According to the Urban Institute, roughly 94 percent of the money spent on prisons, which has exceeded $22 billion in recent years, has been earmarked for construction and maintenance. The remaining 6 percent has gone to prison-based education programs.
I’m not sure if this is the study that the above article references, but it says some stuff that is pretty interesting:
Despite a long-standing historical emphasis in American corrections on education and employment training (Piel 1998; Gaes et al. 1999), and despite the importance of prison programming for improving a range of outcomes upon release, levels of program participation have declined. In 1991, 42 percent of soon-to-be-released prisoners (less than 12 months remaining) reported participating in education programs, compared with 35 percent in 1997 (figure 1). Participation in vocational programs declined from 31 percent to 27 percent during this same period (Lynch and Sabol 2001).
One reason for these declines is the rapid and enormous growth in prisons. Funding for correctional programs has not kept pace with population growth, which has led to a reduction in the number of programs aimed at helping prisoners, such as general literacy and higher education programs, in most state prison systems (Austin and Irwin 2001; Slambrouck 2000). Higher education programming was all but eliminated by federal legislation enacted in 1994 (LoBuglio 2001).
The decrease in correctional programming also is attributable to an indirect effect of the rapid growth in prisons and the shuffling of prisoners from one facility to another. This frequent transferring undermines the ability of prisons to implement effective educational and vocational programs. At the same time, and precisely because of the frequent transferring of prisoners from one facility to another, greater attention and interest have been given to funding substance abuse and anger management programs. One reason is that these programs can be offered on a short-term basis and can be relatively inexpensive compared with educational or vocational training (LoBuglio 2001).
In summary, prison populations have grown significantly while funding for programs and participation rates have declined. These changes are significant because, as the literature review below shows, educational and vocational training can contribute to a range of positive outcomes, including increased employment and reduced recidivism.