How Effective Is Correctional Education

How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here?
The Results of a Comprehensive EvaluatioN
by Lois M. Davis, Jennifer L. Steele, Robert Bozick, Malcolm V. Williams, Susan Turner,
Jeremy N. V. Miles, Jessica Saunders, Paul S. Steinberg
More than 2 million adults are incarcerated in U.S. prisons, and each year more than
700,000 leave federal and state prisons and return to communities. Unfortunately, within
three years, 40 percent will be reincarcerated. One reason for this is that ex-offenders
lack the knowledge, training, and skills to support a successful return to communities.
Trying to reduce such high recidivism rates is partly why states devote resources to
educating and training individuals in prison. This raises the question of how effective —
and cost-effective — correctional education is — an even more salient question given
the funding environment states face from the 2008 recession and its continuing
aftermath. With funding from the Second Chance Act of 2007, the Bureau of Justice
Assistance, U.S. Department of Justice, asked RAND to help answer this question as
part of a comprehensive examination of the current state of correctional education for
incarcerated adults and juveniles. The RAND team conducted a systematic review of
correctional education programs for incarcerated adults and juveniles. This included a
meta-analysis on correctional education's effects on recidivism and postrelease
employment outcomes for incarcerated adults, as well as a synthesis of evidence on
programs for juveniles. The study also included a nationwide survey of state
correctional education directors to understand how correctional education is provided
today and the recession's impact. The authors also compared the direct costs of
correctional education with those of reincarceration to put the recidivism findings into a
broader context.
Key Findings
Adult Correctional Education Improves Postrelease Outcomes
 Inmates who participate in correctional education programs had a 43 percent lower

chance of recidivating than those who did not — a reduction in the risk of recidivating of
13 percentage points.
 Providing correctional education can be cost-effective when it comes to reducing
recidivism.
 The odds of obtaining employment postrelease among inmates who participated in
correctional education was 13 percent higher than for those who did not, but only one
study had a high-quality research design.
Several Programs for Incarcerated Juveniles Show Promise

 Two juvenile correctional education programs show promise: Read 180 and Florida's
Avon Park Youth Academy.
 The field is ripe for conducting larger-scale randomized trials.
Key Trends in the Current Correctional Education Landscape
 The 2008 recession led to an overall 6 percent decrease in states' correctional

education budgets between fiscal years 2009 and 2012, but it had a much larger impact
on states with large and medium prison populations (a 20 and 10 percent decrease,
respectively).
 Most states reported using computers in correctional education, but student access to
the Internet or Internet-based instruction was limited in most states.
 Of the states planning to implement the more rigorous 2014 General Education
Development (GED) exam that relies on computer-based testing, there are concerns
about teachers being adequately prepared to teach it and about the time it may take to
prepare students for it, as well as about the negative effect on GED completion rates.
Medium and large states are expected to encounter more challenges.
Recommendations
 Research needs to get inside the "black box" of what does and does not work in
correctional education programs to help policymakers make programmatic tradeoffs in a
resource-constrained environment.
 Doing so requires (1) further developing the evidence base by leveraging grant
mechanisms to encourage more rigorous research designs, measure intervention
details like program dosage, and assess different educational instructional models,
innovative strategies to implement information technology in the classroom and
enhance instruction, and instructional quality in correctional education settings; (2)
establishing a study registry to collect the information from such research; and (3) for
the very nascent field of correctional education for incarcerated juveniles, developing
large-scale randomized trials and rigorous natural experiments, encouraging
partnerships between educators, correctional systems, and researchers, and ensuring
the data on juveniles is being collected at the federal level.
 Two trends merit policy attention. First, given the growing role of information technology
in society, policymakers need to determine how to effectively leverage such technology
for correctional education and assess its impact on instruction and outcomes. Second,
the 2014 GED and the use of computer-based testing have raised serious concerns;
policymakers should consider opportunities for technical assistance to educators to
implement the more rigorous exam and computer-based testing. Beyond that,
policymakers must assess and monitor the impact of the 2014 GED exam on students'
preparedness and completion rates and on recidivism and employment outcomes.

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How Effective Is Correctional Education, and Where Do We Go from Here?

The Results of a Comprehensive EvaluatioN

 Inmates who participate in correctional education programs had a 43 percent lower

Several Programs for Incarcerated Juveniles Show Promise

Key Trends in the Current Correctional Education Landscape

 The 2008 recession led to an overall 6 percent decrease in states' correctional

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