How Effective Is Correctional Education for Incarcerated Adults?

As mentioned in Chapter One, the centerpiece of RAND’s evaluation of correctional education for BJA entailed determining how effective correctional education is in improving outcomes for incarcerated adults. We focused on three outcomes of interest: reducing recidivism, promoting postrelease employment, and improving learning in reading and in math among adults. To measure effectiveness, we carried out a comprehensive systematic review of existing literature to identify relevant studies of correctional education effectiveness, followed by a meta-analysis of the relevant studies identified—a statistical method that synthesizes findings across multiple studies. Also, to put the effectiveness results in some context, we performed