Scholars and policymakers alike have recognized mass incarceration and criminal recidivism as two of the most profound challenges American society faces. For more than half a century, the United States has been the world's most prominent incarcerator, boasting the highest incarceration rate and the third-highest recidivism rate, with analysts…

This article reports on an empirical study of a literature project at a special residential home for detained youth in Sweden. Informed by critical literacy, the study explored the ways in which versions of empowerment in relation to reading were performed in a 'critical space'. The ethnographic study was analytically inspired by the actor-network…

The purpose of this research is to analyze the right to education of people in the context of confinement within the framework of the National Constitution of Paraguay. Education is a fundamental right of every person, guaranteed and recognized in national and international instruments. The problem is generated with the vulnerable social sector,…

Using all Arkansas correctional releases from 2005-2016 of adults who at intake lacked high school diplomas or GEDs, the authors examined how correctional education and its moderating factors affect recidivism (N = 32,174) and post-release employment (N = 40,667). Completion of GED and vocational programs were associated with financially viable…

Despite resurgent public interest in censorship issues, research and reporting on prison censorship policies remain largely localized, with few wide-scale, systematic studies of the issue. There is good reason for this: the highly decentralized nature of the carceral system in the United States and the practical challenges in discovering and…

Both inside and outside educational settings, reading literature is emphasized as something good, perhaps even something that makes us better people. This paper aims to open the 'black-boxed' conception of reading by studying how reading and (non)readers are conceptualized in relation to young people taken into custody. I examine a policy document…

The main focus of the study was to explore the involvement of stakeholders in promoting the wellness of juvenile offenders in South African correctional schools. Two teachers and three juveniles were purposefully selected to complete open ended questionnaires from two juvenile centres in the Western Cape province of South Africa. The major aim of…

This paper aims to develop an approach on social deviance and Popular Education. In this sense, it assumes a basic analytical statement of the sociology of deviance: social groups create deviance by making the rules whose infraction constitutes deviance, and by applying those rules to particular people and labelling them as outsiders. Labelling…

The U.S. incarceration rate has quadrupled since the 1980s. While criminal convictions associated with the "War on Drugs" is the common narrative offered for the rising rate, additional factors are also contributing to this growth. Scholars have addressed alternative explanations including how a ubiquitous prescription drug market,…

Given the title of Literacy teacher, and expected to teach three 50-min periods a day to youth, ages 12 to 17, who were awaiting trial, the then 23 year old author's classroom was located in the basement of an adjoined building fronting two urban thoroughfares. Toronto's family court building still remains at the front entrance, but the back…

Missing data (attrition and non-response) are a feature of most surveys especially longitudinal/panel studies. And many such studies now have multilevel designs and hence multilevel data structures. Recent advances in imputation methodology now offer social researchers opportunities to address issues of missing data in a statistically principled…

The Norwegian Correctional Service offers a program called "Fathers in Prison", aimed at helping incarcerated fathers to have better contact with their children during their sentence and after release. On the basis of 38 semi-structured interviews with prisoners who have completed the program, we would argue that there is reason to…

This article explores the work of The Inside Film project. Inside Film works with a specific group of people (prisoners and ex-prisoners) in a particular set of circumstances (in prison or on parole) exploring how film making can be used within prison education or with people who have been to prison as a means of fostering a critical engagement…

Low levels of education and dropping out of school are associated with criminal involvement. The Portuguese prison system, similar to other prison systems (e.g. England), offers prison-based educational programmes so inmates can complete compulsory education. However, the completion rate of these educational programmes is low, and the dropout rate…

The aim of the present study is to examine the writing disposition of convicts and prisoners in Silivri Penal Institution Compound who study at Open Education Secondary School based on various variables. In the present study, "Writing Disposition Scale" that includes 21 5-point Likert type items, developed by Piazza and Siebert (2008)…