Students in Professor Ball’s Prison System class are probably already aware of San Quentin’s Prison University Project, one of the links in today’s Scout Report from the University of Wisconsin. Additional information about higher education in prison settings is available from Cornell University’s Prison Education Program, which brings a college-level liberal arts curriculum to the Auburn and Cayuga Correctional facilities in upstate New York, the Boston University Prison Education Program, and the College Behind Bars Program. A 2005 Institute of Higher Education Policy report on post-secondary education in U.S. prisons is one of several to conclude that education programs are a cost-effective way to reduce recidivism, improve communications between prison staff and inmates, and lessen disciplinary problems. See also the Chronicle of Higher Education Commentary on the issue from Ellen Condliffe Lagemann of the Bard Prison Initiative.