Prison Vocational Education and Policy in the United States: A Critical Perspective on Evidence-Based Reform PDF
Preview Prison Vocational Education and Policy in the United States: A Critical Perspective on Evidence-Based Reform
PPPPRRRRIIIISSSSOOOONNNN VVVVVVOOOOOOCCCCCCAAAAAATTTTTTIIIIIIOOOOOONNNNNNAAAAAALLLLLL EEEEDDDDUUUUCCCCAAAATTTTIIIIOOOONNNN AAAANNNNDDDD PPPPOOOOLLLLIIIICCCCYYYY IIIINNNN TTTTHHHHEEEE UUUNNNIIITTTEEEDDD SSSTTTAAATTTEEESSS AA CCrriittiiccaall PPeerrssppeeccttiivvee oonn EEvviiddeennccee--BBaasseedd RReeffoorrmm Andrew J. Dick, William Rich, Tony Waters Prison Vocational Education and Policy in the United States Andrew J. Dick • William R ich • Tony W aters Prison Vocational Education and Policy in the United States A Critical Perspective on Evidence-Based Reform Andrew J. Dick William Rich California State University California State University Chico, CA Chico, CA Tony Waters Payap University Chiangmai, Thailand and California State University Chico, California, USA ISBN 978-1-137-56468-9 ISBN 978-1-137-56469-6 (eBook) DOI 10.1057/978-1-137-56469-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936085 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2 016 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifi cally the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfi lms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or here- after developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specifi c statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the pub- lisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. Cover design by Emma J. Hardy Printed on acid-free paper This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by Springer Nature The registered company is Nature America Inc. New York This book is dedicated to Andy, Renee, Matthew, and Ian. P : A S V REFACE TUDY OF OCATIONAL E C P DUCATION IN ALIFORNIA RISONS INTRODUCTION In 2007, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) was promised by the California State Legislature $500 million per year to expand programs in vocational and Adult Basic Education (ABE). The Legislature and Governor Schwarzenegger hoped the new curricula and classes would reduce crime and lower California’s sky-high recidivism rates. The Legislature intended a major policy shift and wanted results for their money. They wanted verifi able evidence that the program worked. This is where our study came in. The CDCR contracted with our team to gather evidence about the purchased curricula and (hopefully) verify that the desired results were being achieved. We evaluated the education programs at eight California state prisons from 2008 to 2011. To com- plete the contract, we wanted to “tell the story” of vocational education in California’s prisons that would be useful and relevant to prison admin- istrators. To ensure this, we entered the CDCR’s world of prisons. This book is the result of our fi ndings and experiences. Like other public institutions, prisons are dominated by the adminis- trative fads of the day—in this case, the evidence-based decision-making model. In California’s prisons, this demand was translated into specifi c leg- islation signed by Governor Schwarzenegger, P ublic Safety and Offender Services Rehabilitation Act of 2007 (also known as Assembly Bill [AB] 900) and the “California Logic Model,” a rehabilitation model emphasizing the treatments inmates would undertake as they served their sentences. vii viii PREFACE: A STUDY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA PRISONS This model was the consensus of an “Expert Panel” which issued its report in 2007. The vocational education programs we evaluated were very prominent in the California Logic Model. But as we found out, irre- spective of administrative fads, the core mission of the CDCR is not to run vocational education but to safely and securely incarcerate, as of 2007– 2008, 170,000 prisoners. To do our evaluation of vocational education, the CDCR facilitated multiple visits to eight of California’s 33 prisons. In the prisons, we were given access to prisoners, prison offi cers, teachers, counselors, and prison administrators. To fulfi ll the terms of our contract, we generated a report that was u se- ful for the CDCR. Being u seful , as we were constantly reminded by them, meant that we needed to produce numbers because numbers are valid for bureaucratic decision-making. The data needed to be verifi able observa- tions and evidence-based. What they did not want were opinions from academics, or anyone else, which were unanchored in evidence. E vidence was the key; the CDCR clearly felt they already had plenty of opinions anchored in feelings and beliefs coming from the Legislature, the prison offi cers union, newspaper opinion writers, and many other places, so they did not care what our opinion was. Throughout the study, we did our best to provide something that was evidence-based and would be useful to offi - cers and administrators making diffi cult decisions about what programs would be effective or not. But something else kept staring us in the face during the study, some- thing that was not asked for by the CDCR. The point of prison is not education but incarceration. The CDCR runs prisons, not schools, and prisons are fundamentally about punishment. From what we saw, correc- tions and rehabilitation are always secondary to this goal, even though the Legislature, via AB 900, declared otherwise. Even more striking were the voices of those we encountered within the system. We were told repeat- edly by inmates, teachers, prison offi cers, and prison administrators that nothing is ever as it seems in prison—there is always another layer of regu- lation, inmate gang activity, potential and actual violence, drugs (legal and illegal), lockdowns, and so forth, that derail educational goals. Such activi- ties, of course, are those of a prison, not a school, yet such activities inher- ently disrupt educational goals. A class may be well conducted, teachers well trained, and a curriculum well chosen, but the fact that the students may have to submit to anal cavity searches before and after class has con- sequences for how much learning occurs and the quality of that learning. PREFACE: A STUDY OF VOCATIONAL EDUCATION IN CALIFORNIA PRISONS ix These things were not part of what the CDCR asked us to study—they asked us to study vocational education as an analytical unit. Our “deliver- able” was to be about running vocational education classes that were in a prison, rather than a prison that happened to have a school. This situation created the conundrum this book is based on: is this book about vocational education in prison (which is what our offi cial report—the deliverable— was about and we are so proud of), or is it about prisons where vocational education classes are incidentally inserted? This book is about the latter. Our book is structured to refl ect the multiple realities nested within our research domain. We invite readers to view the problems of education for inmates, not through a linear report of results based on experimen- tal research designs, but as a series of stories about prison life, classroom dynamics, and research protocols. In spite of the sometimes Kafkaesque limitations, we invite readers to look through the window of our experi- ences and the resulting critique of applied research itself in order to better understand the larger issues of prison education. By doing so, we think this approach will lead our readers on an adventure story. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This book could not have been created without the contributions of col- leagues and friends. We wish to acknowledge David Philhour, who pro- vided not only the expertise of an outstanding statistician but also the calm and deliberate perspective we needed throughout the project; Gail Hildebrand, our support staff with Grants and Contracts served as editor, advocate and at times, negotiator with our funder as we endured stop orders and diffi cult re-start timelines; Josie Smith, our keen eyed and refl ective typist, and of course the selfl ess men and women of the CDCR who shared their truths, helped us to understand and performed wonder- fully in extremely diffi cult circumstances. NOTE ON AUTHORSHIP Both Bill Rich and Tony Waters wrote and/or heavily edited this entire book. The report that is at the heart of this book was largely prepared under the leadership of Andy Dick before his cancer diagnosis in May 2011. Still, in the preparation of this section, both Bill and Tony played important roles drafting sections of the report and editing what Andy
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