NEW YORK TIMES: It was nearly two years ago that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo floated a plan for the state to pay for college courses for inmates. But it sank in the face of withering opposition from critics who mocked Mr. Cuomo’s initiative as “Attica University” and Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation who argued that New York should put “kids before cons.”…
“Prisons were not supposed to be a warehouse,” Mr. Cuomo said. “It was not supposed to be, ‘We’re going to take you and put you in a warehouse for 10 years and lock you up, and then take you out in 10 years and return you to society and think maybe you’re going to be the better for it.’”
[Manhattan district attorney Cyrus R. Vance, Jr. said that expanding college programs for inmates made sense from a crime-fighting standpoint because studies had shown that inmates who earned a college degree were less likely to return to prison… (more)
