Colorado House Bill 23-1037 promises to reduce prison time for inmates who pursue an education in jail and succeed to earn a certificate, or a degree. The bill, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Matthew Martinez, was also wonderfully and surprisingly supported by Republicans. In fact it passed in the House of Representatives with near unanimity, 61-1. Only Republican Stephanie Luck voted against it.

I have ardently advocated for education in our jails. Since most people in jail will sooner or later be released, it’s better to have an educated ex-con neighbor than one who spent his years of incarceration in bitterness and resentment. Education prisoners obtain in jail neutralizes recidivism. Without education, 50% of people released from prison end up back behind bars in three years.

Earning an associates certificate in jail cuts that down to 13.6%. Of those who earn a bachelor’s degree, 5.6% return to jail, while 0% of those who earn a master’s return to jail. These numbers reveal one thing: education is the one remedy against a life of crime. It also enforces my contention that we need to look for and create ways and spaces to educate the most disadvantaged among us; they are, sadly, the ones who populate our jails.

Because prisoners are captives within jail walls, I have always believed that in a world of vision and wisdom, prisons would be the ideal places to teach good personal habits and places to learn what was never learned out in the “free world.” Certainly education of inmates is one thing that our jails can excel in.

In fact, there has been a sprinkling of programs across America where inmates have distinguished themselves beyond imagination. Bard College Prison Initiative coached a prison debate team that succeeded in beating Harvard’s, the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s, and the University of Cambridge’s. The experience was captured by Ken Burns in a PBS documentary — “College Behind Bars.” One of the debaters earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and has leveraged that achievement into a professional career as a free man.

I hate to think of how many mathematicians, philosophers, doctors and physicists we have let languish and die in our prisons. And how many discoveries, therapies and cures could have been discovered if we had educated many, both before and after they went to jail.

History serves to shed some light on the issue of education in America’s prisons. Before Nixon declared his war on drugs, the American prison population was of a parity with the rest of the world: 130-260/100,000 population. Thereafter, the prison population swelled to well over 600/100,000 people as the U.S. jail population topped 2 million human beings. How strange, the greatest democracy on earth imprisons 25% of the global prison population — a country that comprises only 5% of the world population. 40% of our jail population is Black — Black people are 13.4% of the U.S. population. And 2.3% in our jails are Native Americans —1.3% of U.S. population is Native American.

Despite the frenzied efforts to construct and fill new jails with people using or addicted to drugs, in 1995 we still had 350 prison college programs. Then came a prison education defunding crusade.

As former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas quipped: “Rob a store, go to jail and get a college degree,” prison education programs were radically pruned. By 2015 only 12 programs remained, a clear evidence of political shortsightedness.

Run wisely, lives can be turned around, and much can be learned, in prisons. The same goes for high school sports teams where coaches hold tremendous power and influence over young athletes. As I watched my children play basketball and run track, it was clear that if coaches had the wisdom to insist that students raise their GPA to a 3.0 — as opposed to the NCAA’s 2.3 — most would have done it to continue participation in the team. This opportunity is wasted all across America; an effort sacrificed to institutions’ athletic glory and coaches’ careers. As I found out, few of my children’s schoolmates went to college on scholarships. None went to the NBA or NFL.

I am very proud of Colorado’s legislators; men and women of vision who see that an educated populace is both more generous and more productive. They understand that mass incarceration offers no one any safety. Alas, a good education costs so much less than the cost of incarcerating our citizens.

Pius Kamau, M.D., a retired general surgeon, is president of the Aurora-based Africa America Higher Education Partnerships (AAHEP); co-founder of the Africa Enterprise Group and an activist for minority students’ STEM education. He is a National Public Radio commentator, Huffington Post blogger, and past columnist for Denver dailies. He has authored a memoir and a novel recounting Kenya’s bloody colonial history.