The mission of UNICOR is both to employ and educate inmates of federal prisons. Currently, UNICOR provides employment to approximately 8,000, or 26% of the total federal prison population, in emerging fields such as electronics, data graphics, wood, and plastics and in traditional fields such as metals, shoe and brush, and textiles. In support of inmate education and training, UNICOR allocates over $3 million to ongoing vocational education programs, as well as $400,000, annually, to upgrade vocational machinery and equipment. In 1983 and 1984, an additional $3 million was allocated, annually, to support innovative vocational programs, e.g., in petroleum technology, computerized drafting, numerically controlled machine operations, computer programming and maintenance, and water treatment. Concurrent with the new vocational training initiative, the Bureau of Prisons established a mandatory literacy policy, requiring all inmates with less than 6th grade educational skills to enroll in a literacy program. Another new development in offender education involves the use of computers to assist in all phases of education. Early efforts to introduce computer-assisted instruction were largely abandoned due to high costs, lack of courseware, and hardware problems; however, recent efforts have been more successful with computer-assisted instruction now available in all but eight federal prisons. These new developments in correctional education are able to assist released offenders in finding and retaining jobs. (LAL)