Essay On Why Prisoners Should Receive Pell Grant

The government is considering the pilot program allowing inmates to receive Pell Grants in order to further their education, but I ask why someone who has broken the law, is entitled to free education. The grants usually are invested in someone that is trying to get an education in order to be able to support themselves and possibly their family at a higher level. In the long run, the money that the government invests in the student will have a positive return with a contribution to society and the economy. For this reason, the grants should not be offered to inmates that are incarcerated for long terms or life because it would not accomplish any benefit to society or to their family.
There is a large amount of funding that is continuously …show more content…
There are some inmates that have learned from their mistakes and feel that receiving a higher education will help them secure a job that will provide for their needs and will reduce the temptation to break the law again. It is common knowledge that receiving an education helps you feel more accomplished and gives you a positive feeling of self-esteem, which in turn influences your behavior. This would also benefit not only their own personal life but the life of their family members, such as parents, siblings, spouse and children. During the time they are serving their time plus receiving the education, their time will be used constructively for a more positive outcome. It would be interesting to see if the inmates that are receiving this Pell grant benefit show an improvement of behavior, helping the facility by not being so …show more content…
Among those stipulations, I believe the length of their sentence and what their offence was, should be taken into consideration. If the inmate has had a history of being a repeat offender, I believe this should eliminate them from the program because they have proven to be untrustworthy and should be considered a high risk. There has been times in the past that inmates are awarded a shorter prison time for good behavior so who is to know if the program is being used to provide a faster release time. The programs that are put into place, should have some type of follow-up for at least five years after they are released in order to see how successful the program is proving to be as far as how well they are able sustain themselves and if they are actually using their education in the fields they were educated