How Education Deficiency Drives Mass Incarceration via GenFKD

How Education Deficiency Drives Mass Incarceration

Education reform may hold the key to meaningful criminal justice reform.

GenFKD: 11.18.2016 by Caitlin Curley

Education And Correctional Populations
BJS

A common thread through the American incarceration system is a widespread inmate education deficiency. Education needs to be a priority in reforming the system and reintegrating inmates into society.

By the numbers: Educational backgrounds of prisoners

The most recent report conducted nationally by the U.S. Department of Justice about the educational backgrounds of prisoners was in 2003. This national report states that of all incarcerated citizens in the United States, about 65 percent had not received a high school diploma, with just over 41 percent having dropped out and 23 percent obtaining a GED. Almost 23 percent had obtained just a high school diploma and 13 percent had gotten a postsecondary education.

More recent reports at the state level seem to corroborate these earlier findings, and hint at how little progress has been made on prison reform in the past decade, A 2014 report from Minnesota’s corrections department shows that over 74 percent of incoming prisoners did not have a high school diploma and only 17 percent had a postsecondary education. Meanwhile, a 2016 report from Georgia shows that over half of incoming prisoners did not have a high school diploma or a GED and only around 8 percent had attended some college.

Why did so many prisoners leave school?

There are several reasons that inmates are less likely to have been educated, but a primary factor may be found in the fact that prisoners have a disproportionately high rate of learning disabilities. Among those who had not completed high school or the GED in the national study, 59 percent had a speech disability and 69 percent had a learning disability.  READ MORE >>

Literacy Reports & Statistics

Prison

2013: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education, Rand

2011: Correctional Education, OVAE

2010: Prison Count, PEW

2009: One in 31: The Long Reach of American Corrections, PEW

2006: Locked Up Locked Out: Educational Perspective on US Prison Population, ETS

2003: Literacy Behind Bars, NAAL 2003

2003: Education And Correctional Populations, BJS

1994: Literacy Behind Prison Walls, NCES