Education in Prisons: A Developmental and Cultural Perspective
Keywords:
correctional education, educational development, cognitive development, problem-solving skills, prison rehabilitationAbstract
The author's perspectives on education in prisons is an attempt to view academic education in penal institutions from a developmental and cultural perspective. Extensive studies of exemplary programs in British, American, and Canadian prisons in 1974-75 give further justification for rejecting the medical-therapeutic and environmental-reconditioning models as models of educational growth. The model proposed here is based on the theory that many prisoners are deficient in intellectual, social, and moral development and that this deficiency in turn leads to inadequacies in their analytic problem-solving skills and in their interpersonal and social skills. A further assumption is that the criminal is more a decision maker than a victim of his environment.
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