Education Television in a Canadian High Maximum Security Unit

• NCJ Number: 124456
• Journal: Journal of Correctional Education Volume: 41 Issue: 2 Dated: (June 1990) Pages: 46-49
• Author(s): M Collins
• Date Published: 1990
• Length: 4 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Program/Project Evaluation
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This paper describes the evaluation of an educational television program for adult basic education in the Prince Albert Federal Penitentiary's High Maximum Security ("special handling") Unit (HMSU).

Abstract

The HMSU at Prince Albert is one of two built by the Correctional Service of Canada to contain approximately 80 of the country's "most dangerous inmates on a transitional basis" and at great expense. A number of the evaluation's recommendations referred to in this paper are instructive for further program development, but educational television in the HMSU has already established itself as a genuine approach to fostering some degree of communicative competence within a very tense, artificial environment. While significant aspects of the evaluation process itself are addressed, a critical commentary is also included on the concept of regulated solitary confinement and the ways that educational television (ETV), despite clear-cut benefits, could be effectively deployed to reinforce the most harmful consequences of such confinement. This has implications, too, for the deployment of ETV to serve "special groups" on the outside. (Author abstract)