Many educators view the process of education as transformative. This transformation is important in all classrooms, but it takes on added importance in prison classrooms. The education that inmates receive in prison can mean the difference between the doorway of freedom with a productive future and the revolving door of recidivism. For many prison…

This paper examines schooling inside a youth prison. We draw on interview and observation data from a study of a youth prison school to understand the practices and tensions of schooling in a juvenile incarceration facility. We describe the processes of schooling in the facility with an eye towards understanding both the conditions of learning and…

This case study of the Therapeutic Community Program at Montana Women's Prison investigates the relationship between inmate reading levels and the self-help materials used for rehabilitative purposes within prison settings. The Therapeutic Community Handbook, published by the Montana Department of Corrections, is used as the primary method of…

Increasingly, faith-based programs have provided curriculum in correctional facilities to meet the challenge of rehabilitating offenders. To attempt to identify the impact of such instruction, this qualitative case study examines the faith and moral development of the participants in one such program. Through interviews, observations, document…

This qualitative study conducted in urban Miami, Florida, explored the essence of juvenile delinquency and recidivism: its causes, its relations to communities, the roles of families, and the myriad roles of residential treatment programs at rehabilitating young offenders. Data were collected from nine young adult participants who had satisfied…

The motto of the Hong Kong Correctional Services Department (CSD) is to "Support Rehabilitative Offenders for a More Inclusive Society." The Hong Kong CSD has developed a correctional system which has placed increasing emphasis on correction and rehabilitation of offenders over the years. This paper describes the efforts of the Hong Kong CSD in…

Talking to young men in an Irish prison we discover that cockroaches are a day to day fact of life. We discuss how best to deal with them and someone says that while in [name of prison] he used to put his socks over the bottom of his jeans so that they wouldn't be able to run up his trousers while he was asleep. Someone else tells me he used to…

In 2002, the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) published The Ohio Plan for Productive Offender Reentry and Recidivism Reduction. The document listed forty-four recommendations designed to contribute significantly to the development of a reentry transition system that providing a seamless service and program delivery beginning…

This article explains and analyzes the practical application of the Socratic method in the context of inmate education, and identifies core critical thinking elements that emerge from four transcribed Socratic discussions with prison inmates. The paper starts with a detailed examination of the stages of the Socratic method as practiced by 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…

Moderate physical activity provides substantial health benefits for individuals not only in fitness, athletic, and health organizations, but also for individuals who struggle with addictions and behaviors in correctional programs. The purpose of this pilot study is to examine the relationship between physical activity and offender attitudes. The…

The issue of recidivism among federal, state, and local offenders released from custody has made it to the front burner of government and public policy analysts after a decade of building and filling correctional facilities. In this paper, the author, a County Sheriff, discusses his joint effort with the St. Francis House Moving Ahead Program in…

In this article, the author, Program Administrator of the Pinellas County Sheriff's Office (PCSO) Project New Attitudes in Clearwater, Florida, describes the project. The PCSO is the country's largest law enforcement agency, providing law enforcement services to over 400,000 of its residents who reside in the unincorporated areas of the county and…

In this article, the author describes the Lifeskills for Women program of the Shelby County Division of Corrections (Memphis, Tennessee). The program offers strategies and approaches to reversing faulty cognitive systems and behavioral patterns of incarcerated women preparing for community reentry. First implemented in 1997, and subsequently…

There is a growing national movement in corrections embracing offender reentry. In a very brief period of time, innovative and ambitious initiatives have been launched at all levels of government and by untold groups and community organizations to build more effective responses to the myriad of challenges presented by reentry. The International…