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BOP Education Revamp in Doubt as Chief Sacked

By Christopher Zoukis In its waning days, Obama administration officials announced plans to expand education efforts in federal prisons and to provide more direction and oversight to the programs previously run separately at each facility. Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced in late November 2016 that for the first time, the Bureau of Prisons (BOP)

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Literacy A Crucial Tool to Stem School to Prison Pipeline

By Christopher Zoukis

Across the U.S. fully 43% of adults read at a grade 8 level or lower — 29% can only read at an eighth grade level, and 14% can only grasp material at a fifth grade level or lower. Throughout the country, thousands of adults are functionally illiterate, which has a huge negative impact on their day-to-day lives. Early childhood is a crucial time to set the right path for literacy. An interest in reading is often determined as early as first grade, with fourth-grade reading levels being an indicator of future success. Research shows that children who struggle to read in first grade are 88% more likely to struggle in grade four. And those who struggle in fourth grade are four times more likely to drop out of school.

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Internet Access Is a Human Right. Should Prisoners Have It?

Allowing supervised access to the internet could help with rehabilitation and reduce recidivism. By Christopher Zoukis Internet and computer access dominates most people’s lives to a major degree in many countries around the world. More than 45 percent of the world population has an internet connection at home — that’s fast approaching 4 billion people.

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Pitfall in path to Pell Grants

The recent announcements of the pilot project restoring Pell Grants to qualified inmates has been greeted almost universally with praise; there is no question that the positive social and economic outcomes of this initiative will be huge.  But while we should certainly applaud these measures, we must remember that there’s an important step that becomes

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The surprising new source of prison education advocacy

Prison education advocacy is coming from an unlikely country: Lebanon. The country is generally only on America’s radar for its assistance in the conflict against ISIL and a fractured and complex internal political state. But despite the beleaguered state of the nation at the moment, the Minister has seen fit to prioritize the rehabilitation of prison populations.

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There's A Clear Link Between Education, Prison

By Lila Panagides / Springfield News-Leader There has been much talk about national security lately, focusing mostly on the Middle East. Here at home, we are facing a serious national security crisis that, fortunately, is getting some attention — but perhaps not enough from the public. This crisis developed over the last 20 years due

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