Working with both non criminals and non-violent offenders Academy Retroit is a pilot scheme which aims to provide positive impacts both socially and financially through various educational programs. This prison and school collaboration allows individuals to receive a GED and specialise in a chosen field. Non-violent offenders that are sentenced to five years and over must serve a quarter of their sentence in a prison before a judge can review them and upon good behaviour they may attend Academy Retroit to serve approximately four years. 

 

Academy Retroit provides a variety of educational opportunities for inmates and enrolled students, including life skills – anger management, parental counselling, etc. The school caters for all personality types, the extraverts as well as the introverts. The extraverts who may feel free to express themselves through art, film, music and photography and the introverts who may want to apply themselves to criminology, IT and engineering. The school is partnered with many businesses in Detroit and around Detroit that offer scholars internships and jobs upon graduation to help them rejoin the society.

 

Rather than regarding prisons simply as a means of punishment that might ensure convicts of no other future upon release, this new concept for prison and prison education will promote rehabilitation. Academy Retroit forms a medium for education and incarceration that will create productive members of the society.