Written off because they don't know how to read or write

Jo Walker runs the small library that has been set up in an old cell at Mt Eden Women's Prison. Picture / Greg Bowker

Prison officers didn't believe Linda was illiterate. With no form to sign on entry to Waikeria, her ability to read and write was not assessed.

She was outgoing, a good talker and communicator, someone who seemed to have all the confidence needed for an effective life.

But the life she lived was a criminal one. She committed benefit fraud, and she blames it on the fact that she could not read or write. Illiterate, she could not get a job. She could not even read her children's schoolbooks.

In jail, she asked for help, but prison officers dismissed her. That was until they read her first letter home.

It was two lines long - and nobody could understand a word.

Now, at the end of her prison sentence, after 18 months of literacy training, she has read 150 books, she can fill in forms, she has a job, and she can text her kids. Linda has joined the written world.

The Corrections Department says 2258 prisoners have one or more educational objectives on their sentence plans. But literacy education is in trouble. Last year only 353 inmates attended literacy classes and 44 per cent of the education budget went unspent. The annual report puts this down to "prison population pressures, and the associated high numbers of transfers".

A Mt Eden prison officer says literacy programmes are collapsing due to dysfunctional management, caused by escalating prisoner numbers and overcrowding.

With the present muster of 7651 inmates, prison staff are stretched beyond capacity: "There are not enough staff to supervise the movement of inmates to attend these courses. And because the prisoners don't get to their classes, the outside provider of education is not able to meet the required numbers of their contract and their employment is terminated."

Overcrowding means inmates are on the move. Last year, those 7651 prisoners were transferred 11,878 times.

A former literacy and numeracy tutor at Paremoremo Prison, Jayne Schwalger, has experienced the frustrations. One day she had 16 in her class, the next day only five.

Teaching adults to read is an exacting, specialised task. Having someone witness your inability to read is humiliating.

"Many [inmates] didn't attend high school," she says. "They have poor spelling, limited comprehension and some of them are very slow to understand."

The United Nations Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners state: "The education of illiterates and young prisoners shall be compulsory."

According to the 2003 census of prison inmates, 73 per cent left school before Year 11 and a 1992 survey revealed 60 per cent of inmates had reading problems. In spite of this, the inmates we spoke to said there was no assessment of their literacy on entry to prison.

Danny (not his real name) is in Auckland Central Remand Prison awaiting his fourth sentence. He left school in the third form: "I was advised to leave school instead of getting expelled." His illiteracy made it almost impossible to get or keep a job.

Danny couldn't fill in forms. He would fill the gaps with letters, gibberish, trying to do the right thing. "I'd try and put something in there."

This time in prison, Danny asked for reading instruction. He gets 20 minutes' literacy tuition once a week.

He can now write a letter home. "It takes me a while to write a letter and I can take the dictionary back to my cell. It's a great friend the dictionary. My best friend out."

In 1994, American researchers Ryan and Mauldin found that 85 per cent of the 97 studies they looked at showed educational participation reduced reoffending.

However, Jane von Dadelszen, general manager policy and development with the Corrections Department, is more sceptical: "On their own, education programmes [such as literacy] have a modest impact on reoffending provided they meet the needs of the offender, are of sufficient duration, and offenders complete the programmes."

Danny and Linda are the lucky ones. They have been able to study for "sufficient duration". Danny is certain literacy will stop him from returning to jail. "I know for a fact that I will come out in a better way. I regret what I had done."

Linda says: "I can read now. I've got life skills not to go back in there now." 

 
Mums tape stories for their kids

Mothers in New Zealand's women's prisons are learning to read books to their children - many of them for the first time - thanks to a unique charitable trust.

The Books in Prison Trust has established libraries in the four women's jails and runs workshops to tell mothers about the value of reading to their children, how and what to read to them and how to have fun with their kids in the process.

"Many of them have never done that before," says Mt Eden Women's Prison manager Jan Taepa.

About 20 of her 96 prisoners have difficulty reading, although the rate of dyslexia is much lower than in men.

Others have been too embarrassed by their poor reading abilities to dare to read to their children.

Trust founder Lynn Dawson wanted to bring children into the jails to read with their mothers, but this proved impractical because many women are imprisoned far away from their families.

So she devised a scheme where the women choose and read stories on to tapes and send the tapes to their children.

"Initially we thought this would apply to women with preschool children," she says. "However, there was a huge demand from women who had younger or older siblings who didn't read so well.

"And because there is a lot of emphasis on reading out loud, which is about confidence, we don't limit it now. We let anyone who wants to be part of the programme be part of it."

The trust is the only one of its kind, at least in the South Pacific. Ms Dawson, who has a background in the arts, established it after hearing that there was no library in the women's prison.

Several men's prisons still have no libraries, and facilities in others are minimal. At the new Auckland Central Remand Prison, the library consists of about 100 books in a filing cabinet, including a collection of Reader's Digest condensed books.

In their report on prisons last December, the Ombudsmen criticised the lack of libraries and said that "confinement of a prisoner without opportunity of mental stimulus amounts to ill-treatment".

The Books in Prison Trust raises money from the Lottery Grants Board, SkyCity and other trusts and seeks donations of books from service clubs, publishers and the public.

A New World supermarket donates unsold magazines with the covers cut off so the supermarket can claim the cost back from the distributors.

As well as providing books, the trust runs creative writing classes, book discussion groups and life skills groups and brings in prominent women to speak and read poetry.

Ms Dawson says the format could easily be adapted for the men's prisons. "I'm very happy for a men's group to come and franchise my programme."

* Books in Prison, PO Box 105-572, Auckland, (09) 446-1269.

- Simon Collins