safer once the inmates are released. The college education is seen to reduce recidivism, thereby reducing crime rates and contributing towards the safety and well-being of the community (Zambre & Quinsey, 1997, p.98). This in turn has a far-reaching potential of reducing entire scale of the prison population and thereby cutting down prison costs. To some extent, therefore, college education has multiple public benefits in terms of increasing tax revenue and societal productivity, while it reduces reliance on support from the government.
The college education in prisons also has a democratizing effect. By giving inmates liberal arts from the college studies, they are able to develop free thinking and thereby becoming humane and independently minded citizens, which constitute a foundation for a genuine democratic society. As they acquire the knowledge of history, the inmates feel engaged in the discussion as the democracy creates an endless democratic principles cycle and engenders a society whose citizens are participants and have stake in the system. By becoming democratic citizens, they know better how to protect the environment and will avoid committing crimes against it. .
The offered college education in prisons acts as an avenue towards recovering and protecting an individual's dignity in prison. The education offers a modicum for the authority required in self-creation of a person, and makes the inmates in some modest way become masters of their own minds. It does not only increase their adaptability, but also gives them ability to do well and exercise discipline. In addition, through the college education children are inspired by their parents to take education more seriously, and begin seeing viable options to dropping out of school and engaging in criminal activities, thus, it helps to break a harrowing cycle of intergenerational incarceration (Sanford & Foster, 2006, p.
