Prison Violence 251level of prisoners. The Windham School System regards a one-grade-level increase
for an inmate to be a significant personal and organizational accomplishment. The
Windham School System measures the performance and effectiveness of the voca-
tional courses by the total number of certificates earned.
Information was collected from two separate state databases—the Texas Depart-
ment of Criminal Justice Institutional Division and the Windham School System.
The types of data collected from the prison system included prison number, average
sentence length, and average time served in prison on 73,990 new inmates admitted
and on 66,160 prisoners who were paroled or discharged in Texas prisons between
1990 and 1992. The second database consisted of prisoner education files main-
tained by the Windham School System. Individual inmate information included
educational level at time of admission, types of classes attended during confine-
ment, dates of testing, number of inmates who passed and received a certificate.
number of in-class participant hours, and unit changes in grade levels. There were
21,388 academic enrollments and 6,919 prisoners who participated in vocational
courses.
As a result of an implemented population cap and redistribution of funds in the
prison system, a significant amount of problems occurred with the Windham aca-
demic program and vocational courses. For example, recidivist-type prisoners ages
17 and above were not given enough time to advance one grade level. Further-
more, first-time offenders over age 25 and habitual-type offenders over age 25 served
barely enough time to progress one grade level. Overall, the time it took to advance
an inmate's grade level was inhibited by the lack of time served. Compounding this
problem was the fact that 27% of the 1991-1992 prisoners required by law to enroll
in remedial classes had to wait for an opening due to inmate overcrowding. As a
result of prison overcrowding, there was a limited number of vocational courses;
thus, inmates were forced to wait a period of time before participating in a partic-
ular course. There was a 6-month wait before the actual first vocational class. The
data indicated that 974 out of 6,919 prisoners were released from prison while par-
ticipating in vocational courses. Therefore, 1 of 7 inmates enrolled in a vocational
course, started the course, and then left prison before certification.
The results of this study strongly suggest that prison administrative personnel
enrolled inmates in Windham's School System programs with the expectation that
they would complete them, but those expectations were thwarted by early release
practices and prison overcrowding policies. The combined effects of population-
control policies and early release severely attenuated the Windham School System's
performance measures. Consequently, prison overcrowding caused inmates to wait
on a space available basis for educational programs and vocational courses. Ar-
guably, delays for admittance to these educational programs and courses could have
a profound psychologically stressful impact on an inmate's life. For example, delays
frustrate prisoners and created more idle time for them to get into trouble and
commit violence. When inmates are enrolled in educational programs, they are less
likely to experience violence (McCorkle ct al., 1995).