Evaluates a 16-hour intervention program designed to enhance psychological maturity among work release residents. Comparisons of the experimental group (N=22) with a non-participant control group (N=24) and with itself at pre- and posttesting revealed significant changes on a number of psychological measures favoring the experimental group.…

Examined the personality characteristics of male prison inmates. Results indicate some personality traits and two clinical syndromes are useful in differentiating prison inmates with high and low scores on measures of private self-consciousness. Suggests persons with high self-consciousness are more suspicious, obsessive-compulsive, and likely to…

Administered the Clinical Analysis Questionnaire and the What I Think and Feel test to 159 male prisoners. Participants reported low levels of anxiety and an absence of debilitating personality characteristics, suggesting the absence of a criminal personality that is a separate and distinct type of personality. (JAC)

This article explores the apparent disparities between normative and descriptive goals within the Correctional Service of Canada and its apparent impact on the delivery of educational services to inmates; and identifies constraints to the realization of educational outcomes that promote reduced recidivism in federally administered penitentiaries…

A course in the Literature of Incarceration is useful in furthering a student's examination of the prison as a complex social structure and can be developed to appeal to a campus as well as to a prison college population. (Author)

A national survey of correctional education programs analyzed the methods of program delivery by types of institutions of higher education contracting to provide course offerings. It was concluded that the same level of program delivery exists regardless of institutional type or geographic location. (SK)

Evaluated the psychotherapeutic adjunct of bibliotherapy in a maximum security correctional setting with 54 volunteers from a general and segregated population. Results indicated that bibliotherapy may have a facilitative effect on self-concept and internal locus of control but cannot be differentiated from the effects of therapist intervention.…

Describes how indeterminate sentencing creates unique adaptations on the part of inmates, creating different kinds of difficulties for the staff. Questions whether this type of sentencing facilitates rehabilitation any more than traditional mandatory sentencing. (JAC)

Specially trained inmates in a maximum security prison supervised a play area in the prison visiting room where children could play in a safe and structured way with materials appropriate to their developmental needs. Children were thus able to master, in age-appropriate ways, the circumstances of the visiting room. (Author/CMG)

Discusses the need for special education preservice programs to prepare special educators to work with adolescents in correctional institutions. Highlights the need for multicategory teacher training and the elimination of gender stereotyping in preparing female teachers. (SK)

Peasants dispossessed by economic and social change in 16th-Century England created a crime wave in London. In response, Bridewell Prison was established on the premise of rehabilitation: teaching inmates a trade and developing useful work and social habits. (SK)

Of a sample of 276 offenders who earned college degrees while in New York State prisons, 14 percent were reincarcerated. This recidivism rate is lower than the 20 percent overall rate, attributed both to the offenders' capabilities and motivation and to the impact of the college program. (SK)

A plea for change in library service to prisoners by an inmate of a correctional institution. (JB)

Traces the history of Title IV-A of the Library Services and Construction Act as it relates to correctional libraries, and the effect of the legislation within the last three years. (Editor/JB)