Literacy Behind Bars

The National Institute of Corrections just pointed to this study of literacy rates for prisoners. The data is from 2003. Some key findings:

• the prison literacy rate is higher than it was in 1992.
• the prison literacy rate is lower than the rate for adults living in households, though race, sex, age, educational attainment, and first language are also factors.
• "Prison inmates who read newspapers and magazines, books, or letters and notes had higher average prose and document literacy than prison inmates who never read, regardless of the frequency with which they read." - p. vii
• "Prisoner inmates do not always have easy access to a library, but 75 percent of inmates reported that they used the prison library at least once or twice a year. Although 59 percent of prisoners were usually able to access the library within 2 days of wanting to do so, 22 percent had to wait 2 to 6 days, 10 percent had to wait 7 to 10 days, and an additional 10 percent had to wait 10 days or more." - p.62.

The report is chock full of charts and info related to literacy. Worth at least a skim to anyone interested in jail & prison library work.