Seems like the study is confusing cause/effect. Those on probation are probably less likely to commit another crime partly because the crime they did commit wa

Seems like the study is confusing cause/effect. Those on probation are probably less likely to commit another crime partly because the crime they did commit was a first offense, less serious/violent, etc. -- otherwise they probably would not have been paroled (e.g. you're more likely to go to prison if you killed someone than if you got caught with a small quantity of illegal drugs). Similarly, the article talks about how "education reduces recidivism by 50%". However, this is a self-selecting group of prisoners who decide to go to school/college, and so they are less likely to commit future crimes. I doubt those kind of numbers would hold if you forced all inmates to gain education. Since HS education is free, and most people now can get a loan for college and go somewhere (at least as good as prison college), almost all of these people who didn't get the education "on the outside" decided not to pursue it. So logically, those prisoners joining these classes voluntarily are mostly prisoners who realize they need to change and already see education as a "way out" -- so its not really a cause/effect but a correlation. Edit: Clarity of last sentences