This is a report of the academic journal article “Inmate Literacy Assessment Study at the Lake County Indiana Jail” by Jeanette C. Shutay, Ph.D., David Plebanski, Ph.D. and Michael McCafferty originally published in The Journal of Correctional Education in June 2010.
In this article, for the purpose of determining the relationship between educational level and literacy among prisoners, scholars conducted a research study at the Lake County Indiana Jail. Due to the fact that recidivism rates had risen in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, educators thought education might be an important factor on either a person could have a job and serve the society, or commit a crime and end up being in jail. Previous research …show more content…
In the study, the participants was a sample of 159 prisoners, including 91 males and 68 females within the racial/ethnic groups of Caucasian, African American, Hispanic and other. The participants were selected randomly and voluntarily. The method they used to assess literacy, was the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-3). WRAT-3 consisted by spelling, reading and arithmetic sections and it was a model with high reliability. There were also seven demographic questionnaires to obtain information related to gender, race, age, etc. Three proctors supervised the test. SPSS, Version 15.0 was used to analyze the data from the test. There were two sections of results, the descriptive findings and the exploratory findings. The first section stated that participants’ spelling ability varied the most and reading ability varied the less; males had slightly higher scored in reading and arithmetic than females whereas the spelling scores were similar. The score results by race shown that Caucasians had relatively high scores in spelling and reading, as Hispanics had relative strength in arithmetic. The exploratory findings shown that higher educational attainment was associated with higher literacy scores, but the relationships were not strong. Overall, the results of the study demonstrated …show more content…
Looking at the results of the study, prisoners have a lack of education and literacy. The experience at program Books to Prisoners (a program held by Left Bank Bookstore to help send free books to prisoners) also raised my attention to prisoners’ literacy that some of them could not use proper grammar, could not spell correctly, and/or had messy and illegible handwritings. Another finding at Books to Prisoners is that prisoners request dictionaries and thesaurus very often, which tells us that prisoners would like to spend time studying behind bars, for getting out of there. The failure of early education caused the disability to serve the society, and ending up being in jail is not a hundred percent of their fault, when you think about what prevented these people from study. The answer to the question would be social inequality ---- Perhaps they did not have the chance to go to school, perhaps they could not achieve academic goals, even though they went to school because of their Socioeconomic Status, including family, race, gender, financial problems and so on. A second chance of education, in the prison not only gives the prisoner hope, but also helps prisoners explore the potential they have for the society that they did not seek before. In other words, improving prisoners literacy helps decrease social inequality because the reduction
In this article, for the purpose of determining the relationship between educational level and literacy among prisoners, scholars conducted a research study at the Lake County Indiana Jail. Due to the fact that recidivism rates had risen in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, educators thought education might be an important factor on either a person could have a job and serve the society, or commit a crime and end up being in jail. Previous research …show more content…
In the study, the participants was a sample of 159 prisoners, including 91 males and 68 females within the racial/ethnic groups of Caucasian, African American, Hispanic and other. The participants were selected randomly and voluntarily. The method they used to assess literacy, was the Wide Range Achievement Test (WRAT-3). WRAT-3 consisted by spelling, reading and arithmetic sections and it was a model with high reliability. There were also seven demographic questionnaires to obtain information related to gender, race, age, etc. Three proctors supervised the test. SPSS, Version 15.0 was used to analyze the data from the test. There were two sections of results, the descriptive findings and the exploratory findings. The first section stated that participants’ spelling ability varied the most and reading ability varied the less; males had slightly higher scored in reading and arithmetic than females whereas the spelling scores were similar. The score results by race shown that Caucasians had relatively high scores in spelling and reading, as Hispanics had relative strength in arithmetic. The exploratory findings shown that higher educational attainment was associated with higher literacy scores, but the relationships were not strong. Overall, the results of the study demonstrated …show more content…
Looking at the results of the study, prisoners have a lack of education and literacy. The experience at program Books to Prisoners (a program held by Left Bank Bookstore to help send free books to prisoners) also raised my attention to prisoners’ literacy that some of them could not use proper grammar, could not spell correctly, and/or had messy and illegible handwritings. Another finding at Books to Prisoners is that prisoners request dictionaries and thesaurus very often, which tells us that prisoners would like to spend time studying behind bars, for getting out of there. The failure of early education caused the disability to serve the society, and ending up being in jail is not a hundred percent of their fault, when you think about what prevented these people from study. The answer to the question would be social inequality ---- Perhaps they did not have the chance to go to school, perhaps they could not achieve academic goals, even though they went to school because of their Socioeconomic Status, including family, race, gender, financial problems and so on. A second chance of education, in the prison not only gives the prisoner hope, but also helps prisoners explore the potential they have for the society that they did not seek before. In other words, improving prisoners literacy helps decrease social inequality because the reduction