Ohio prisons release 18,000 people each year on average. Those who participate in some type of education program while incarcerated were up to 43-percent less likely to return to prison and were 13-percent more likely to be employed, according to a RAND Corporation Survey. “Research is very clear that post-secondary achievement does reduce recidivism.” “This is an investment in the people’s lives to allow them to leave us and not come back,” Sanders said. OCSS also offers apprenticeships and career technical training opportunities in over 25 career tech fields, Sanders said. Through the OCSS, those who are incarcerated can earn their GED, associates or bachelor’s degree. All 28 of Ohio’s adult prisons have educational opportunities, said OCSS Superintendent Jennifer Sanders. The OCSS is a state-supported school system through the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC) that provides educational opportunities to the incarcerated. RiCI enrolled 738 students in various Ohio Central School System (OCSS) programs, and there were an additional 143 students in apprentices in July, said JoEllen Smith, spokesperson for Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (ODRC). “Those are the guys who, hopefully, aren’t getting into as many fights.” “The Level 1 and 2s, what we decided, are those are our guys who are conducive to learning,” Black said. Ohio has five levels of prison security - with Level E being the highest. A prisoner’s behavior determines what level they are in. It is a Level 1 and Level 2 facility, meaning it has the lowest level of security. RiCI, which opened in 1998, sits next to the Ohio State Reformatory, where “The Shawshank Redemption” was filmed. The Ohio Capital Journal recently toured the education classes offered at Richland Correctional Institution (RiCI), a prison in Mansfield with about 2,560 incarcerated men. “When I started going through a lot of classes, and then I had little gradual successes, that built up my confidence, and I realized, wow, I can do so much more.” “What education does is it opens up a whole other world to a person and makes them just more confident in themselves,” Bass said. Before prison, his highest academic attainment was graduating high school. The 60-year-old was sentenced to prison in 1990 for murder and was recently granted parole. Read the first story here.ĭexter Bass earned his bachelor’s degree from Ashland University behind bars.
#MANSFIELD NEWS JOURNAL CLASSIFIED SERIES#
This is the second in a series of stories about education opportunities in Ohio’s prisoners.
0 kommentar(er)
