Prison Vocational Education and Policy in the United States

This book explores California's prison system in the context of vocational education reform. For prisons in the early twenty-first century, ideologies of evidence-based management meant that reform efforts to change the purpose of prisons from punishment to rehabilitation through vocational education required "evidence" to justify policy prescriptions. Yet who determines what constitutes evidence? In political environments, solutions are typically pre-conceived, which means that the nature of the evidence collected is also preconceived. As a result, key assumptions about outcomes are often wished away to show improvement and be accountable. Through a detailed analysis interspersed with stories from the authors' experiences "behind the wall" among California's prison population, the authors challenge the nature of evidence-based research as used in the prison environment. In the process they describe the thorny problems facing reformers.

Preface: A Study of Vocational Education in California Prisons.- List of Tables.- List of Figures.- SECTION I.- 1. Structure and Thesis of the Book.- 2. Applied Research in California's Prisons.- 3. Prison Logic Meets Educational Research Logic: The Undiscussables of Evidence-Based Decision Making.- SECTION II- The Report.- 4. Vignette: Could the Prisoner be My Son?.- 5. Report: Vocational Education in California Prisons: A Comprehensive Evaluation of Twelve Courses.-6. Literature Review.-7. Vignette: Sunglasses.-8. Vignette: Greenhouses.- 9. Report: Methods.- 10. Report: Results and Research Questions.- 11. Vignette: Shifting Bureaucratic Sands and Work Stoppages.- 12. Vignette: I'm All Good.- 13. Report: Discussion.- 14. Vignette: Educators Only Whisper in a Custody World.- 15. Recommendations and Conclusion.- 16. Vignette: Denial of Love and The Birds of Prison.- 17. Life Without Parole and "Could be Worse".- SECTION III.- 18. Evidence Based Decision Making and the Rise and Fall of Rehabilitation in California's Prisons 2005-2012.- References.