Corrections_Today_July_August_2019_Vol.84_No.4

Communications & Publications

needs in treatment plans and assign priority to services that are offered and to whom. A January 2019 California State Auditor’s report, which reviews the effectiveness of in-prison rehabilitation programs in California prisons, offers an example of the complexity and importance of this issue. 2 One of the report’s conclusions is that “corrections is failing to place inmates into appropriate rehabilitation programs leading to inmates being released from prison without having any of their rehabilitation needs met,” shockingly illustrating the dire consequences of failing to address this challenge. Criminogenic factors, such as substance abuse disorders, anger and hostility and criminal personality need to be assessed; the results of those assessments need to be integrated with assessments of employability skills and academic skills — skills which can be developed through in-prison education programs. Integrating the needs profile of a correctional population into a menu of program services while also integrating the needs profile of incarcerated individuals into appropriate individual treatment plans is one of the greatest challenges facing correctional systems and correctional professionals. This challenge should be recognized in discussions of correctional education. Editors Robinson and Smith found and included articulate statements by incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals which should provoke and

encourage our efforts to both expand access to education behind bars, and to assure that those services are of high quality. Brian Amaro offered some straight talk stating, “The most common ground us inmates share is a poor education, and in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, education is not always easily accessible.” (p. 151) After overcoming obstacles to accessing in-prison education, Amaro recounts success in obtaining his GED — but then tells of being unable to access an in-prison college program. Facing this obstacle, he turned to books and self-study, reporting that “The more I read and learn, the more I hope, and the more I hope, the more I plan and envision a better life.” (p. 151) Amaro reminds us that in environments where hope is in short supply, education is a precious commodity. “Education for Liberation” is an important and welcome resource for policy makers, educators and corrections professionals. It inspires us to attend to the many opportunities before us to better use education to bring hope into lives where it is in critically short supply. u Endnotes 1 Highlights from the U.S. PIACC Survey of Incarcerated Adults: Their Skills, Work Experience, Education and Training. Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies, 2014; U. S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. Accessed at: https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2016/2016040.pdf 2 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Report 2018-113, January 2019, California State Auditor. Accessed at: http://bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2018-113.pdf

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72 — July/August 2019 Corrections Today