Last week Nicolai wrote, “Prison is made to protect the public from criminals and punish them for their wrongdoings. There is no hope for them. Especially the prisoners who have done a capital offense. Once a criminal always a criminal. But seeing how this book is about a prisoner who changed his life around gives me a little hope. Maybe they can fit correctly into society. Mrs. Zandarski’s friend is a huge example of that. That person was able to turn their life around and become a better person. That really gives me a lot of hope. But I still think we have to be careful. Yes we can try educating them but if I’m going to be honest here, I do not think that it will help most people. Laura Bates got lucky with Newton.”
If what Nicolai writes is true, then we can believe that it is certain people’s fate to commit crimes and go to prison. We can all think about someone who has been given multiple opportunities to avoid trouble, parole, probation, plea bargains, yet that person still ends up committing crime. Antidotes like these seem to support the idea of ‘once a criminal always a criminal’
On the other hand, Deciedra wrote, “To be honest, education in prison hits a certain part of my heart because I am very close to someone who got her G.E.D. in a federal prison. It added so much positivity to her life and she became a completely different person… According to Eric Westervelt, npr.org, “Inmates who took college-level courses while in prison saw a 16 percent drop in their risk of reincarceration.” So yes, I believe that even the most “dangerous” of prisoners deserve to be educated. Upon their release, we expect them to earn a living the legal way and not by committing more crimes, but if we take education away, that does not leave much room for opportunity. I believe that those who want help SHOULD be helped. We should not punish people who want to turn their lives around to be better people.”
If what Deciedra writes is true, then as a we have an obligation to educate prisoners. According to Westervelt, prison education benefits a person but it also benefits all of society.
When we consider the obstacles that some people face to succeed we should think about the idea of fate versus free-will. Do you think we are determined to walk a certain path? Are some people destined to end up in trouble regardless of the interventions (education, chances, etc) available? There is the idea that many people are ‘born on third base’ and despite having to do some (or perhaps a lot of) work to get to home base (an education) there were relatively few obstacles to prevent that from happening. While other people were not ‘born on third base’ and must work so much harder and over-come so much more to round the bases and make score a run (get an education). Is it their fate to struggle, while it was someone else’s fate to succeed? Or it is all due to hard work and choosing your destiny? Are the prisoners in the article or the book destined to be in prison or do they have the free-will to change their fate? On what do you base your ideas?
Westervelt, Eric. “Measuring the Power of a Prison Education” NPR July 31, 2015. Online. http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2015/07/31/427741914/measuring-the-power-of-a-prison-education