Negative Feedback Fails to Consider Justice

Over the last couple of years, the prison where I am housed has received a lot of press. In the year I have been at this facility, I have seen news media on the grounds at least a half dozen times, and I have seen the resulting coverage on TV. This is quite unusual for prison, and it is especially unusual to see positive news coverage of prison. But good things are happening at this facility, both in terms of the Calvin Prison Initiative that I am a part of and the Vocational Village where hundreds of soon-to-be-released prisoners are receiving vocational training so they can be successfully employed upon release from prison. These are exciting, positive developments in the Michigan Department of Corrections, yet not everyone is happy about it. 

At a recent church service in prison, the volunteer was illustrating a point by sharing that after recent positive news coverage of these programs was posted on a news website, a large number of negative comments were posted by viewers. Apparently, some of the public resents that prisoners are offered a free college education (through the generous donations of others!) or given vocational training for employment readiness. As a prisoner, these sentiments are hurtful, but I can understand, to a degree, the feeling these opponents have. Some of these opponents likely have to go into debt for their own or their children's education, so why should prisoners be given a free college degree or vocational training? Isn't that rewarding bad behavior? 

The fact remains that the majority of prisoners are uneducated or under-educated, and studies have shown that education reduces recidivism. The opponents of prisoner education may object on financial grounds, but since education of prisoners is proven to reduce re-offense rates, investigation in educating prisoners actually reduces the overall costs to taxpayers. Crime is expensive, but preventing future crime is not only a sound financial investment, it also pays big dividends in reducing the human cost of crime. Education on its own is not a fix-it-all--some of the prisoners educated at this facility will likely return to prison--but if educating a prisoner keeps that person from harming the loved ones of these opponents, I bet those opponents would change their opinions.

It is easy to judge others when you don't know them--and perhaps people are justified in resenting those who have committed crimes--but making moral judgments about a criminal's unworthiness to be educated fails to consider the cost of releasing uneducated prisoners who have not been properly rehabilitated back into society. And most prisoners will be released from prison. Justice is not limited to getting a conviction and sending a person to prison. Justice also involves investing in healing the people damaged by crime--including the victims, offenders, families of victims and offenders, and communities. Education is one small way to bring about healing and transformation to those who have damaged themselves and others through crime.