NCJ Number
80159
Journal
International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology Volume: 25 Issue: 2 Dated: (1981) Pages: 168-174
Date Published
1981
Length
7 pages
Annotation
This article highlights educational issues involved in training prison inmates as paraprofessional social workers in an undergraduate college program.
Abstract
The community college degree program is located at a maximum-security correctional institution with an inmate population in excess of 2,000. Twenty inmates are enrolled in the first year of the social work associate degree program, which requires diverse courses in science, math, humanities, social science, electives, and social work courses. The program's purpose is to provide career training as a rehabilitative effort and to develop a manpower resource to supplement and extend the work of professionals in correctional facilities and human services in general. Focal points for student field work experiences at the facility are two onsite social programs. One program involves prerelease counseling and assistance to inmates who are preparing for parole, while the other is a 'therapeutic community' that has been established within the prison. By participating in these two programs as a peer-counselor, social work students satisfy the associate degree requirement of six credits of field work. Responsibilities of student inmates placed at the field work unit are delineated and a number of institutional characteristics that potentially could impede the program are identified. These problems include the lack of enrichment in daily prison life, which tends to compromise learning and growth; the difficulty in using outside resources and providing contact with external human service programs; and supervision of the social work students to integrate their classroom and field experiences. Ways these problems were overcome are described. Seven references are provided.