25 CASES OF TIME WELL SPENT

The issue: Preparing prison inmates for a productive future upon release is a challenge that every state faces.

We can say with certainty that Connecticut recognizes — and is acting on — that front.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has made a hallmark of his tenure to embrace of the second-chance philosophy that is designed to give hope — and a future — to at least some Connecticut prison inmates.

It is a philosophy bolstered by efforts to offer the reality of rehabilitation to certain offenders, rather than just a rigid incarceration that doesn’t prepare them to re-enter society.

So it was refreshing to read an Associate Press report about the 25 Connecticut prisoners who have earned associate degrees in General Education from a 9-year-old program offered by Wesleyan University.

Sixteen men and nine women earned the degrees.

Credit certainly to Wesleyan, which has offered accredited courses to students at the Cheshire Correctional Institution for men since 2009 and expanded those offerings in 2013 to include women inmates at York Correctional Institution in Niantic. The university works in a partnership with Middlesex Community College.

Private sources, according to program director Noah Barth, pay most of the costs. Some 14 percent of the money comes from federal grants. These are dollars well spent.

What we wrote: Illequipped in many cases to meet the challenges of the outside world, released prisoners often revert to the lifestyle that put them behind bars in the first place: criminal behavior.

That we often refer to our prisons as “correctional” facilities could be considered a bit of dark humor.

Nationally, the rate of recidivism — the return to that criminal lifestyle — is 43.3 percent within three years.

Figures fluctuate considerably, but a report on Connecticut recidivism issued by the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012 found that of the 14,400 men who were released from prison in 2005, nearly 80 percent had been arrested again by 2010.

Anything we can do to help former prisoners re-enter the workplace is good for them, and good for all of us.

The recidivism rate among inmates who completed two years of college was 10 percent, and the rate among four-year college students was 5.6 percent.

The benefits seem clear: If we truly intend to correct behavior, we have to equip inmates for their future; the fewer people in prison, the fewer taxpayer dollars needed to incarcerate them; and a productive ex-convict is far less likely to pose a danger to the community.

If our prisons are to be something more than storage facilities for offenders, so many of whom are non-violent offenders, it is to all of our benefit to prepare them for life outside the walls.

We’re not suggesting coddling of any type. We believe that those convicted of crime should do their time.

Why not see that time put to a use that will be good for all of us in the long run. Editorial, Feb. 15, 2018

Anything we can do to help former prisoners re-enter the workplace is good for them, and good for all of us.