Thesis (M.A.)--University of Texas, 1906. / Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves [i]-iv).

No description available.

With over 1.5 million adults incarcerated each day in the United States, the development of successful criminal rehabilitation has now become imperative (Public Safety Performance Project, 2010). Higher education has emerged as a potential ‘solution’, with many undergraduate programmes for prisoners boasting lower rates of recidivism than any other rehabilitative programming available. This doctoral research is a mixed methods investigation of Hudson Link for Higher Education in Prison, an undergraduate degree programme operating at a maximum-security correctional facility in the New York State. While most work in the field of prison education asks whether or not participation reduces recidivism, my research set out to discover how students engage with the processes of education – how they use the tools offered by membership in the social world of the prison college to reframe their understanding of their own experiences, what it means for their identities to be college students in the larger context of the prison, and how education changes their day-to-day lives and their plans for the future. My understanding is informed primarily by student writing data, generated through the facilitation of autobiographical writing workshops with two groups of men from the programme. Over the course of two ten-week sessions, students in these workshops constructed narratives describing their experiences in education both before and during their prison terms. These narratives define education as experiences of learning – allowing for inclusion of those lessons taught by the family unit and/or “in the street” – rather than just those activities involving school. The workshop process allowed me to build and maintain a significant degree of participant trust, as well as to ask for more clarification and detail as necessary in order to build a rich and thorough understanding of their stories and experiences. This understanding was also supported by six months’ worth of ethnographic and participant observation data, and a quantitative profile of every student Hudson Link has served during its twelve years in operation. Data analysis using a cultural-historical framework reveals that these students make sense of their lives using tools offered to them by the figured world of the prison college. Reinterpreting past experiences allows them to come to terms with their lives before prison. Identity reconstruction is achieved through guided authoring of personal change narratives, incorporation of education into the sense of self, and discoursal practices of academic English. These constructions of identity are used to reclaim the sense of agency that prison is designed to take away, which in turn influences student and graduate behaviour.

This study compared recidivism rates of adult male completers and non-completers of correctional education programs in ABE/GED/high school, vocational, and college transfer programs over a five-year period. A total of 1382 releasees was studied for the five years following their release. Recidivism was the dependent variable. Recidivism was defined as re-admission to prison in the state. The dependent variable was compared to the independent variable of education program and the extraneous variables of release age, first crime committed, and type of admission. A Logistic Regression Analysis showed significance for all of the independent and extraneous variables. A Paritioned Chi-square found significance for the independent variable, while controlling for the extraneous variables. Those who completed higher levels of education showed significantly lower levels of recidivism as measured by Chi-square. More research is recommended. / Graduation date: 2000

In many schools, drugs, vandalism, assaults, thefts, and violence against both students and teachers have destroyed the orderly atmosphere needed for teaching and learning. While juvenile criminal behavior, both in school and elsewhere, is caused by a large and complex set of sociological and psychological conditions, there is evidence that a better understanding of the problem of crime and violence in our schools and society can lead to a decline in students' apathy, cynicism, anger, and criminal delinquent behavior. Information presented in this dissertation may have the valuable effect of developing a basic nomenclature for lay persons and professionals, students and teachers, who share an interest in the perceived need to get crime and violence out of the schools. The appendices contain the nomenclature to which education professionals and concerned persons can refer for the practical and useful information they provide. / Graduation date: 1991

It is the purpose of this study to determine to what extent the present educational program in Dallas, Texas, is meeting the problem of juvenile delinquency. To determine this, an analysis will be made of the types of conduct deviations of juveniles, of modern educational psychology, and the relation between these two things.

Following the landmark 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Montgomery v. Louisiana, approximately 2,500 men and women sentenced to mandatory life without the possibility of parole as children (sometimes referred to as “juvenile lifers”) became eligible to be released. As these juvenile lifers re-enter into society, it is important to study their life histories and the consequences of long-term incarceration. Although there have been studies that shed light on prison life and reentry, there is insufficient research using a developmental and life-course perspective to understand the prison life experiences of those confined over the course of their adult lives, and how these experiences shape reentry processes. Specific to adults serving life-sentences, the consequences of long-term incarceration can adversely affect health, education, employment history, and family ties, with consequences for the reentry process. However, given that juvenile lifers begin their incarceration at a key developmental stage, it is unclear how the effects of long-term confinement impacts their maturation process, development, and ultimately, their reentry successes or failures following their release from prison. This concurrent mixed-method study employs both semi-structured life history interviews and life history calendars to examine the effects of the criminal justice system over one’s life course. The study captures the lived experiences of men and women in Pennsylvania before, during, and after serving a mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. This study aims to better understand how long-term confinement, which commenced during the critical developmental period of adolescence, shapes human development and reentry processes as well as how children sentenced to life without parole make sense and order their lives and regain normalcy upon release. Findings reveal that long-term imprisonment disordered the normal stages of human development for juvenile lifers and had adverse consequences for other life domains such as health (both physical and mental), educational attainment, employment opportunities, and the ability to sustain meaningful familial and romantic relationships. Findings also suggest that although the prison environment was not conducive to the development of responsible and mature behavior, juvenile lifers still experienced a series of psychosocial transitions. These psychosocial transitions generally unfolded in various stages, which allowed juvenile lifers to maturely cope to the demands of prison life and achieve significant changes and growth over their life course even before the landmark Miller and Montgomery Supreme Court decisions. The discussion of the research findings highlights the importance of understanding the dynamic changes that occur for those who experience long periods of incarceration to provide insight into post-release outcomes. / Criminal Justice

The objective of this study was to investigate and analyse the educators’ experience in managing a full-time school within a Correctional Services environment. Provision of education in the South African Department of Correctional Services is in terms of Section 29 (1) of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa (Act No.108 of 1996) which stipulates that “everyone has a right (a) to basic education, and (b) to further education, which the state, through reasonable measures, must make progressively available and accessible.” “This constitutional imperative for schooling is not a right that is curtailed by incarceration” (DCS, 2005:137). The researcher used qualitative research inquiry. This is a case study of the educators’ experience in managing a full-time school within a Correctional Services environment. To obtain an in-depth understanding and gain more insight on the research topic, this study focused on one full- time school within the South African Department of Correctional Services. Literature reveals that “correctional centres are bureaucratic institutions that are characterised by a number of factors that can potentially encourage or impede education programme success” (Sanford &Foster, 2006:604). The environment makes learning difficult as there are frequent lockdowns, headcounts and hearings that disrupt the consistency of classes and interrupt the education process (Schirmer, 2008:29). Few learners attend classes and whilst in class they are not really listening, instead, they would be sleeping and unproductive. In most cases, learners would be present because they were forced to be in the education programme (Wright, 2004:198). In this study, the researcher used semi-structured one on one interviews, and document analysis as data collection strategies. Purposeful sampling was utilized to select respondents. A total of six respondents who are full-time educators employed by the Department of Correctional Services were interviewed. The study reveals that managing a full-time school within a Correctional Services environment seems to be challenging because education is not respected and not prioritized. This finding appears to be consistent with literature which reveals that the uniqueness of correctional centre culture with a correctional centre management characterized by a focus on security measures such as lockdowns and head counts constraints the possibilities of learning (Watts, 2010:57). Based on the findings in this study, the researcher recommends that educator development should be prioritized within the Department of Correctional Services and school management should be informed about learners that are released from the correctional centre. This study concludes that managing a full-time school within a Correctional Services environment is challenging due to Correctional Services environment being not conducive for teaching and learning and inadequate resources. / Dissertation (MEd)--University of Pretoria, 2013. / gm2014 / Education Management and Policy Studies / unrestricted