Prison diplomas
This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2013, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Recently, 500 inmates from the Utah prison system earned their high school diplomas ("Record number of Utah inmates graduate high school," Tribune, June 13). That is great, but I wonder how many of those individuals would not be in prison if they had graduated from a traditional high school.
If our Legislature would properly fund our schools, many of these graduates may not have fallen through the cracks. Utah spends $6,212 a year to educate each student and $29,349 a year to incarcerate an individual.
Utah is now debating whether to build a new prison at a cost of $600 million, and probably more. The trend continues.
Mark Miller
Holladay