UNLOCKING POTENTIAL: Adapting Prison Pedagogies for University Classes
Because in the United States access to a quality education
is raced and classed, educational opportunities--or rather,
the dearth of them--are linked to imprisonment. Kathryn
Hanson and Deborah Stipek write, “Dropouts are 3.5
times more likely to be arrested than high school
graduates. Nationally, 68 percent of all males in prison do
not have a high school diploma.” Even more strikingly,
Begin to Read reports that 85% of juveniles tried in
juvenile court and over 60% of incarcerated adults are
functionally illiterate.