Beyond Idealism to the Realities of Incarcerated Higher Education: What We Know About the Provision of Higher Education in Prisons

Abstract

The provision of higher education to incarcerated students tends to be isolated from the current state of knowledge in education research due to its narrow and specialised nature. The difficulty of conducting research and evaluating programs in a prison setting contributes to a lack of evidence as to the processes and outcomes of educational interventions. This paper provides an overview of the literature in this field to identify what we currently know about the provision of higher education in prisons. It looks at key factors of success such as the ability to work with students to create student personas and learning identities; practical issues encountered in the provision of course content and teaching such as lack of access to the Internet, security concerns and the mobile nature of modern prison populations; and some of the themes unique to this area of higher education. It identifies that while many people involved in providing higher education to incarcerated students do so from a moral imperative and personal commitment, there exists a strong narrative of class in prison education. This plays out through what programs are considered acceptable offerings for incarcerated students, relationships between all levels of service providers in the prison environment and student-prisoners and assumptions about future career needs and pathways of learners. If higher education is as important in decreasing recidivism as the literature suggests, then more research needs to take place on how best to access, engage and retain incarcerated students.