African American Illiteracy Essay

A survey conducted in 2011 through 2012 showed that 32 percent of people who were in prison had at least one disability. Of that 32 percent, 2 out 10 prisoners reported having some form of a cognitive disability (Bureau of Justice Statistics, n.d.). If the bill that Senator Thurmond Strom introduced to the Senate were to be passed, these prisoners with cognitive disabilities will be even further oppressed and receive even fewer resources upon their release. This proposed bill will have a negative impact on the overall outcome of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973.

An uninformed person might say that the amount of imprisonment is going up because there are more crimes being committed. In the time between 1960 and 1990, property crimes rose by 200 percent and violent crimes rose by 400 percent. So it is clear that rising crime rates did play a part in the increased incarceration rate during that time. However, in recent years, this has not been the case. This is because

Public opinion surveys show that more and more people believe that crime is increasing. People feel less safe in their environment and have thus started to take measures to protect themselves. Matt Taibbi states, “In 1991 there were about one million Americans behind bars. By 2012, the number was over 2.2 million, a more than 100% increase.” But is this view accurate? Statistics show that the population two decades ago America’s population was approximately 266 million compared to today's population which stands at approximately 322 million. Since the population of America 20 years ago was less than it is today, you can’t possibly compare today’s the crime rates and prison population to rates that were calculated years back. It’ll obviously seem

64% of women who enter prison without a high school diploma, only 16% receive their GED and only 29% participate in any form of vocational training while they are incarcerated

incarceration rates with 2.2 million people currently in prisons and jails (Trends in the U.S.

“The imprisonment boom that began in the late 1970s has swelled the state and federal prison system to more than 1.4 million prisoners.  Adding those

Majority of the studies reviewed based on data collected from research studies showed that there’s definitely a correlation between low literacy skills and prison. The research articles focused on the low literacy skill sets for African Americans, specifically African American Males. The accusations stating that prisons build their future prison beds based from the third grade reading scores, have not been proven to be true, but also have not been proven all the way false (Glod & Helderman, 2009). Many says it’s just an urban myth that was carried out throughout the years, but truthfully have not been utilized as an resource mechanism to actually produce prison beds (Glod & Helderman, 2009). The research also reported many barriers for the African American literacy level. The research also focused on the new innovative learning methods to produce and promote reading amongst the African American young males. Stepping out the traditional school setting and empowering the barbershops while engaging the community allowed the barbers and adult clients help enhance reading and identify it with the African American culture (Brinson, 2007). By breaking the research down into four categories has helped structuring this review of the literature (articles).

“Keep trying.” An inspirational advice made by one of the former inmates of Highlands County Jail, Carrie Ashby when she witnessed how her life has changed with the education she received even behind bars. The stigma of neglect and discrimination are just too much for the inmates whom we are trying to help improve their lives, and having low to no education at all makes the situation worse than it is. Instead of letting the time pass through watching televisions or over thinking, it is a brilliant move to spend funds in educating inmates.

Confinement has been the weapon of mass destruction in fighting crime in America. Since the early 1970s, prisons have paved the way to incarceration. The nation’s prison population increased by 705 percent, between 1973 and 2009, resulting in more than one in every 100 adults behind bars. This rapid growth came at a healthy cost that stripped the annual state and federal budget on corrections by 305 percent during the past two decades, to $52 billion. In the same period, corrections spending doubled as a share of state funding. In the United States, one in every fifty-two adults is on probation or parole. According to the National Bureau of Justice Statics, in the United States between the year of 2013 and 2014, an estimated 4.7 million adults were under

and 33% of juvenile property crime index arrests involved black youth even though they only

As the number of convicted felons in prisons increase daily, the government is constantly looking for methods to prevent released prisoners from going back to prison. A controversial plan that has taken the country by storm is a plan wanting to give the prisoners the opportunity to receive a college education while in jail. In “College for Criminals,” Bill Keller takes great advantage of statistics and comes off to the reader as knowledgeable and well-informed. The other article, “Let Prisoners Take College Courses,” by John J. Lennon, does a magnificent job of introducing the author to the reader as an honest and compassionate man. Among the two Op-Eds, the author John Lennon does a more effective job in convincing the reader to trust him

Before custody: It is research that we realize that 52% of male offenders and 71% of female offenders have no capabilities at all. This is an extremely miserable state as this won 't just damage the people who are in charge of the crime yet would likewise affect the general public at large. An incredible 48% of prisoners have education abilities at or beneath Level 1 and around 65% have numeracy skills at or underneath Level 1. More than one three individuals in jail have a perusing level below Level 1 and 75% for composing Level 1 is what is anticipated from an eleven year old. Likewise the same study discusses how the lives of different people can be changed. Studies propose that 23% of individuals who go into jail have low IQs of less than 70.

"It costs the government half a million bucks to keep me in jail and $450 to teach me to read and write" (ex-con cited in Porporino and Robinson 1992, p. 92). The literacy demands of the workplace and society in general are growing in complexity, and recurring linked cycles of poverty and low literacy levels put some people at increasing disadvantage. The prison population includes disproportionate numbers of the poor; those released from prisons are often unable to find employment, partly due to a lack of job and/or literacy skills, and are often reincarcerated (Paul 1991). Add to that the high cost of imprisonment and the huge increase in the prison population and it seems clear that mastery of literacy skills

But a more pressing factor for discontinuing prison education is the conditions inside the jail. An example is the lockdown, “used a security measure, a lockdown confines prisoner to their cells for an indefinite period” (Thomas 28). This disrupts the class, as the inmates are not permitted to go outside of their cells unless they are assigned maintenance of the institution. This can happen to just one group of detainees that the other groups get ahead of them in their tasks, the inmates in a lockdown are pressured to catch up with the work. Schedules of hearings and trials also disrupt the class schedules. Another condition is the jail staff and

Since the 80’s, there has been a general consensus in favor of the get-tough on crime approach and since then, we have witnessed a decrease in the budget to support education of prison inmates as a result of that (Ryan, 1995). The problem with that concord is that the crime rates haven’t changed much. Since the 80’s, the prison population has continued to