Formative Education Changs People

I love to learn new things. I am intensely curious about the world, and it just so happens that education is a key to lowering recidivism (re-offense) rates in prisoners. This benefit is not the driving factor for my love of learning, but it certainly drives my passion for prisoner education. If educating prisoners will reduce the victimization of other people in the communities to which these prisoners return, why would anyone NOT want to invest in prisoner education? Education itself, though, is not a magic remedy for the ills of criminality. For education to really change a person's thinking (and therefore behavior), education must be more than instructive--it must also be formative. Men who come to prison are often uneducated or undereducated, so their worldview is formed predominantly by the culture and community in which they live. This is true not only of prisoners but of undereducated free citizens as well. Culture and community, as well as one's family, serve to form how one views oneself and the world in which one lives. When one's worldview approves of antisocial behavior, it very well may lead one to prison. Whether this worldview is filled with antisocial views or those views are simply present in some areas, the culture of prison and its pervasive criminal mentality often serves to reinforce these antisocial views and behaviors. Prison is already a formative place, and without intentionally positive education, the negative, criminal culture of prison only reinforces the antisocial worldviews held by so many prisoners. So, how can education be formative in addition to instructional? How can education interrupt and change the worldviews of prisoners that led them to harm others? For education to be instructive and formative, it must start with and be firmly tied to moral formation. All crime boils down to a corruption or violation of the morality espoused by a culture, so to change the corrupt, immoral behaviors that lead one to prison, one's moral foundation must be reformed. If communities want their citizens who return from prison to be safe, contributing members of the community, they must demand morally formative education from the institution that is responsible for rehabilitating its incarcerated citizens.