Now, while normally I take Jeffrey Archer’s views with a Gibraltar-sized grain of salt, this is a thought-provoking idea. Certainly there are social benefits to encouraging illiterate convicts to learn to read in that it would give them an invaluable job skill when they are released and access to a world of information and options they hadn’t previously had. And while the legality of denying prisoners early release on this basis is dubious, it would certainly provide a powerful incentive.
So here’s the topic for debate: should the penal system require a certain level of literacy as a condition of parole? If not, what are the alternatives?
(If you can’t access the Telegraph site, try the Mirror instead.)
Considering that Jeffrey Archer is a convicted felon and was found guilty of perjury no less, he has about as much credibility with me as Nixon did, which is to say less then none.
Denying a prisoner their parole because they can’t read is insane.
Or maybe he’s just trying to expand his target audience. The more readers without much in the way of discriminating taste there are, the more books he sells.
I had no idea that illiteracy was such a problem among the lower socio-economic classes in England. I thought literacy was sort of well… your thing, even among relatively poor people.
In theory, parole is letting a convict out of prison while his sentence is still running, on the grounds that he or she is supposedly rehabilitated enough that they can finish their term on the outside, with supervision. That is why parolees have restricted rights; they’re still convicts, they’re just finishing their sentence under very loose supervision.
If someone reads at the second grade level, and had been making their living as a career criminal, I would expect literacy to be a prerequisite of parole. Otherwise you’re simply dumping them back onto the street. I could see an exception for people with genuine learning disabilities (dyslexia, etc.), but if someone isn’t willing to learn to read, I wouldn’t bet ten cents on their willingness to go straight and stay out of trouble.
Everyone here seems to assume that anybody - except perhaps those with dyslexia - can learn to read if they just try a little harder. There are many, many people out there who are functionally illiterate and who have agonized over trying to read.
When my son finished the fourth grade last year he was reading at about a first grade level, and this is after he was held back a year. Don’t tell me he just wasn’t trying hard enough when he would come home on the report card days and cry his cry his eyes out because he “just wasn’t getting it.”
Dyslexia wasn’t even recognized as a phenomenon until relatively recently, and it’s a safe bet that there are many other brain disorders that are yet unrecognized.
Connecting parole with learning to read is a very bad idea.
I have to agree with pretty much everything Lumpy said. I put it on par with providing some sort of vocational training- lack of legitimate skills are a good means of ensuring a return to the ‘underground economy’.
Literacy is the basic means by which social mobility is possible…I don’t think that it’s an extra punishment to link parole to some basic literacy skills.
Of course, I would also have to insist on there being learning professionals on hand that have experience/training in dealing with adult education/learning disabilities, or else you are setting the inmates up for failure.
I wonder if there is a connection between literacy of parolees and recividism?
Seems like a good idea to me, especially if there is a correlation between the two. Any metric that will help determine how likely the criminal is to break the law again can and should be used to make decisions on parole.
Not giving them parole isn’t a punishment. It’s simply making them serve the time they were sentanced to.
The first part of his suggestion - to pay those in education the same wage as those in any other job - is a good one though. But no-one should be denyed parole because they’re illiterate.
That is the most sensible thing I have read today.
If recidivism can be related to illiteracy, then refusing parole to illiterate prisoners who refuse to go to class to learn how to read seems like a remarkably sensible idea.
Jeffrey Archer thought of that? I am more than stunned.
Get him out to Iraq, pdq.
If you object to insisting that an inmate learn to read before being considered for parole, make learning to read a plus factor to be considered when the inmate is up for parole.
Still, nobody is addressing those poor slobs that are incapable of learning to read. There are a lot of folks out there who just can’t do it for reasons we just don’t understand at this point in time. For them you are setting an impossible goal.
Parole boards are slowly being phased out in some states. Many convictions now come with “flat time.”
My husband, who works in corrections, says that this is a problem in the institutions. It used to be that inmates who had parole possibilities would behave themselves, and join programs such as anger management, trying to make themselves as attractive as possible for the parole board. With “flat time” the inmate can pretty much behave as he wishes without fearing his release date will be pushed back. There’s no incentive to join programs or get an education when they’re going to be released on a certain date, anyway.
I don’t think that anyone would disagree that education is not a very good thing and the more you get inside the better you’ll be off outside. So I’m agreement with Lord* Archer thus far. But denying parole on it? I don’t think so.
Not for much longer. Also note I use the term dripping with sarcasm.
Even if they become literate and educated you have to take into account that a parolee will probably have trouble finding a job. There was someone on SD a month or so ago who was 31 who almost got fired because he was convicted of a non-violent property crime at 19. Somoene convicted of a violent crime would have it 2x as bad.
I’ve read about the recidivism rate from various books (cant remember the titles offhand) and the best way to ensure a straight life on the outside is vocational training in prison. SSRIs are good too (one said that there was close to an 0.8 correlation between low serotonin levels and recidivism), and so is marriage. However, assuming a prisoner learns to read or obtains vocational training it will still be hard for him to find & keep a job. many places will not hire an ex-felon. So we are in our own way encouraging ex-felons to return to crime by trying to deny them the ability to find a living wage.
It’s actually not a bad idea, though. In this day and age, literacy has become pretty much neccesary, and if some one can’t read when he goes into prison, it’s probably better for both him and society if he learns before he gets out.
Do they not have something like a parole board that grants parole on a case-by-case basis using factors such as literacy, family support, etc. in the parole review?
Anyway, I don’t think parole is a right in the US, I think it’s something that may be granted to certain individuals.
As a physician in a max-security prison, I must say that some of the inmates are so damaged (neurologically and psychologically) that I doubt they’ll ever be able to learn to read, no matter how earnest their desire or how capable the teachers. I’m not talking dyslexia, I’m talking psychomotor retardation and lack of neuronal development in the first place from utterly barren home environments during the early years.
I’d also want to see statistics that show giving literacy to the non-literate prisoner reduces recidivism. Thrown another arbitrary hurdle (in the form of a new rehab criteria) at our struggling prison system and you will drive costs up, frustrate staff and inmates, and add to the bureaucracy. So before we do this, we’d better make damn sure it really makes a difference. I’ve seen too many “great ideas” implemented by the politicians which did nothing but cost money and frustrate staff without serving to improve the inmates’ chances.
It’s all pretty moot in the US anyway. With “Truth in sentencing” laws, they serve the time they’re given at the time of sentencing. No parole, no reductions for “good time”, no compassionate release.
QtM, treating some real wretched refuse who can’t even recognize what it is they yearn for.