From Cellblocks to Classrooms: Reforming Inmate Education To Improve Public Safety
According to national research, academic and vocational programs can significantly reduce the likelihood that offenders will commit new offenses and return to prison. Despite these findings, the state offers these programs to only a relatively small segment of the inmate population. Moreover, the inmate education programs that do exist suffer from a number of problems that limit their effectiveness at reducing recidivism. To improve prison education programs and public safety, we recommend several structural reforms to increase the performance, outcomes, and accountability of the existing inmate education programs, as well as ways to expand their capacity at a low cost to the state.
Executive Summary
The Value of Correctional Education
Each year, more than 120,000 California state prisoners are released back into society after serving their prison sentences. As part of its mission, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) provides a number of services to prison inmates that are intended to improve their likelihood of leading a productive, crime–free life upon release to the community. One such service is education. Various studies show that correctional education potentially offers many benefits and, when good programs are implemented, can offer benefits that more than offset their costs.
Remedial Work Required for CDCR Education Programs
This report finds significant shortcomings in the state’s provision of education programs for adult inmates in California prisons. Specifically, we have found low student enrollment levels compared to the number of inmates who could benefit from these programs, inadequate participation rates by inmates, a flawed funding allocation methodology, ineffective case management, and lack of regular program evaluation. Together, these problems mean that the state’s significant investment in prison education programs is not returning the full benefits possible in the forms of lower state costs and improved public safety.
LAO Recommendations
We recommend the Legislature take several steps to improve adult prison education programs in the near term. In particular, we recommend that the state fund these programs based on attendance rather than enrollment, develop incentives for inmate participation in programs, and develop routine case management and program evaluation systems. These recommendations would better leverage the state’s existing investment in prison education programs to increase the number of inmates who participate as well as improve the quality of the programs provided. In addition, we recommend that after the state has improved the structure of its existing programs, it consider some alternatives to expand the capacity of correctional education programs. The single most significant way to expand capacity at little or no cost to the state would be to place inmates in education and work programs for half days, thereby maximizing participation through utilizing existing resources.
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LAO Recommendations to Improve
State’s Correctional Education System |
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✔ Structural changes to ensure program performance and CDCR accountability |
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Fund programs based on actual attendance, not enrollment. |
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Develop incentives for inmate participation and achievement. |
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Fill teacher vacancies. |
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Limit the negative impact of lockdowns on programs. |
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Develop a case management system that assigns inmates to most appropriate programs based on risk and needs. |
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Base education funding decisions on ongoing assessments of programs. |
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✔ Address structural problems first, expand programs later |
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✔ Future options to increase enrollment |
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Create half-day programs. |
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Partner with Prison Industries Authority to build program space. |
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Other opportunities to expand education programs. |
