Federal Prisons

Concerns have been raised about the failure of many federal prisoners to complete basic prison education programs and about how useful prison vocational training programs have been in providing inmates with marketable skills. Only about 36 percent of the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) staff GAO surveyed considered BOP's principal database on inmate prison education activities--the Education Data System--to be very accurate. The system is supposed to track an inmate's education history, program enrollments, withdrawals, and completions. BOP's own internal reviews have frequently noted, however, that key data were inaccurate or missing, and GAO's tests of the education records at three federal prisons had similar findings. Inmates GAO surveyed said that they are inclined to participate in programs when they see clear opportunities to enhance their abilities and for postprison success. The staff, on the other hand, tended to consider inmates to be motivated by cash awards and other tangible benefits for participation. Both staff and inmates strongly favored an incentive of reduced prison time for participation. Staff and inmates also strongly favored some ideas that are generally within BOP's discretion, such as security classification reductions, preferred housing assignments, and being paid the starting wage for inmate work to attend class. BOP should explore the feasibility of some of these ideas, perhaps on a test basis. BOP also needs to ensure that prison officials enforce the requirement that inmates lacking a high school diploma acquire a General Equivalency Diploma before receiving pay raises. More than half the inmates and three-fourths of the staff responding to GAO's survey thought that vocational training would generally be useful in providing inmates with marketable skills.

GAO found that: (1) BOP did not maintain accurate or complete data on inmate participation in vocational and educational programs in its education data system (EDS), partly due to lack of EDS training and the use of institution-specific procedures for handling educational data; (2) BOP is developing an EDS handbook and training program to better ensure proper documentation of inmate participation; (3) inmates most frequently cited self-improvement and better chances for success after release as the reason they participated in the programs; (4) inmates who did not participate in the programs cited the lack of classes that interested them and the desire to use their time to earn money as reasons for nonparticipation; (5) the most popular participation incentives among inmates and staff were reduced prison time, preferred housing assignments, reduced custody level, and school attendance during the workday; (6) BOP did not always enforce the requirement that inmates lacking a high school diploma must acquire a general equivalency diploma before work pay increases and promotions; (7) slightly more than one-half of the inmates and three-fourths of the staff thought that participation in a vocational program or work assignments would be useful in acquiring marketable skills; (8) one-third of the inmates thought that participation in vocational programs would help them get a job upon release; and (9) participants generally made better adjustments, had fewer parole revocations, maintained employment better, and earned slightly more money than nonparticipants.

Recommendations

Our recommendations from this work are listed below with a Contact for more information. Status will change from "In process" to "Open," "Closed - implemented," or "Closed - not implemented" based on our follow up work.

Director: Team: Phone: