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When it comes to the education system, most of us tend to have a rather traditional picture in our mind’s eye - a timeline from kindergarten to college and university, gradually increasing our skills in a classroom environment, surrounded by other children and young people our age who are working towards the same goals.
What we don’t tend to think about are the non-traditional education environments, such as adult learning, specialist education and the education that goes on in prisons. However these are some of the most interesting and indeed, vital environments in which a flourishing of education can truly change lives; and today we’re exploring some of the biggest questions that get asked about prison education and prison literacy in the world today.
💭 Why Are We Interested in Strengthening Literacy in Prisons?
Simply put, because it’s the right thing to do: rehabilitation is a key part of how we see modern incarceration practise, so prisons should do their best to prepare the people within them for life when they’re released.
For a lot of people, this means giving them the best foundation for stable work when they’re on the outside, and a large part of this is developing their literacy skills. Somebody with low literacy might struggle with job application processes or indeed, doing some aspects of their job when they’ve found one, and so their probability of living below the poverty line on release and indeed, reoffending, is higher than that of somebody who’s left the prison system able to read with ease.
💭 How Does Raising Literacy Standards in Prisons Reduce Reoffending?
The simple answer is that a spell in prison doesn’t mean that the factors that have led an individual to commit an offence have been dealt with. If low literacy has been a factor in the act of committing a crime, then that low literacy hasn’t gone away simple in the act of their having served their sentence. The same problem exists on the other side: skills and training are difficult to access, jobs are difficult to apply for and progress in, and low socioeconomic circumstances are difficult to rise out of.
And that’s why the in-unit prison education system is of great importance when it comes to reducing the rates of reoffending that we can see in people who have served their sentence and been released. Combatting the issues that may have led an individual to commit an offence means that when released, they have a much smaller chance of reoffending – figures from The Shannon Trust indicate that 70% of these prisoners with low literacy are assessed to have a chance of returning to prison if they do not receive adequate educational support, a figure which drops to 16% if they do.
Bolstering reading and writing skills in-unit mean that when individuals do exit the prison system, those barriers to work and education are lowered, and careers and opportunities that may previously have been ‘walled off’ are now open. Better reading skills mean a better chance at long-term employment and the ability to move out of poverty and low socioeconomic circumstances, and the ability to build skill sets that feed into a chosen career.
💭 Where Does Assistive Technology Come In?
A huge part of raising somebody’s literacy levels when they’re in prison might be assistive technology. A study by the Shannon Trust found that around 50% of the prison population in the UK are what we call ‘functionally illiterate’. This means that they have a reading age of 11 or lower, and whilst they technically possess a level of reading and writing skills, these being weaker or less developed means that whilst reading a text message, simple leaflet or a road sign is a task that’s easily achievable, things like books, technical writing and examination paperwork may not be.
It is estimated that between 5 and 10% of the population globally have dyslexia, although some studies put the figure slightly higher at around 15%. However a study of Texas prison inmates by the University of Texas Medical Branch estimated that approximately 80% of prisoners in a sample group struggled with their literacy skills, and that half were likely to be dyslexic. These findings were replicated in the US PIAAC Survey of Incarcerated Adults, which found that around a third of incarcerated people surveyed at 98 sample prisons struggled to be able to pick out basic words and information from a simple level text.
Handheld EdTech devices can break down barriers and enable readers with literacy differences or conditions like dyslexia to access reading. They use advanced text-to-speech technology as it scans the words on a page, and relay them via audio feedback to the reader to complement visual reading skills with an aural support system that’s been proven to improve reading comprehension. They have an advantage over text-to-speech screen readers as they can be used with printed materials and they don’t require an internet connection or screened device to support a user with reading, as not all prison systems permit screened devices for private use.
Text-to-Speech Scanning devices are handy for people with dyslexia and low literacy because as well as supporting reading, they also they allow learners to tackle reading independently. Secure devices that don’t have a data store function like Scanning Pens’ ReaderPen Secure are legal for use in prison cells as well as in learning wings- meaning they they’re a great tool in building literacy skills by enabling reading for pleasure as well as in study.
These devices are also able to open up exams to people with dyslexia or low literacy, so that not only might they be able to leave their prison experience with a stronger standard of literacy, there’s potential for them to leave with formal qualifications too that again, reduce their potential for reoffending and can raise their quality of life after release.
