The formerly incarcerated are often relegated to the lowest rung of the educational ladder, a recent report concludes.
Prisoners and former prisoners “rarely get the chance to make up for the educational opportunities from which they’ve been excluded,” according to “Getting Back on Course: Educational exclusion and attainment among formerly incarcerated people,” published in prisonpolicy.org.
“Education is especially critical for people seeking employment after release from prison,” the report stated.
The October 2018 report is based on data from the National Former Prisoner Survey. It “revealed a staggering 27 percent unemployment rate among formerly incarcerated people…and the outlook is particularly bleak for people of color. ”
The report was produced by Lucius Couloute, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
The “overly punitive disciplinary policies and practices contribute to the criminalization—and ultimately, incarceration—of large numbers of youth,” the report said.
Twenty-nine percent to 41 percent of Black and Brown men and women, who were formerly held in prison, do not have a basic high school diploma or GED. The rates of unemployment of formerly prison-bound White, Black and Brown people without a high school diploma range from 25 percent for White men to 47 percent for Hispanic women.
