Major
Criminal Justice
Anticipated Graduation Year
2024
Access Type
Open Access
Abstract
This study examines the impact of educational and work opportunities on
incarcerated individuals’ prison experience. Using data from the John Howard
Association’s (JHA) ‘Measuring the Quality of Prison Life Survey’ (MQPL)
distributed to all Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) facilities, we
examine prisoner perceptions of well-being, security, professionalism, and
harmony to understand the quality of life in prison better. When comparing
groups, we found a statistically, significant positive relationship between
participation in educational and vocational programming and higher reported
scores for all domains. Throughout this experience, we deepened our
understanding of Illinois prison culture and informed JHA's prison advocacy
work.
Community Partners
The John Howard Association, Loyola Center for Criminal Justice
Faculty Mentors & Instructors
Dr. Amanda Ward, Assistant Research Professor, Center for Urban Research and Learning; Dr. David Olson, Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Opportunities Unshackled: The Effect of Educational & Vocational Programming on Prison Life
This study examines the impact of educational and work opportunities on
incarcerated individuals’ prison experience. Using data from the John Howard
Association’s (JHA) ‘Measuring the Quality of Prison Life Survey’ (MQPL)
distributed to all Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC) facilities, we
examine prisoner perceptions of well-being, security, professionalism, and
harmony to understand the quality of life in prison better. When comparing
groups, we found a statistically, significant positive relationship between
participation in educational and vocational programming and higher reported
scores for all domains. Throughout this experience, we deepened our
understanding of Illinois prison culture and informed JHA's prison advocacy
work.