Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Prison
August 2014 | Chronicle of Higher Education
At a dinner party honoring a member of the Romanian armed forces who had recently graduated from West Point, our esteemed guest politely asked me what I did for a living. He seemed shocked when I told him, “I teach college courses to prison inmates.”
“Why would you do something like that?” he asked.
Why? Because of the three significant factors in reducing recidivism, education is the one that we can really do something about. The other two are age (people over 40 are far less likely to commit another crime that lands them in prison) and a spiritual program of some kind. It’s the trifecta of education, maturity, and introspection that is truly effective in changing these men’s lives for the better. …