Literacy in prisons
The 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy reveals striking stats regarding levels of literacy among prison inmates and people living in households. Most of the findings aren’t surprising to me. The study does show a slightly higher literacy rate among inmates over 10 years, but there are still significant numbers, in prisons and out, that are “below basic”—especially in quantitative literacy. Generally, prison inmates are better educated. There is a large over 40 population, and that’s the age group with the worst literacy skills. I’d be interested in finding out how long these over-40’s have been in prison, whether or not they will be released soon, and the kind of literacy training they might have received while in prison. It’s particularly frustrating to think about people being held and released worse off and ill-prepared for the world, when they could be taking advantage of the time they spend to improve their skills.
