Prison Literacy: Implications for Program and Assessment Policy.

B. WHAT TH E STATISTICSDo AND Do NOTTELL USAccording to the most recent reports, the following details givesome indication of the overall picture: the most up-to-datesummary report in print that we were able to find confirmed thegeneral impression that one gains from surveying previous reports,estimates, and local studies. Using a sixth-grade level as thestandard for literacy, 50% of the adult inmates in U.S. prisons areilliterate. Using a 12th-grade level as the standard, 75% of inmatesare illiterate, i.e., the illiteracy level of the prison population isapproximately three times that of the general population (Ryan,1990), and the numbers are even worse in some sections of thecountry where general educational levels are lower and classdistinctions sharper (Martin, 1979a & b). Even though the home,the church, and the societyincreasingly in ethnic, economic, andclass breakdownmust all take their share of the blam... (Davidson,1989; cf. Thompson & Doddler, 1986; Wiley & Conciatore, 1989),among the incarcerated, the inadequacy of American publicschooleducation and its GED-style equivalents becomes patent.Schools are scrambling to become more of the solution and lessof the problem (Mauers, 1974; Phillips & Kelly, 1979).Statistics published in 1976 are largely valid today:75 to 90% of juvenile offenders have learning disabilities.Up to 50% of adult inmates are functionally illiterate.Up to 90% of adult inmates are school drop-outs (Herschler,1976).In 1979, the U. S. Bureau of Prisons estimated thatapproximately 50% of adult inmates in federal and state facilitiescould neither read nor write. At least 90% of all inmates had notcompleted high school, and the majority had less than an eighthgradeeducation. According to the Bureau's own 1972 policy, asixth-grade reading level was required before inmates might bereleased, but the Bureau's policy was ahead of its practice. Thedemands of the Adult Education Act, under which most prisoneducation programs were funded, that "functional literacy" at theABE level should be attained by inmates, were not being met. Mostinmates lacked literacy sufficient to understand a newspaper, read a18NATIONAL CENTER ON ADULT LITERACY 5