Students in Correctional Education: Developmental Education’s Forgotten Population

The Office of Correctional Education was created through an Act of Congress in 1991 to oversee and coordinate prison education programs as a way to reduce recidivism (Carl D. Perkins Vocational and Applied Technology Education Act, 1990). However, correctional education completion rates are extremely low. Therefore, we used secondary data from the Program for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies survey to show that students in prison would benefit from developmental and student supports. Survey data represented 1,319 prisoners and 8,670 from the household population. We used descriptive analysis, chi-square tests, and Welch’s t-tests to analyze survey data. We conclude that those in the prison sample had a greater potential need for student support programs than the household sample and would benefit from increased developmental and student supports.

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