A study released by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences named Rhode Island as one of the states that spend more money on prisons than public colleges.
According to the study, states have been cutting their support for higher education for over a decade. More specifically, state spending and funding that go toward correction facilities has grown much faster than education spending in the last 30 years.
Although the state does fall into the category of states that spend more money on corrections than higher education, Rhode Island has the smallest discrepancy. Leo Carroll, chairman of sociology at the University of Rhode Island, said that Rhode Island is one of the better states when it comes to providing medical care to people who need it and cannot afford it.
“The reason Rhode Island doesn’t have higher corrections funding is because we have a high rate of parole and probation,†he said, which costs less than prison. Other states have a higher percentage of inmates being kept in prison, leading to increased costs for staff and around the clock operations.
“It’s about setting a different direction as a society – one that says we believe in great teaching early in our kids lives, rather than courts, jails and prisons later,†said former United States Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Carroll said he agreed with that statement because it is not just Rhode Island but New England states in general that are not big supporters of higher education; which allows funding to go to other things, such as Medicaid.
Carroll said Rhode Island has to spend more on higher education while also finding ways to cut back on the cost of corrections. “We have far too many people in prison,†he said.
The war on drugs has caused incarceration rates to increase, and not just because of the movement away from higher education but a number of other things as well. Carroll said that since the mid 1990s Rhode Island’s incarceration rate has remained relatively stable. “When I came to URI in 1972, the state provided about 40-45 percent of the school’s operating budget,†he said. “Now they only provide 10 percent and it has very little to do with a rise in prison population.†Â
According to the study done by American Academy of Arts and Sciences, in 2013 corrections and higher education spending of state general fund expenditures both fell just above 5 percent for the state of Rhode Island. Other states that made the study’s list include Michigan, Oregon, Arizona, Vermont, Colorado, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Delaware, Massachusetts and Connecticut.