A quote usually attributed to the English poet Samuel Johnson says that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions”. The substance of this statement clearly indicates that good intention, by themselves, are not enough when dealing with human problems. Kindness, compassion, and empathy are very good qualities, however, there have been instances in which they do more damage than good. That usually occurs when the individual who shows such qualities does not take a moment to consider the ultimate repercussions of his attitudes.
This, in part, seems to be the case of Stefan LoBuglio when, in his article Time to Reframe Politics and Practices in Correctional Education. Although the article contains certain valid points that seem to be well documented, a substantial portion of the article is characterized by expressions of kindness from a man who has, no doubt, a good heart, but does not seem to fully consider the practicality of what he is asking for. Let’s consider, for instance, the main premise upon which LoBuglio constructs his entire article. His main assumption is that the inmates want to be educated.
The implicit idea is that they are receptive to any good program implemented by the government. From the very beginning, LoBuglio presents education as a magic formula to change the lives of inmates. By improving the opportunity for these individuals to secure and retain employment in better-paying jobs, society could reap huge long-term benefits in terms of greater family stability, lower rates of child poverty, reduced welfare payments, lowered crime rates, improved civic life, along with many social indicators of well-being. (LoBuglio, 1999)
It does not occur to him that, maybe, just maybe, the majority of the inhabitants of the prison system are interested in education. In order to recognize the possibility of such terrible reality, one would have to exercise a degree of intellectual honesty, understood as the ability to let facts and thoughts take us to the correct conclusion, regardless of how terrible it may be. After having thoroughly read this article, it is unavoidable to arrive at the conclusion that LoBuglio is doing something more than presenting a picture of the current deficiencies of the correctional system.
He is, instead, doing ideological work. Here are some of the reasons that validate the previous statement. It is obvious that LoBuglio thinks that more education is needed if we want to properly reform the system; his intention is to present such education as beneficial to society. Well, one of the main questions regarding the issue of educating prisoners is if more education necessarily means a reduction in recidivism (which means that a given offender violates the law after being released). How does LoBuglio deals with this issue?
He explains that “For the past half-century, researchers in the field of adult treatment programs for offenders have attempted to find statistically significant and causal connections between treatment programming and reduced recidivism in literally thousands of studies” (1999). LoBuglio recognizes that all those studies do not produce substantial statistical data to clarify if recidivism is reduced by education. He explains that most of those studies contain methodological errors and that it is not possible to fully trust in their results.
All this is fine, but the problem arises when we notice that LoBoglio uses the information presented by three studies that seem to support his opinion that education reduces recidivism, although he recognize that those studies contain methodological errors as well. LoBuglio had first stated that there is a lack of correctional education programs and that this is one of the reasons why recidivism is so high. But how does he explain the high index of recidivism even in areas or districts where there is an abundance of educational programs for inmates?
Since most of the studies demonstrate that recidivism is not substantially reduced or not reduced at all by educational programs, LoBoglio then decides to question the quality of the programs. If part of the explanation for the ambiguous findings linking programs to reduced recidivism rates is poorly and inadequately designed correctional education programs, another part is that most of the evaluations of these programs are methodologically flawed. (1999) But, again, he uses three of those methodologically flawed studies to prove his points.
LoBuglio, however, recognizes that there are very good programs in certain states. In spite of that, he does not offer specific data on how those good programs have positively contributed to the correctional system or to society as a whole. However, to be honest, it must be recognized that this article contains a substantial degree of truth, especially when discussing the general situation of the correctional system in the US. We could do nothing but agree when LoBuglio says: In corrections today, the fluidity of the offender population is also an obstacle to education.
At the end of 1998, the country’s state and federal prisons were operating at between 113 percent and 127 percent of their rated capacities. (1999) One of the points that LoBuglio also tries to make, is that the reason why the majority of Americans do not support giving PELL grants and other federal financial assistance to prisoners is that they wrongly believe that this is done by giving them money that would otherwise go to law-abiding citizens. LoBoglio insists that such perception is wrong. But he fails to explain his assertions. But, isn’t this precisely what occurs when federal money is used for the benefits of inmates?
That money comes from federal fund destined to education, it is clear that giving it to prisoners would mean not giving it to law-abiding citizens. In this respect, he is absolutely right. These conditions most be improved, in order to provide those who are really interested in reforming themselves the opportunity to reintegrate into society in the less traumatic manner. There are countless cases in which certain individuals have been able reconsider the purpose and conditions of their life and had become productive members of their community.
But, once again, this seems to happen exclusively at the individual level. In other words, the masses of the inmates are not in the business of getting reformed by educational programs. LoBuglio has, no doubt, very good intentions, but he does not seem to carefully consider the implications of what he proposes. He is being guided, it appears to be, by liberal ideals that may sound very good, but vanish as soon as they touch reality.
References
LoBuglio, Stefan, Time to Reframe Politics and Practices in Correctional Education, NCSALL http://www. ncsall. net/? id=560
