Criminals Need Education, Not Prison

Criminals need education, not prison

For the last decades a lively debate about the state of prisons has been given by people who are from countries with a western justice system. It is often argued inmates must be locked up and without enjoying privileges. However, the idea that prisons should offer education to inmates is more and more widespread for different reasons: reduction of crimes, saving money, solidarity, ...

One argument against the main idea that people in prison can dispose of an opportunity to be educated is that “if people often commit crimes and these are quite serious, they deserve to be in prison”. It is also believed most of them have been given a lot of opportunities and they are drifting into crime again.

Nevertheless, the experience of countries that have offered education to inmates reveals us enough positive results to continue in this way. People who are locked up can belong to different statements of the society but, mainly, they come from disadvantages social groups and are often functionally illiterate. The punishment has already been applied so, if the objective is to rehabilitate inmates and to prevent them for going back, governments should provide educational policies which improve their prospects for employment upon release.

We definitely should not consider these measures as a waste of money and energies that could be used in a better way, but as an ethical obligation, an inexcusable moral duty of developed societies and the best way to offenders reintegrate into