Level’s Social Justice Fellowship Project: Education in Prisons

Level’s Social Justice Fellow from Queen’s University - Faculty of Law, Kayla O’Brien, produces an infographic as part of her Fellowship Project. The infograohic discusses education and digital literacy as rehabilitation.

Kayla writes, “Improving the literacy of inmates is a cause worthy of attention, and it has been identified that a literacy barrier can pose a significant threat to a successful reintegration. Low literacy is not limited to poor reading skills but also affects one’s verbal and writing comprehension, consequently negatively impacting one’s self esteem, and resulting in behavioural issues. Queen’s University is currently involved with Frontier College through Queen’s Students for Literacy, a campus-based chapter run with the help of volunteer students. They run three programs modelled on the Student-Centred Individualised Learning (SCIL) philosophy including: Read for Fun, Literacy Outreach, and Math is Might. Queen’s students formerly participated in the Prison Literacy Initiative (PLI) which saw a high rate of involvement across the student body. The program was unfortunately discontinued in recent years, but the increasing literacy demands of the digital information age suggests a persisting need for literacy education programs within Canadians penitentiaries.”

To learn more and to take action, please access the infographic here.