Prison literacy programs

This fact sheet is one of a series prepared by the Canadian Literacy and Learning Network (CLLN) to address a variety of literacy-related topics.

This handbook was produced for use in the prison advocacy training part of the Human Rights in Action (HRIA) project. The HRIA project is dedicated to ensuring that the human rights of all prisoners are protected, especially those of women prisoners who are racialized and those with disabling mental health issues.

The Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) conducted a diagnostic survey of Canadian colleges and institutes programs and services for immigrants, organized a College and Institute Immigration Roundtable, and developed a section of the ACCC website that profiles the types of programs and services immigrants can access through colleges and institutes.

The following material is intended to guide and be a resource for those who use the textbook "Prison Voices", published by Fernwood Publishing, to teach literacy at varying levels, primarily within the prison environment.

In the winter of 1999, Jane Boulton, the Program Manager of Smithers Literacy Services had a burning question, "Why don't inmates access my program on return to the community? I know they are out there and have a need for literacy services, but where are they?" In conversations with other literacy practitioners in the region, Jane found she was not alone in this conundrum.

This is a booklet of articles written by judges, and designed to assist judges and other professionals involved in the administration of criminal law to consider the importance of literacy among persons who appear before our courts or are under the supervision of our corrections system.

This project was designed to determine the experiences of offenders in adult correctional facilities in the province in relation to their literacy needs, and to discover where and how those needs were being met. The author also makes recommendations for future action in relation to literacy programs.

This book was the idea of inmates in the Literacy Program at Brandon Correctional Institution. They wanted to produce a booklet that was meaningful to themselves and hopefully, to other people who have a problem with alcohol and/or drugs.

In an ongoing effort to support the education of incarcerated youth and adults, Bringing Family Literacy to Incarcerated Settings: An Instructional Guide is offered as a supplement to the "From Incarceration to Productive Lifestyle" series. This most recent document shares the valuable experiences of numerous individuals and agencies who have successfully incorporated family literacy into incarcerated education programming.

This is a report of a research conducted by the John Howard Society at five prisons in Manitoba and Saskatchewan during the spring of 1997. Five teachers and fifty-seven male students participated in the study which sought to describe what occurs in prison schools, reasons for prison school attendance, school-related goals upon release, and self-identified factors influencing success of these goals.