How her prison education saved us a million bucks.
The story we told this week of Michelle Jones, who was imprisoned for killing her son and remade herself into a nationally respected scholar of history, has inspired waves of admiration. It has also drawn a predictable chorus of resentment, posters complaining on social media that a woman convicted of murdering a child gets an education "at taxpayer expense" while so many law-abiding citizens are crushed by student debt.
For a moment, let's set aside the discussion of punishment and redemption, the ostensible American faith in second chances, the question of whether it is right to define people by the worst thing they have ever done.
Let's talk economics.
[For more on this story by Bill Keller, go to https://www.themarshallproject...s-and-michelle-jones]
Photo: Michelle Jones, center, works on a housing policy proposal at Indiana Women's Prison with Andrew Falk, left, a senior fellow at the Sagamore Institute, and Natalie Medley. ANDREW SPEAR FOR THE MARSHALL PROJECT
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