Prison Literacy Programs

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Prison Literacy Programs

"It costs the government half a million bucks to keep me in jail and $450 to teach me to read and write" (ex-con cited in Porporino and Robinson 1992, p. 92). The literacy demands of the workplace and society in general are growing in complexity, and recurring linked cycles of poverty and low literacy levels put some people at increasing disadvantage. The prison population includes disproportionate numbers of the poor; those released from prisons are often unable to find employment, partly due to a lack of job and/or literacy skills, and are often reincarcerated (Paul 1991). Add to that the high cost of imprisonment and the huge increase in the prison population and it seems clear that mastery of literacy skills may be a preventive and proactive way to address the problem. However, correctional educators contend with multiple problems in delivering literacy programs to inmates. This Digest sets the context of prison literacy programs, outlines some of the constraints, and describes what factors work.

Context of Prison Literacy

Literacy skills are important in prisons in several ways: inmates often must fill out forms to make requests, letters are a vital link with the outside world, some prison jobs require literacy skills, and reading is one way to pass time behind bars (Paul 1991). The way literacy is defined is critical to achieving an accurate picture of prisoners' skills. The National Adult Literacy Survey (NALS) defines literacy as a broad range of skills; it is not a simple condition one either has or does not have, but a continuum on which individuals have varying degrees of skill in interpreting prose, documents, and numbers.

The NALS (Haigler et al. 1994) included interviews with some...

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...ournal of Correctional Education43, no. 2 (June 1992): 92-98. (EJ 445 423)

Ryan, T. A., and McCabe, K. A. "The Relationship between Mandatory vs. Voluntary Participation in a Prison Literacy Program and Academic Achievement." Journal of Correctional Education44, no. 3 (September 1993): 134-138. (EJ 472 104)

Sacramento County Probation Department. JurisLIT Final Report.Sacramento, CA: Author, 1994. (ED 378 363)

Shethar, A. "Literacy and 'Empowerment'? A Case Study of Literacy behind Bars." Anthropology and Education Quarterly24, no. 4 (December 1993): 357-372. (EJ 478 702)

Sperazi, L. An Evaluation of the IBM PALS Program for the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners. Newton Highlands, MA: Evaluation Research, 1990. (ED 328 267)

Thomas, A. M. Opening Minds behind Closed Doors. Victoria: John Howard Society of British Columbia, 1992. (ED 355 416)

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