Today I came across an article that raised two interesting points.  The article is “Jail’s education program a bright spot for inmates, if they want it” from the Crookston Daily Times by Natalie J. Ostgaard. 

 One point that caught my attention in this article was what it said about inmates reading in prison.

 ”It never ceases to amaze me how people from jail, even if they haven’t looked at a book in five years, when they’re here they become avid readers,” said Rudh. “We certainly want to encourage that.”

 

 
This reminded me of my cousin, who, when he was in jail for a period of time, started reading things like Lord of the Flies, John Grisham, and poetry.  This was completely out of the ordinary for anyone in his family, and they asked him what his sudden fascination with reading was.  His response was simply, “There’s nothing else to do, so why not?”  As strange as it seems this made me think that being in jail provides a great educational opportunity quite simply because there are no distractions.  Unless you want to sit around bored to death, you’ve got to pick up something to read.  It’s one of the only permitted forms of entertainment.  This seems like a fertile ground for teaching, if proper opportunities are present.

 This “nothing better to do” attitude also relates to the topic of my last two posts, which is the question of why we should even worry about providing prisons and jails with books and education programs.  If these opportunities aren’t provided, then suddenly there becomes a large portion of the community (yes, they still are a part of the community) literally doing nothing.  At least with some reading and education there is some progress happening in society.

 The second interesting point from the article is the statistics of people with learning disabilities in jail.

 Rudh noted that other statistics are “quite astounding. We’ve estimated that about 90 percent of our students are learning disabled or can’t read. Now, we’re not suggesting that if everyone can read, we’d obliterate crime. But both national and state reports show education in jail reduces recidivism.”

 

 That’s a pretty staggering statistic, 90 percent.  This really makes me wonder if there is some correlation between learning disabilities and ending up in jail.  Whether their learning disability has something to do with their incarceration or not I’m not sure, but it certainly seems like the two could be connected.  For instance, if someone cannot read then they cannot very easily get a job.  So what do they do?  Resort to some sort of crime, perhaps.

 This only furthers the statements from my last post that say early childhood education is an important way to prevent crime down the road.

Another implication of this statistic is that there needs to be some specialized teachers in these settings in order for the inmates to benefit.  As I have said before, the prison and jail education program seems like a fruitful job market that isn’t often discussed.  And, as is indicated by this article, it is important to have trained professionals assisting these learning disabled people instead of random volunteers (though they are helpful as well).

Overall, I think the education program this particular jail has set up could be a model for other jails.  As the article states, there are very few jail education programs, making this program all the more special.  To read more about it the full article can be found here.

 

“Jail’s education program a bright spot for inmates, if they want it”

Natalie J. Ostgaard, Crookston Daily Times 2-26-2008