On the recordApril 20, 1994
The question here is not should prisoners have education. The State and Federal Governments are already spending half a billion dollars to educate prisoners. The question is: Is the Pell Grant an efficient way to do that? The Department of Education cannot give you the name of one prisoner who has ever gotten a grant or whether or not they have been successful with that. There is no accountability. That is the problem, not whether prisoners should be educated, but whether Pell Grants are an appropriate vehicle to do that. Certainly they are not, because there is no accountability. I think those limited funds can better be spent by at-risk students to keep them out of jail, not to throw money at prisoners that are in jail with no accountability.
Source
govinfo.gov
