The American prison system will release more than 600,000 prisoners this year -- and half will commit new crimes and be back in prison three years from now. There is at least one proven way to break the cycle. Researchers have discovered and rediscovered that inmates who earn college degrees tend to stay out of jail. But former offenders have found it increasingly hard to educate themselves and gear up for productive lives since Congress began to cut them off from federal education aid in the 1990's.
Congress may be ready to consider at least a half-step back from that
mistake. Lawmakers may not be prepared to revisit the federal ban that
made convicted felons ineligible for Pell grants, the federal tuition
aid aimed primarily at poor and middle-income students. But the House of
Representatives is at least talking about changing the 1998 law under
which more than 140,000 students have been turned down for federal
student loans because of drug offenses, some of which are minor and a
decade old.
The law was not supposed to work this way. According to Representative
Mark Souder, the Indiana Republican who wrote the measure, it was aimed
only at students who committed drug crimes while receiving federal
loans. But the law has instead been applied to every applicant with a
drug conviction, even if the conviction was so minor as to carry no jail
time, and even if it occurred long before the student ever envisioned
going to college. Mr. Souder has put forth a revised version of the law
that would return to his original intent.
That would be an improvement, but student aid should still not be turned
into a law enforcement weapon, particularly for those convicted of minor
offenses that a court would appropriately dismiss with a fine or
probation. Congress should repeal this law instead of just tinkering
with it. Beyond that, the country needs to back away from all policies
that prevent ex-convicts from attending college, because college is the
one sure way to get them back into the mainstream and keep them out of
jail.
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