The educational experience for an inmate is part of an ethos of personal restriction. Within the social and physical restriction of prison, the research assessed the extent to which andragogical treatment could influence inmate mood and behavior in the classroom. The need to improve inmate readiness for the Federal Bureau of Prisons mandatory GED…

Since the last edition of the Journal, the European Prison Education Association (EPEA) has been officially elected a member of the European Association for the Education of Adults (EAEA) at EAEA's General Assembly held at the University of Latvia in Riga. The EAEA is the largest umbrella organization in Europe advocating lifelong learning. It is…

School Performance Reports, sometimes referred to as School Report Cards, are an increasingly effective and popular method for collecting program data in Correctional Education. This Overview presents the results of a study examining the current applications of Correctional Education School Report Cards. After inquiring with Offices of…

This article presents several news stories from the European Prison Education Association (EPEA). These include: (1) The 7th International Conference for Directors of Prison Education held in Malmo, Sweden from September 11-14, 2008; (2) The visit of EPEA representatives to the Modern University of the Humanities (MUH) in Russia to examine how the…

Approximately two million men and women are currently incarcerated in the nation's penitentiaries (Butterfield, 2002). Ninety percent of these inmates will eventually be released from prison (Linton, 2004). The vast majority of these inmates enter prison without basic literacy skills or job training. According to the U.S. Department of Education…

Prisons are usually oppressive, bureaucratic, alienating places that sever or suspend the prisoner's sense of community and restrict the possibility (or desire) for social and civic participation. They produce a nihilistic culture that encourages a numbing detachment from others. How is it that we can speak of democracy in places such as these?…

In this update, Linton provides a report on what transpired during the invitational technical assistance training meeting for State adult correctional education programs titled "Making Data Work for You," which was hosted by the Department of Education a year ago. As a key part of that training, States shared their efforts to utilize data to…

Prison education in Europe is based on an adult education model. This is clearly stated in the Council of Europe Recommendations on Education in Prison (1990). It states that "the education of prisoners must, in its philosophy, methods and content, be brought as close as possible to the best adult education in the society outside (COE, 1990: 8).…

In order to offer some context for themes set for this conference, alternative answers to the three-part question are explored. Ways of seeing learning, prisons and prisoners are each looked at in turn, and in each case an argument against a narrowing of perspective is made. We can view learning in the adult education tradition as geared to "the…

This article reports that the 11th European Prison Education Association International Conference will take place in Dublin, Ireland from June 13 to June 17, 2007. The conference, which was titled "Learning for Liberation," will focus on the exploration of what adult education can offer prison/correctional education. This article also presents the…

This article highlights several issues related to the collection of post-release outcome data in the evaluation of correctional education programs and identifies the strengths and weaknesses of the different methods of collecting data related to recidivism, employment/earnings, and further education/training. The use of traditional follow-up in…

This update reports on the activities of the Office of Vocational and Adult Education (OVAE), which includes the implementation of the new Perkins Vocational Education Act passed by the 109th Congress and signed by President Bush on August 12, 2006. There is also significant activity in preparation for the scheduled reauthorization of the Adult…

In this update, Linton reports on Congressional filing of a number of bills that involve the topic of prisoner reentry. In addition, he presents a key section of Attorney General John Ashcroft's address (Cleveland, Ohio, September 2004) on prisoner reentry. In this speech, Ashcroft called for a concerted effort to managing a balanced approach:…

Compared recidivism rates of inmates who earned their General Educational Development (GED) certificate while incarcerated (n=2,330) with those who were released with no degree (n=9,419) and those who already had a high school diploma (n=4,868). Findings indicate that those who earned a GED had a significantly lower recidivism rate. (Contains 13…

The Inmate Placement Program of the Federal Bureau of Prisons focuses on job skills to aid their readjustment to the community after release. The program includes a mock job fair and has served 7,000 inmates. (Contains 10 references.) (JOW)