The Solution

While the United States is plagued with high incarceration rates, we do have options to help put money back into the educational system and help our bloated incarceration population. Going back on one of my statistics, the bulk of many of the offenders in jail are there because of non-violent crimes such as drug use and theft. Combining laws that increase prison sentences, curb parole, and cut education and you have a major storm of inmates who are not going to fit in with the outside world and stay a strain on the prison system. The real opponents are the laws that keep these low level criminals in jail for as long as possible which causes more money spent on incarceration and less on education.

The first major solution we have, as reported by The Justice Policy in the article "Education & Incarceration", is to remove "conditions where hundreds of thousands of people with little schooling are coursing through prison". This includes increased parole hearings, reducing sentences, and stop the formation of new prisons. Policy makers are making it harder for inmates to become rehabilitated and off the government's assistance thus causing a major strain on our already thin resources.

Source: Eastern Judicial Circuit of Georgia

The second solution would be to take the non-violent criminals and send them to rehabilitation centers that cost much less than incarceration. Explained in "Treatment or Incarceration?”, rehabilitation costs only about four thousand per year for a drug offender compared to the average twenty thousand to incarcerate them. The money saved, about sixteen thousand, can be instantly spent on education to boost educational spending further ahead than incarceration.

Many of those in prison do not belong in these conditions. Decreasing the time these inmates serve and having special programs to help deal with their problems will most effectively save money to be spent back on education.

By reducing the number of inmates the state has to track and account for, we can reduce the cost of incarceration and finally invest more in education where it can do more good for both our country and for our world.

Source: 
Western, Bruce, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg. "Education and Incarceration." Criminal Justice Policy Review (2003): 1-14. Justice Policy. Justice Policy, 28 Aug. 2003. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.

Mcvay, Doug, Vincent Schiraldi, and Jason Ziedenberg. "Treatment or Incarceration?" Criminal Justice Policy Review (2004): 1-23. Justice Policy. Justice Policy, Jan. 2004. Web. 24 Nov. 2014.