On December 8, 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) released new guidelines, coined a “Correctional Education Guidance Package,” designed to enhance educational programming in juvenile detention centers. These guidelines have the potential to help many of the 60,000 juvenile prisoners who are currently in custody. The state
When we last met Jail Education Solutions earlier this year, the startup was part of FastFWD, a social enterprise accelerator in Philly focused on public safety. Now, it just launched a pilot of its tablet-based wireless education system for inmates in prison and jail. It’s in the 8,500-bed correctional facility in Philadelphia and, according to co-founder
By Rebecca Gray
The United States has become, to borrow an apt title from a 2013 Bill Moyers special, Incarceration Nation. (http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-incarceration-nation/) While Moyers’ program focused on the disproportionate number of racial and ethnic minorities behind bars (minorities comprise more than 60 percent of the prison population), the problem transcends racial issues. The prison population in the U.S. grew from 300,000 in the 1970s to over two million today, and the U.S. has a higher rate of incarceration than any other nation. We spend billions of dollars every year to keep people behind bars.
The U.S. prison system has been widely and justly criticized for its failure to rehabilitate and the high rate of recidivism. Nationwide, 40 percent of released prisoners are back in the system within three years of their release. (http://www.pewtrusts.org/uploadedFiles/wwwpewtrustsorg/Reports/sentencing_and_corrections/State_Recidivism_Revolving_Door_America_Prisons%20.pdf) (For more links to information on national recidivism rates, see this page on the National Criminal Justice Reference Service (NCJRS) site: https://www.ncjrs.gov/app/QA/Detail.aspx?Id=46&context=9.)
Though there are conflicting opinions about the best ways to prevent recidivism, there’s good evidence that education and training programs within the prisons play a significant role in helping participants stay out of trouble once they are released. Like everything else, however, education requires funding, which isn’t always forthcoming. And that’s just one of the big challenges facing correctional education today.
From the Oklahoma Department of Libraries
Inmates have among the lowest academic skills and literacy rates of any segment of society. Upon completing their sentence, most inmates re-enter society no more skilled than when they entered the correctional facility.—Correction Education Data Guidebook, U.S. Department of Education
Studies have consistently shown that those imprisoned tend to have lower levels of formal, academic education. Some have suggested that as many as half of U.S. prisoners are functionally illiterate — implying an inability to read at a 6th-grade reading level. While the effects of providing basic literacy classes to prison inmates have the potential
By Christopher Zoukis Image courtesy prainc.com
In the criminal justice community we often hear about recidivism. This is the relapse of former prisoners or probationers back into crime. The reason we focus so much on this topic is because it is a measure of our success. None of us teach prisoners or promote prison reform solely because we find it interesting: we do so because we aim to make a difference in our students and the world around us. And recidivism rates are our measuring stick. The lower the rate, the more successful we have been. The higher the rate, the more work there is that still needs to be done.
Recidivism is a problem. It’s a big problem. The fact is, most prisoners will fail unless they are provided with meaningful educational, vocational, and rehabilitative programming. This isn’t a surprise considering that an internal revision needs to take place in order for a person to change their ways. This is true regardless of whether the person has a damaged character or not. So, we must strive to find ways to implement such meaningful and transformational programming, and we must obtain the funding required to start and sustain such essential programs.
Since we so often cover the benefits of educating America’s incarcerated class, it would be useful to touch upon the other side of the issue today: the negative effects of recidivism upon the various criminal justice stakeholders. This way the discussion here at Prison Education News is that much more rounded and complete.
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