Introduction In 1995, 1.6 million adults were incarcerated in state and federal prisons and in local jails. Currently, the nation's jail and prison populations are increasing at the same time that resources to serve inmates are tightening. Many states are still reeling from an economic slowdown in the early 1990s that reduced appropriations for many social services.
Most states currently have some type of correctional education in most of their prisons.
These types of correctional education programs can also be found in jails across the nation. Moreover, slightly over three quarters of the states responding to a survey on correctional education in 1995 reported that there were waiting lists for correctional education programs. 1 Approximately 57 percent of all inmates in state prison in 1991 participated in correctional education. Findings from a recent survey of prison inmates conducted by the National Institute of Justice indicated that approximately 400,000 inmates in state correctional facilities had participated in some type of correctional education program. This number represents 57 percent of all inmates incarcerated in state facilities.