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FORUM on Corrections Research
Adult Basic Education: Can It Help Reduce Recidivism?
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Education represents a major programming endeavour for the Correctional Service of Canada. In the 1989-90 fiscal year, approximately 47% of inmates who were available for education or work - a total of 5,776 offenders - participated in some type of educational program. This represents a 2% increase in the participation rate for the previous year. Educational programs available to inmates include Adult Basic Education, and secondary, vocational, college, and university studies (see Figure 1). Figure 1  A large share - close to one third - of educational enrolments are in Adult Basic Education (ABE). Although often referred to as "literacy" training, ABE leads to certification in both literacy and numeracy skills at the grade-eight level. ABE participation has grown very quickly, beginning in 1987 when the Correctional Service of Canada made ABE its priority in educational programming. Now, at any one time, approximately 1,400 offenders, or over 10% of the federal inmate population, are enroled in some type of ABE program. Almost half of ABE participants are full-time students. The remainder combine their enrolment with work or other types of programming. Participation rates are fairly uniform across the five regions, but as Figure 2 shows, the highest proportion of ABE enrolments is in the Atlantic region and the lowest is in Quebec. Figure 2  On admission, offenders are asked to take achievement tests to assess language (reading and writing) and mathematical skills. All offenders who score below the grade-eight level are offered the opportunity to enrol in ABE programs. The average inmate who enrols in ABE has grade-four level skills in reading and writing and in mathematics. In the 1989-90 fiscal year, 1,574 inmates achieved grade-eight levels in language and mathematics through participation in the Correctional Service of Canada's ABE programs. While this figure may appear impressive, a large number of inmates who enrol in ABE never complete their programs. Some consciously decide to withdraw from their program of studies; others terminate their participation because they are transferred to another institution; and still others are granted conditional release before they have an opportunity to achieve the grade-eight completion target. In 1987, a total of 3,278 inmates participated in ABE programs run by the Correctional Service of Canada. However, by the end of 1989, only about half of these inmates had completed ABE. With the infusion of resources into ABE (almost $6.5 million spent by the Correctional Service of Canada in the 1989-90 fiscal year), program planners are anxious to learn what we are getting for our dollars. Obviously, offenders who participate in ABE increase their language and mathematical skills an advantage that Canadians believe every member of society should possess. However, an important question remains: What contribution does ABE make in reducing the number of released offenders being readmitted? Although correctional educators often assume that their efforts will pay off by reducing recidivism, the research literature has not consistently supported this belief. Despite the programming resources necessary to sustain a high level of participation in ABE, the Correctional Service of Canada has had little evidence that its programs were having the desired "correctional" impact. The Research and Statistics Branch recently examined the post-release outcomes of a large sample of offenders who participated in ABE programs in 1988. The outcomes of offenders who had achieved a grade-eight level were compared with those of ABE participants who, for whatever reason, had not completed the program prior to release. Although the findings do not suggest that all ABE participants can remain crime-free, it appears that achieving a grade-eight level during incarceration may help some offenders stay in the community after their release. Our sample included a total of 1,736 offenders who participated in ABE during 1988 and were subsequently released to the community. We selected participants from 1988 in order to allow sufficient time to observe whether they would recidivate upon release. All the offenders were monitored from the time they were released until October 1990. The average post-release follow-up period was 1.1 years. The majority of the offenders in the study (57%) were followed up for at least one year, and only 16% were followed up for less than six months. The sample included 899 offenders who successfully completed the grade-eight level, 462 who were released before completing ABE, and 375 who chose to withdraw from the program. The readmission patterns were clearly most favourable for the ABE program graduates. As Figure 3 shows, those who completed the targeted grade-eight level had the best community outcomes: only 30.1% of the graduates were readmitted during the follow-up period, compared with 35.7% of those released before completion, and 41.6% who withdrew from ABE. Hence, there was a difference of almost 12% in readmission rates for the group of offenders who had successfully completed ABE and the group who had withdrawn. Of course, one danger of comparing ABE graduates with offenders who did not complete the program is that the different outcomes observed may be related to differences in group characteristics that have nothing to do with ABE participation status. For this reason, the three ABE groups were compared on a number of key characteristics. Figure 3  The three groups had very similar average sentence lengths (3.5 years) and proportions of inmates serving time for a violent offence scheduled under C-67 legislation (44%). However, the graduates differed from