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Collins backs bill to block education funding for convicted criminals

By Howard B. Owens

Press release:

Congressman Chris Collins (NY-27) today released the following statement after introducing H.R. 3327, the Kids Before Cons Act, which will block the Obama administration’s plans to use Pell grants to fund college programs for prisoners.

“The Obama administration’s plan to put the cost of a free college education for criminals on the backs of the taxpayers is consistent with their policy of rewarding lawbreakers while penalizing hardworking Americans,” Congressman Collins said. “The Kids Before Cons Act closes the loophole the Obama administration is trying to exploit, and protects taxpayers from footing the bill for criminals’ educations. This legislation ensures that Pell grants will be used for their intended purpose of assisting financially disadvantaged students struggling to attain a college education.”

H.R. 3327 does the following:

·         Upholds the 1994 law that prohibits prisoners from receiving federal Pell grants by forbidding the Department of Education from using its experimental authority to provide funding for higher education for prisoners;

·         Instructs the Department of Education to conduct a study on whether students enrolled in a charter school or in private schools as a result of participation in a voucher program run a higher or lower risk of incarceration than students who attend public school.

Full text of the legislation can be read here.

C. M. Barons

Well there's a safe gambit for Mr. Collins: looks tough on crime, looks like a budget cut, takes a dig at public schools and wraps it in a cute bow of maudlin alliteration. He missed one pander; didn't suggest a study on privatizing prisons.

Jul 31, 2015, 5:39pm Permalink
Nick Taranko

The question is - what is the purpose of jailing someone? Punishment or rehabilitiation? Education is a way to break the cycle, and studies have shown this over and over. If we want people to stop coming back to prison, we need to give them a way to break the cycle. Under Collins's plan, we'll see them all again. And pay for them all again.

Aug 1, 2015, 11:27am Permalink
Billie Owens

There are many privately owned and operated prisons in the United States already. Cailfornia uses some of them to offload its teeming prison population because most if not all of its prisons are over-capacity as it is and stuffing more people in them is illegal, hence the private prisons saw an opportunity and found a niche market. Sayres, Okla., for example.

Aug 1, 2015, 2:36pm Permalink
Raymond Richardson

"Privatizing prisons?... you gotta be kidding,"

The cost to transport a prisoner, and house them, to another county's jail because the county of jurisdiction's jail is full up, is much more than holding said prisoner in a private prison or jail.

Aug 1, 2015, 5:06pm Permalink
George Richardson

If every prisoner was paired with a dog there would be less dogs and men euthanized. Put the bad dogs down with the bad owners and release the remaining with rent and money for dog food. Problem solved, it is much cheaper than to keep them locked up once they finally know love.

Aug 2, 2015, 7:10pm Permalink

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