Online Education As a Part Of Prison Rehabilitation
The goal of online high schools is to be accessible to anyone who’s willing to learn; and since the campus has an online base, it meets that goal quite efficiently. Online schooling is the means of education for people with special situations, such as a learning disability or a handicap with mobility. But probably those who can gain most from the benefits of online education are the youth who are otherwise physically barred from the public school system, due to incarceration for delinquency.
Indeed, the main goal of incarceration is rehabilitation – there is a pressing need to keep the prisoner from coming back to the prison grounds when he gets out. Since many inmates are tempted to face the same temptations outside, what with a lack of opportunity to be accepted for gainful employment, education is the best antidote to their problems. They serve their time preoccupied for a worthwhile cause, learning the basic and advanced subjects of high school – something which they should have been doing in the first place.
No doubt, learning difficulties also abound inside the correction facilities as well as in the traditional classrooms, but inmates need a more customized curriculum since their educational needs are different. There are also language barriers to get through if the student population includes cultural minorities. Online education provides a solution to all these with a flexible learning pace, and lessons which are available in almost any language.
Online education may be implemented along with several incentives to drive the inmate to excel. For instance, completing a course makes a student eligible for parole consideration, or it cuts off a specific duration in the sentence which must be served. Those who competently apply themselves to the classes may also be given priority when it comes to prison employment, and incentives in the form of cash may be awarded for consistent attendance.
A diploma boosts any individual’s morale and empowers him, and if an inmate earns one under his own wings, there is an increased chance that he’ll be using the education to the society’s benefit when he goes out. In spite of criticism, there is a mounting interest on the emphasis of education, and not incarceration of prisoners; the supreme court of the state of Arizona has invested thirty-one computerized laboratories in the probation divisions across the state, and initial results show that the program has substantially reduced the chances for recidivism in the inmates who participated in the program.
Though an online high school program is essentially a state-sponsored effort, its long-term benefits are worthwhile when you consider that the average inmate hasn’t gone past the tenth grade, is functionally illiterate and may have never held a steady job because of such, and have had more then several run-ins with delinquency in the past. Education can be an empowering tool since it changes an individual; imagine the difference of having an educated and uneducated inmate walking the streets. If anyone has to choose between them, one would normally prefer a rehabilitated inmate with enough education to use for his own good, and for the good of his community. Enough said.