Prisoners benefit greatly from Educational TV

In the good news and using common sense department:

The New Jersey correctional system has taken control of the TV Programs that prisoners watch on the internal prison TV system, filling the programming with educational programming, and throwing out the trash daytime TV talk shows.

This has been all to excellent results.

Jenny Jones, Jerry Springer, and other inmate favorites are gone for good from the TV sets in New Jersey's 14 prisons. In their place are history, health and cultural documentaries, along with self-help programs and selected cable TV shows.

The effort, apparently unique to New Jersey, is designed to use television to get inmates to think more about the world around them, where they fit in, and how they can contribute in a positive way when they are eventually set free.

[...]

"The goal is to monopolize as much of their television time as possible with educational programs," she said. "Hopefully, we will be able to make a difference in some of their lives."

It already has for some, said Abdul Abdul-ghaffar, 37, who is serving time for attempted murder and drug offenses.

"It helps me understand that life outside of prison is better than I knew it was," said Abdul-ghaffar, who hopes to some day establish a home-improvement business. "It shows me there is room for change and that I can do something positive once I leave here."

Education is one of the primary ways that a person's life can be changed for the better.

And from the sounds of it, it has done far more good than all of those dollars spent on psych programs over the past decades (in my opinion)