About 7 in 10 prisoners perform in Levels 1 and 2 on the prose, document, and quantitative scales. These prisoners are apt to experience difficulty in performing tasks that require them to integrate or synthesize information from complex or lengthy texts or to perform quantitative tasks that involve two or more sequential operations and that require the individual to set up the problem. About 65 percent of prisoners are minorities versus 24 percent of the household population. About 51 percent of prisoners have completed at least high school or its equivalent, compared with 76 percent of the household population. These differences in demographic composition help to explain the lower average performance of inmates as compared with householders.
Educational attainment is highly related to literacy proficiency.
Prisoners who have not received a high school diploma or GED demonstrate lower levels of proficiency than those who have completed high school, earned a GED, or received some postsecondary education. In contrast, inmates with a high school diploma demonstrate lower proficiencies than householders with a high school diploma. On all three literacy scales, White inmates demonstrate higher average proficiencies than Black inmates, who, in turn, demonstrate higher proficiencies than Hispanic inmates. The average proficiencies of White prisoners are lower than those of White householders. White, Black, and Hispanic inmates without a high school diploma perform better than their counterparts in the household population.