Paradigms of Prison Education

From its earliest origins, the penitentiary and its programs have been influenced by the philosophy of the era. The Quakers advocated that the penitentiary be a place of silent reflection on wrongdoings. As a result, prisoners who had an interest in learning were given only a Bible to read. The first Canadian penitentiary, in Kingston, had a strict regime of sanitation and separate confinement. Early schooling in Kingston Penitentiary consisted of basic literacy instruction in prisoners' cells.

Collins (1995), in "Shades of the Prison House," argues that prison programming has been influenced by philosophical paradigms. Collins describes models of prison education which have been influenced by these paradigms: the medical model, opportunities model, the creative approach, and participatory literary methods. While there is no one site which fully embraces a particular paradigm, philosophical influence was nevertheless observed at each of the sites. Collins paradigms are used here only as a guide to describing program models. Many more activities occurred than are described in this section. It is intended to highlight various activities.

These models are not intended here to compare the merits of one school against another which, according to one teacher, is often done by Correctional Service of Canada officials. She noted that evaluation of teachers is done by measuring and comparing the number of grade levels accomplished by students within prison schools. This study was, in part, about measuring, but it pertained to the following phase of this project. In Phase II, individual goals will be measured to determine if students reached their goals.

Medical Model

Collins indicates that the Medical Model was previously the predominant guiding paradigm for prison school programs. According to Collins (1995), its influence is still very pervasive, it no longer goes unchallenged as a guiding paradigm. He writes,

This pervasiveness should come as no surprise. The medical model fits in nicely, and helps to sustain the notion of criminology as a professionalized discipline. The professionalized discourse has tended to identify criminality with individual, psychologized deficiencies that are amenable to treatment by behavior modification or normalizing techniques. ... Emphasis is placed on the ability to read and respond to short written statements rather than on writing for free expression. Since students' learning needs and their learning objectives are already programmed into the curriculum design, the literacy teacher is redefined as a "facilitator" or "manager." (p. 51)