Study Shows Lower Recidivism among GED Recipients
A study released by John Nuttal and the Correctional Education Association indicates that inmates who earn a GED are less likely to commit future crimes and be re-incarcerated.
Judge Mathis, star of the syndicated court show named after him, grew up in the housing projects in Detroit. He was involved in gangs. He spent time in jail. How did he pull himself out? After learning that his mother had cancer, Mathis decided it was time to change the course of his life. He was offered probation, if he entered a GED program. He didn’t stop at a GED. He went on to college and law school, and he became the youngest superior court judge ever to serve in Michigan.
Judge Mathis’s story is an exceptional one. Over one third of prison inmates, 37 percent in 2003, do not have a high school diploma or a GED. With a prison record and no diploma, few potential jobs are available for these prisoners on release. Intuitively, it seems that GED education is a positive step for both inmates and the overcrowded prison system, and a recent study supports that idea.
John Nuttall authored the study “The Effect of Earning a GED on Recidivism Rates,” which includes data on three groups of inmates in the New York State Department of Correctional Services. The study tracked inmates who earned a GED while incarcerated, inmates who already had a high school diploma or GED, and inmates who did not earn a GED while incarcerated. Inmates who earned their GED were significantly less likely to return to custody within three years. Offenders under the age of 21 who earned their GED were 14% less likely to return to prison within three years, while prisoners over 21 were 5% less likely to return to prison after earning a GED. A copy of Nuttall’s study is available here: http://essentialed.org/research.htm
“GED programs are not new in correctional facilities,” says Michael Ormsby, president of The GED Academy, a GED preparatory company. “But correctional facilities often have limited funding, and many inmates do not function well in traditional school environments.”
Ormsby is enthusiastic about the potential benefits of technology-based educational tools for correctional facility environments. “Multi-media educational software offers learners the ability to work at their own pace, appeals to multiple learning styles, and can be enjoyable and involving. Software-based GED preparation programs are also inexpensive to implement.”
The potential return on an investment of $50 to $200 per adult learner could be significant, considering the costs of re-incarcerating a prisoner. The U.S. Department of Justice reports an average cost of $24,440 a year per Federal prisoner, and in some state prison systems, the costs are even higher. Ormsby sums up the cost-versus-reward argument: “If you spend $2,000 on ten inmates’ GEDs, and then just one prisoner does not return to prison because of it, the prison system saves $20,000 for every year that prisoner would have been incarcerated.”
For more information about GED preparation programs in correctional facilities, visit: http://essentialed.org/corrections.htm
