ILLITERACY AND CRIME:

• Over 2 million men and women are housed in adult prisons and jails in the United States — more than in any country in the world.
  —U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics June 2002
  
  
• 70% of all inmates are functionally illiterate, or read below a fourth grade level.
  —Literacy Behind Prison Walls - Profiles of the Prison Population from the National Adult Literacy Survey 1994
  
  
• Current spending on federal, local and state correctional institutions exceeds $40 billion.
  —Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2000
  
  
• Prison education spending amounts to less than 1-2% of prison budgets.
  —Estimates based on Sourcebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 2000, and the Corrections Yearbook 2000
  
  
• Nationwide, nearly 70% of all people entering state correctional facilities have not completed high school, 47% have had some high school education and 14% have had no high school education at all.
  —U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 2000
  
  
• The rate of learning disabilities in adult correctional facilities is four times greater than in the general population.
  —National Institute for Literacy, Fact Sheet: Correctional Education
  
  
• A study by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the Justice Department, suggests that illiteracy is a major cause of crime. Most criminals cannot read and write.
  —The Real War on Crime: The Report of the National Criminal Justice Commission, Steven Donziger 1996
  
  
• National re-arrest rates for recently released adults average over 60%.
  —U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 1997
  
  
• According to the Federal Bureau of Prisons, there is an inverse relationship between recidivism rates and education. The more education received, the less likely an individual is to be re-arrested or re-imprisoned.
  —Recidivism among federal prison releasees in 1987: A preliminary report. Washington, DC: Federal Bureau of Prisons, Office of Research and Evaluation.
  
  
• A three-state recidivism study found that re-arrest, reconviction, and re-incarceration rates were lower for the prison population who had participated in correctional education than for non-participants. The differences were significant in every category. The study found:
  • the re-arrest rate of correctional education participants was 48%, compared to 57% for the non-participants;
  • re-conviction rate was 27% for correctional educational participants, compared to 35% for non-participants; and
  • re-incarceration rate was 21%, compared to 31% for non-participants

  —The Three State Recidivism Study (Maryland, Minnesota, and Ohio), The Correctional Education Association, 1998
  

• Nearly 100,000 juveniles are in custody in correctional facilities in the United States.
  —Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 1992
  
  
• A report issued by the Congressional Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency estimates that the national recidivism rate for juvenile offenders is between 60% to 84%.
  —Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 1993
  
  
• Approximately 40% of youth held in detention facilities have some form of learning disability, such as dyslexia.
  —Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 1994 and U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics 1995
  
  
• The RAND Corporation, a public policy think tank based in California, recently released a study showing that crime prevention is more cost-effective than building prisons. Of all crime prevention methods, education is the most cost-effective.
  —Diverting children from a life of crime: Measuring costs and benefits. RAND Corporation

NEW JERSEY STATE PRISON FACTS:

New Jersey's Trenton State Prison is a maximum-security institution that houses men who have lengthy sentences or who have broken prison rules.

• Half of the prisoners are convicted of murder.
  
  
• The average inmate sentence is 50 years.
  
  
• Up to 57% of the inmates have sentences that included parole ineligibility terms.
  
  
• At New Jersey State Prisons, 75% of the inmates are illiterate.
  
  
• Inmate ethnicity:
  • 63% Black
  • 19% White
  • 18% Hispanic
    
    
• Current population: 1,587 men
  
  —Source: New Jersey Department of Corrections Offender Characteristics Report 2001