Moral Development, Justice and Democracy in the Prison (From On Prison Education, P 272-292, 1981, Lucien Morin, ed. - See NCJ-87647)

• NCJ Number: 87655
• Author(s): S Duguid
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 21 pages
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/; Canadian Government Publishing Ctr Supply and Services Canada; NCJRS Photocopy Services
• Language: English
• Country: Canada
• Note: Available on microfiche as NCJ-87647. Reprinted from Canadian Journal of Criminology, V 23, N 2 (1981).

Annotation

The paper argues that prison education needs both a strong theoretical base and a linkage of that base with practice; it also analyzes the development of one such program at a penal institution in British Columbia.

Abstract

The program operated at Matsqui Institution under the auspices of the University of Victoria. The course offerings have gradually expanded over the last 7 years to include a full 4-year university program. The program attracts about 20 percent of the prison population and has been described as the most successful program of its kind in North America. The program started with a theory which arose from Lawrence Kohlberg's work and moral development and on various theories of attitude change accompanying cognitive growth. This developmental theory argues that levels of moral thought (reasoning) are inherent in each of us. Most adults in North America mature at a stage of basic conformity to the existing rules and values of society. However, criminals operate at a preadolescent level, in part because of the vicissitudes of their lives and in part because of the effects of their extended residence in the criminal justice system. Cognitive and moral deficits are a major part of what we see in the adult as a fully developed 'criminal personality.' The University of Victoria educational program established a community that was democratic or just in both a formal and an informal sense. Relations between the educational staff and prisoners were emphatically nonauthoritarian. More formal democratic structures evolved as the community matured and took the form of student involvement in staff selection, student administration of the library, and a student council with an understood right to involve itself in almost all aspects of the program. Having such a program presents some problems for both the prison administration and the prisoners. To survive, such a just community must be extended into the prison at large. This process is a central ingredient in the individual growth associated with moral education. Fifty-three references are included.