A volunteer programme which helps teach Northward prison inmates how to read and write ended its session earlier this year with just a handful of students attending classes.
Studies are expected to resume this month and the teaching project coordinator is hoping for a better turnout this time around.
‘The education staff at the prison are doing what they can to encourage the potential students there to attend classes,’ said Michelle Pentney with the Cayman Islands Reading Aides group. ‘But…unfortunately we can’t make them attend.’
‘I’ll encourage them to come to class but then other things will crop up, like an exercise period or something else.’
Ms Pentney said the volunteer reading classes had to be cut to just one class per week this spring because of a lack of attendance. The courses are generally taught for two hours on Wednesday nights and Saturday mornings.
This fall, the Wednesday class will be moved to the afternoon in the hope of getting more prison inmates involved.
Lack of literacy is a daunting problem at Northward prison which is where all adult male convicts in Cayman are housed. A recent partial review done by the prison system found four out of five prisoners there had, at best, very poor literacy skills. Some couldn’t read or write at all.
The prison system offers a wide range of educational courses as part of its sentence management or prisoner rehabilitation efforts. However, Commissioner of Corrections and Rehabilitation William Rattray previously said it’s difficult to place inmates in more advanced classes if they can’t read or write.
Mr. Rattray said people aren’t usually willing to admit they’re illiterate, and that could be affecting attendance at the prison’s volunteer course.
‘An awful lot of prisoners don’t want to come forward and say they can’t read and write,’ he said. ‘We need to have a big push in the prison on literacy and trying to improve the literacy of these prisoners.’
Toward the end of this year, the prison system wants to start using security officers to help improve inmate’s literacy skills.
‘The prison officers will be trained in adult literacy skills,’ Mr. Rattray said. ‘But it doesn’t necessarily have to take place in a classroom. They can assist prisoners with writing letters home, or filling out job applications, for example.’
Ms Pentney said she has been involved in teaching reading and writing classes at Northward for the past three years, but that the Cayman Islands Reading Aides programme has been working there for much longer.
‘It just helps the student to function when they go back out into society,’ she said.
Prisoners who want to participate in the course are first evaluated to determine their level of literacy. There are four separate levels at which students can begin learning.
Ms Pentney said classes usually start with a reading book and make use of word charts and flash cards to help students along the way.
‘They have the reading book and then there’s an English workbook,’ she said. ‘We work with them one-on-one and also give them homework to do.’
At the height of the last literacy class at Northward Ms Pentney said there were about 10 inmates who attended Wednesday or Saturday sessions. However, she said several of those prisoners have since been paroled.
There was a volunteer reading and writing class taught at Fairbanks prison for female inmates, but Ms Pentney said that has been discontinued at the moment.
One volunteer and one prison staffer also teach literacy at the Eagle House facility for juvenile offenders.
Right now, the Cayman Islands Reading Aide programme has about 10 volunteers which Ms Pentney said was sufficient.
‘I’m okay at the moment because obviously I don’t have enough students.’
Related Videos
