Education and vocational skills are mandatory in life. Education factors all aspects of life. Without a proper education one is limited to basic life rewards. Not to say that money is the only reason for an education, but it seems to be the force that drives offenders to keep offending. If one does not possess a basic education then the next best thing would be vocational training. Vocational training is an excellent way for some of the low educated people to get out of the life that put them in prison and to achieve a positive position in society. Education is the area that society needs to be concerned with, according to a study by Beck and Shipley . The study was conducted on 16,000 prisoners from 11 states in the effort to reduce on recidivism. The study showed that “62.5% were rearrested for a felony or serious misdemeanor within 3 years.” This study proved that prisoners with an eighth grade education or lower were rearrested at a rate of 61.9%, while those who were high school graduates were rearrested at a rate of 57.4%. Just by the numbers alone one can conclude that an education is vital to the rehabilitation of offenders. There are many types of education that offenders can utilize. Many prisons already have programs established to help people incarcerated to obtain an education. Programs designed to help offenders to read and write, get a General Education Development (GED) certificate, and Clifton 2vocational training. Most of these programs are already in place and are effectively working. The problem occurs when prisoners are not exposed to the education while incarcerated. Programs should be mandatory and a convict should not be released until they have obtained a GED.The South Carolina Department of Corrections also completed a study , which stated that offenders who attained their General Education Development (GED) only 22% of the offender’s recidivated, while 35% who had not rece...
