This book explores prisoners’ experiences of prison education and investigates whether participation in prison education contributes to an offender’s ability to desist from crime and increases social capital levels. While the link between prison education and reduced rates of recidivism is well established through research, far less is known about the relationship between prison education and desistance. The book demonstrates how prisoners experience many benefits from participating in prison education, including increased confidence, self-control and agency, along with various other cognitive changes. In addition, the book examines prisoners’ accounts that provide evidence of strong connections between prison education and the formation of pro-social bonds which have been shown to play a role in the desistance process. It also highlights the links between prison education and social capital, and the existence of a form of prison-based social capital arising from the prison culture. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to those engaged in criminology, sociology, penology, desistance, rehabilitation, the sociology of education and all those interested in learning more about the positive impact of prison education on prisoners.

A Guide to Distance Learning Education Programs for Prisoners.

This volume focuses on teaching Classics in carceral contexts in the US and offers an overview of the range of incarcerated adults, their circumstances, and the ways in which they are approaching and reinterpreting Greek and Roman texts. Classics and Prison Education in the US examines how different incarcerated adults – male, female, or gender non-conforming; young or old; serving long sentences or about to be released – are reading and discussing Classical texts, and what this may entail. Moreover, it provides a sophisticated examination of the best pedagogical practices for teaching in a prison setting and for preparing returning citizens, as well as a considered discussion of the possible dangers of engaging in such teaching – whether because of the potential complicity with the carceral state, or because of the historical position of Classics in elitist education. This edited volume will be a resource for those interested in Classics pedagogy, as well as the role that Classics can play in different areas of society and education, and the impact it can have.

This book explores the discourse and rhetoric that resists and opposes postsecondary prison education. Positioning prison college programs as the best method to truly reduce recidivism, the book shows how the public – and by extension politicians – remain largely opposed to public funding for these programs, and how prisoners face internal resistance from their fellow inmates when pursuing higher education. Utilizing methods including critical rhetorical history, media analysis, and autoethnography, the author explores and critiques the discourses which inhibit prison education. Cultural discourses, echoed through media portrayal of prisoners, produce criminals as both subhuman and always-already a threat to the public. This book highlights the history of rhetorical opposition to prison education; closely analyzes how convictism, prejudicial and discriminatory bias against prisoners, blocks education access and feeds the prison-industrial-complex an ever-recycled supply of free prison labor; and discusses the implications of prison education for understanding and contesting cultural discourses of criminality. This book will be an important reference for scholars, graduate students, and upper-level undergraduates in the fields of Rhetoric, Criminal justice, and Sociology, as well as Media and Communication studies more generally, Politics, and Education studies.

After conducting a comprehensive literature search, the authors undertook a meta-analysis to examine the association between correctional education and reductions in recidivism, improvements in employment after release from prison, and other outcomes. The study finds that receiving correctional education while incarcerated reduces inmates' risk of recidivating and may improve their odds of obtaining employment after release from prison.

An authoritative and thought-provoking argument for offering free college in prisons—from the former dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Anthony Cardenales was a stickup artist in the Bronx before spending seventeen years in prison. Today he is a senior manager at a recycling plant in Westchester, New York. He attributes his ability to turn his life around to the college degree he earned in prison. Many college-in-prison graduates achieve similar success and the positive ripple effects for their families and communities, and for the country as a whole, are dramatic. College-in-prison programs have been shown to greatly reduce recidivism. They increase post-prison employment, allowing the formerly incarcerated to better support their families and to reintegrate successfully into their communities. College programs also decrease violence within prisons, improving conditions for both correction officers and the incarcerated. Liberating Minds eloquently makes the case for these benefits and also illustrates them through the stories of formerly incarcerated college students. As the country confronts its legacy of over-incarceration, college-in-prison provides a corrective on the path back to a more democratic and humane society. “Lagemann includes intensive research, but her most powerful supporting evidence comes from the anecdotes of former prisoners who have become published poets, social workers, and nonprofit leaders.”—Publishers Weekly

This volume makes a case for engaging critical approaches for teaching adults in prison higher education (or “college-in-prison”) programs. This book not only contextualizes pedagogy within the specialized and growing niche of prison instruction, but also addresses prison abolition, reentry, and educational equity. Chapters are written by prison instructors, currently incarcerated students, and formerly incarcerated students, providing a variety of perspectives on the many roadblocks and ambitions of teaching and learning in carceral settings. All unapologetic advocates of increasing access to higher education for people in prison, contributors discuss the high stakes of teaching incarcerated individuals and address the dynamics, conditions, and challenges of doing such work. The type of instruction that contributors advocate is transferable beyond prisons to traditional campus settings. Hence, the lessons of this volume will not only support readers in becoming more thoughtful prison educators and program administrators, but also in becoming better teachers who can employ critical, democratic pedagogy in a range of contexts.