Yale, U. New Haven partnership celebrates first inmate graduates

Yale, University of New Haven partnership celebrates first degrees awarded to inmates

https://apnews.com/article/fde5d30dff9fd84dc1a7dc2d7c594abf

I'm a big fan of prison education.

 

So am I, but not for every prisoner. I know of one man, from my town, who was in jail for many years. He killed his wife and two small children and hid the bodies, two of which were eventually recovered. While in prison, he earned a couple of degrees at taxpayer expense - at least one a master's.

He has consistently denied his guilt, and this, for many years, cost him any chance of parole. Despite this, he was finally granted parole in 2021, after 44 years behind bars. He is now 79 years of age. Story here:

https://www.thespec.com/life/local-history/spec175/2021/09/04/hamilton-jon-rallo-murder.html

I contend that educating this guy and others like him in prison, on the public purse, is a quasi-criminal waste of money. Prison education is a great thing - but it has to be deserved. There has to be at least some semblance of "admission standards."

 

“Deserve” is a dangerous coin on both sides. Regardless, most inmates should be on a path to release with the goal to reduce recidivism. The “ship has sailed” on any previous crimes, our only goal has to be reducing likelihood of reoffending and doing additional harm to others in the future. Crime costs us more at the community level than most people realize, education is a small price to pay (especially compared with the endless loop of locking up large percentages of the population) to reduce crime where we can and maybe even create a citizen that has a place in the community.

 

Yes - but in this case, with such an egregious crime and 47 years so far of denial without a shred of evidence, I think it's fair to say there was no prospect of accomplishing any of that. And - correction, Jon Rallo is now 80 years old - not 79.

The money wasted educating this man could have been better spent - perhaps educating some young person who would go on to SAVE lives instead of destroying them.

 

Thinking it over, maybe I'm on this kick because I've long resented the opportunity for education offered to Jon Rallo, in particular.

Why did I resent it? He and I are the same age, from the same town. Both of us, at age 33 - in the same year - had two young children - and marriages coming apart. Rallo attempted to solve his problem by killing his family. We solved ours by splitting up, the following year. Nobody of my tribe got killed.

Later, I heard about Rallo's education in jail. I resented that highly, because at the time I wanted to pursue my own, but I just didn't have the money, after meeting my other obligations. A few years went by and financially, things got easier and I went back to night school while working. It always sucked, to me, that a killer got free tuition and I had to pay.

I can see where @JBjunior is right --- and yes, now I see that just because no societal good came out of Rallo's prison education does NOT mean we should deny it to anyone. Nothing works 100% the way we want it. But prison education - yes, I suppose the odds are well worth playing. I can't argue with the overall good result. Thanks for your patience.

It's taken me 47 years to learn this lesson. I'm certainly no speed demon...

 

I agree that prison education is largely like any normal investment system. Sometimes, your investments do poorly and you lose money. But, when you diversify, you're more likely to earn money on the whole.

Gatekeeping prison education is a lack of diversification. You're more likely to get a "poor return" on your time/money investment because there are so few investments being made.

Does it suck that prisoners can earn degrees when a lot of people on the outside cannot? Absolutely! But the solution should be to provide more resources to everyone, not to restrict people from being able to get a degree.