'Illiterate Inmates' tells the story of the emergence, at the turn of the nineteenth century, of a powerful idea - the provision of education in prisons for those accused and convicted of crime - and its execution over the century that followed, drawing on evidence from both local and convict prisons.

Imagine you are a twenty-three-year-old illiterate black inmate at San Quentin Prison, unable to read or answer your mail, walking blindly past warning signs posted on prison walls. Then out of the blue, a well-known reading specialist comes right to your door to teach you how to read. This book, A Rescue from Illiteracy, tells that very story. It all began during Mary Pecci's many workshops, when she would be confronted by participants who claimed that adult illiterates had "passed the point of learning." In an effort to disprove this theory, Mary set out to find an adult illiterate and teach him to read. She began to amuse herself with the thought that a prison was one of the few places where she could get an adult illiterate who would be predictably available. But San Quentin, the closest prison, was a maximum-security prison. She was scared stiff. As the days passed, she began to be intrigued by the thought of some poor, lost illiterate in some prison hellhole receiving the services of a professional reading specialist. She could picture him pinching himself to see if it was really happening. She then thought to herself, Wouldn't it be fun to bring a miracle into someone's life? So, Mary prayed for a sign from the Lord, and when she received that sign, she made the arrangements to volunteer to teach an inmate to read at San Quentin Prison. As this story unfolds, it sheds light on three major issues that have a critical impact on our society: the crippling handicap of illiteracy; what life is like in the prison system; and the inadequacy of our public education system.

This is one of a series of reports that look at the results of the National Adult Literacy Survey. This report provides an in-depth look at the literacy skills of prisoners incarcerated in state and federal prisons. Contents: -Executive Summary Chapter 1: Overview Chapter 2: The Prose, Document, and Quantitative Literacy Skills of America's Prisoners Chapter 3: Experiences Before Prison Chapter 4: Experiences Unique to Prison Life Chapter 5: Recidivism and Literacy Chapter 6: Comparing Literacy Practices and Self-Perceptions of the Prison and Household Populations.

Commonsense Choices from Uncommon Voices:Rethinking America’s Correctional Policies brings together the experiences of men who served time in prison with contemporary research on correctional policy. This work combines a voyeuristic desire to observe “evil” and the consequences of the system of punishment, with detached consideration of what those stories can tell us about who we are as a nation and how we treat those who have betrayed the social trust. The authors simultaneously examine first-person accounts of inmate experiences with the correctional system and what actually, works, in operation, to promote the rehabilitative and restorative models of justice so many of our policymakers espouse. Each chapter opens with a vignette, a recollection of an event or series of events, about an inmate’s experience during the various phases of correctional processing. These first-hand accounts have been collected from men who served time in prison. These men’s stories are examined in their own right, then extrapolated to a broader analysis of the underlying social and policy issues to which that vignette speaks. All chapters follow the same structure: (a) opening vignette about a former inmate; (b) analysis, which includes (i) identification of the underlying issue; (ii) reflection; and (iii) extrapolation to a larger policy issue; and (c) recommendations from the field for enacting practice and crafting policy more responsive to the identified issue.