Project Abstract

Abstract painting by Debora L. Stewart, "Harmonious Alignment" [Acrylic on canvas]Image used with permission...

“I and the public know

What all schoolchildren learn.

Those to whom evil is done,

Do evil in return.” --W. H. Auden

            Abstract: 

This project identifies the manner that correctional education ensures personal development, more consistent employment and self-efficacy, thereby making the struggles of life less overwhelming for incarcerated offenders. It begins with discussion of the relevant issues facing incarcerated offenders who are at a disadvantage during many aspects of the educational process, from grammar school and thereafter. It then examines how reflection, which is an integral aspect of education is part of the process involved with reducing criminal recidivism. This project/paper will demonstrate the manner that education, while incarcerated, and writing workshops in particular, can provide insight, self-esteem and practical knowledge, for individual growth in an effort to divert offender’s behavior in positive, proactive ways and lesson criminal recidivism. An intervention to this social problem is suggested in the form of a creative writing workshop. It is argued that by funding education through groups like The Bard Prison Initiative, incarcerated offenders can gain self-efficacy, moral development, and explore past abuse on a personal level. With correctional education such as writing workshops, recidivism will be lessened by engaging in self-examination, with the added benefit of a structured social environment, where diverse human needs can be met. The main theories in creating this intervention are from Mezirow’s structure of transformational learning and Kolb's Learning cycle.