the other two groups in their incarceration history: only 28% had previous federal sentences, compared with 38% of those who withdrew from ABE and 33% of those who were released before completing the program. As well, the three groups were granted different types of releases. The graduates were much more likely to receive full parole (33%) than were the offenders who withdrew (19%) and those who were released before completion (24%). These initial differences between the groups suggested that ABE participants who fail to complete the program may be higher-risk offenders than those who do complete it. Normally, a history of previous incarceration is associated with higher chances of reoffending, and mandatory-supervision cases generally exhibit poorer community outcomes than full-parole cases. For this reason, it might be argued that the inmates who were in the "completers" group would be more successful after release regardless of whether or not they had completed ABE. In order to rule out this hypothesis, we statistically adjusted for the initial differences observed between the three ABE participation groups before examining the effects of ABE on post-release outcomes. The supplementary analyses indicated that the initial group differences related to risk of recidivism did not account for the link between ABE completion and lower readmission rates. In fact, ABE appeared to have the greatest impact on offenders who were initially defined as higher risks for reoffending. This finding is illustrated in Figure 4, which compares the effects of ABE on full-parole and mandatory supervision cases. Among the full-parole cases, achieving grade-eight level skills was only marginally associated with lower readmission rates. Whether or not a parolee had completed ABE, had been released before completing or had withdrawn seemed to have little consequence for success in the community. Among mandatory-supervision cases, on the other hand, there appears to be a clear link between ABE completion and later success in the community. Although this group did more poorly than the full-parole group, mandatory-supervision cases who had completed ABE showed readmission rates 10% lower than those offenders who had withdrawn from their studies prematurely. Figure 4  This finding is consistent with Dr. D.A. Andrews' "risk" principle, which contends that correctional programming shows the most benefit among cases that are at the highest risk. The finding of positive ABE effects on mandatory-supervision cases gives additional credence to the belief that when we increase the levels of numeracy and literacy in our offender population, we may also be successful in reducing recidivism. Another approach to studying the impact of ABE is to survey offenders directly to obtain their views on the benefits of educational programs in institutions. In a recent study conducted in collaboration with the Research and Statistics Branch of the Correctional Service of Canada, Dr. Stephen Duguid of Simon Fraser University and Dr. Joel Tax of Dunfield Research and Trent University interviewed 38 released offenders who had participated in ABE programs while serving sentences in federal institutions in the Ontario and Pacific regions. The study was considerably smaller in scale than the readmission study, and the opinions of offenders in the Pacific region were under-represented. However, the findings provide some insight into how offenders perceive the usefulness of ABE skills and how they link the skills to various facets of their community adjustment. Approximately 47% of the respondents indicated that ABE helped them "a great deal" to do things they had not been able to do before. About 30% of the respondents felt that skills acquired through ABE had helped "very much" in their job search, and another 30% felt that the new skills had helped at least "somewhat." ABE skills were rated as "very useful" in on-the-job matters by about half the offenders. Reading, writing, spelling, and mathematics were viewed as equally valuable job skills. Approximately one third of the offenders claimed that what they learned in ABE helped them "very much" with their families and children, and 18% said that ABE helped them "very much" in their relationships with friends. When the respondents were asked to assess how much positive change had occurred in their lives over the last five years, a significant number (21%) cited their participation in ABE as very important in helping them achieve positive changes. An interesting finding of the study - and one that warrants further inquiry - is the link between the acquisition of mathematical skills and other changes in the lives of the offenders. Those who reported feeling "more in control" of their lives rated the usefulness of mathematical skills very highly. The ability to manipulate numbers may be even more important than reading and writing skills for the development of a feeling of self-mastery among offenders. Numeracy skills are also probably crucial to survival in today's labour market. Our research has still not clearly identified which aspects of ABE programs are most helpful to the postrelease community adjustment of offenders. The specific intellectual skills that are gained through ABE training may equip offenders to deal more effectively with daily problems encountered in the community. Moreover, the sense of achievement and confidence that results from successfully completing a program may encourage some offenders to make further positive changes in their lives. The research conducted to date is only a first step by the Correctional Service of Canada to answer some of the questions about the presumed benefits and effectiveness of ABE programs. Nevertheless, the existing evidence suggests that our current commitment to teaching basic language and mathematical skills should not be diminished. |
