Editor’s note: The statistics included in this letter are from the author, not the editorial staff.
Dear Editorial Board,\nNormally you are on point in your forum. However, it seems you have neglected to look at some things. While IU participates in distance learning with inmates, neither IU nor the state of Indiana pays for this. The IDS ran several articles on this subject recently, and you should know that PRISONERS or their families must pay for distance education, period, no exceptions. If you were to look a little at your own articles or IDOC policy you would know this. According to U.S. Department of Justice statistics, two thirds of offenders are re-arrested. Half return to prison. Is it a coincidence that 68 percent of convicts don’t have a high school diploma or a G.E.D.? Many studies (which I don’t have space to quote) show education decreases recidivism rates markedly. I can spout numbers for hours, but it comes to this; Every dollar spent on inmate education brings a return/savings of $2 (business students help me here, but 100 percent return is good, no?). By spending a dollar, we save $2. Thus, educating a convict PAYS for educating a non-convict.\nWhat I really want to know is, how can you be so narrow thinking? The true reason there are prisons is to extract a toll that can’t be replaced. Any person who has spent any time imprisoned has paid for their crime, period. Suggesting that anyone blessed with an education while incarcerated should repay their grants is a cold, cold customer. Nobody repays grants; that’s why they are grants. So before you go off, maybe you should do some fact checking. A) IU doesn’t have educators going to prisons anywhere in this state (that I am aware). B) Distance learning students who are convicts pay their own way. C) Inmate educational spending returns double (or better) thus providing more money for education. D) Perhaps one-tenth of 1 percent of Pell Grants actually goes to inmate education. E) The primary source for post-secondary educational funding comes from grants paid directly to the educational institutions, never inmates.
