Colleagues,

This week our special topic is Transition from Corrections Education  
to Community Education. I would like to welcome our guests Dr.  
Carolyn Buser, Steve Schwalb,  John Gordon and Dr. Stephen J.  
Steurer. You will find background information on them below as well  
as some readings they have suggested.

I will be posting some questions, but I hope you will also post your  
questions. To begin, I would like to refer to some recent remarks by  
Jeremy Travis, the President of John Jay College of Criminal Justice,  
to a gathering of U.S. mayors in New York City on February 28th,  
2008. I would also like to invite our guests to react to these  
remarks and to add other information that provides the background for  
this transition issue, that helps us to understand why education, and  
transition from corrections education to community education is such  
an important issue.

“…over the past generation we have quadrupled the per capita rate of
incarceration in this country.  Every year since 1972 – in times of  
war and times of peace;
in good economic times, in bad economic times; when crime was going  
up and crime was
going down – we have put more people in prison.  We also tend to  
forget that, with the
exception of those few who die in prison, they will all come back.

This year, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics,  
approximately 700,000
individuals will leave our nation’s prisons, well over four times the  
number who made a
similar journey thirty years ago.  Ninety percent of them are men; a  
majority are men of
color; in every state, they typically go back to a small number of  
urban neighborhoods,
neighborhoods that are struggling with poor schools, weak labor  
markets, substandard
housing, and inadequate health care.  As a nation, we have in essence  
asked these hard-
pressed communities to take on the enormous additional responsibility  
of reintegrating
record numbers of their family members who have been sent off to  
prison and return
home, typically with significant service needs, often without  
supportive social networks.”
( http://tinyurl.com/2glxlj )

Background on Discussion Guests

Carolyn (Cay) Buser
Cay Buser joined the United States Department of Education in May of  
2006 as an adult education program specialist with duties as the  
Adult Education and Family Literacy Act (AEFLA) liaison with  
correctional education.  Dr. Buser works with the Western States to  
assist them in the administration of adult education grants.  She  
also is the national resource for coordination with correctional  
education programs and adult education grants.

Prior to her federal appointment, Dr. Buser was director of  
correctional education for the Maryland State Department of  
Education.  Her responsibilities entailed management of the education  
and library programs in Maryland’s adult and juvenile correctional  
systems.  She provided direct support to Maryland’s Educational  
Coordinating Council for Correctional Institutions, the “school  
board” for correctional education headed by the State Superintendent  
of Schools with the State Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional  
Services as a member.

Dr. Buser has been an active member of the Correctional Education  
Association serving as a regional director and is currently on the  
editorial board of the Journal of Correctional Education.  Her  
academic background includes a master’s degree in special education  
and a doctorate in educational policy and administration.  Dr. Buser  
taught English in public middle and high schools in the Midwest, and  
in community colleges in Maryland.  She taught for seven years in  
Maryland’s correctional education program and served as a principal  
in three correctional settings before her appointment as director of  
the State program.

Steve Schwalb
Steve Schwalb has served as President and CEO of Pioneer Human  
Services since April, 2007. Prior to that, Steve had a 33-year career  
in the field of corrections.

After receiving his B.A. degree in Business Administration from the  
University of Washington, he began his corrections career as a  
Personnel Management Specialist trainee with the Federal Bureau of  
Prisons.  He subsequently held various positions of additional  
responsibility, including Personnel Director, Chief of Internal  
Affairs, Warden, Deputy Regional Director and Assistant Director.

In the latter position, Steve was responsible for nationwide  
oversight of the education, vocational training, recreation,  
parenting, transition preparation, citizen volunteers and industrial  
work programs.  Serving in the role of Chief Operating Officer of  
Federal Prison Industries, Inc., he oversaw over 100 factories that  
employ 21,000 inmates and 1,400 staff, and that generated $800  
million in annual sales.

In the mid-1980’s, Steve served as Associate Superintendent and  
Program Manager with the Washington State Department of Corrections,  
and as Director of the King County Jail in Seattle.

During his federal career, Steve was appointed by the President to  
the Committee for Purchase From People Who Are Blind or Severely  
Disabled, and served as chairman for four of his twelve years on the  
committee.

John Gordon
John has worked at the Fortune Society since 2001, first as Director  
of its Education program and more recently as an Associate President  
of Programs. The Fortune Society works with people after they’ve come  
home from prison or jail. Their Education program serves 200-300  
students per year; they offer classes in Adult Basic Education, ESOL,  
and computer skills. Many students are on probation or parole; others  
are mandated by the courts to one of Fortune’s Alternatives to  
Incarceration programs; some are no longer under any criminal justice  
supervision.
Before coming to the Fortune Society, John worked for 16 years as  
Teacher-Director of the Open Book, a community based literacy program  
in Brooklyn, NY. At the Open Book, some of his central concerns  
revolved around developing student leadership and student  
participation in program decision-making; publishing student writing  
and oral histories, and welfare and literacy issues. He published  
several articles on these topics as well as More Than a Job:  A  
Curriculum on Work and Society (New Readers Press). He is an active  
participant in the New York City Coalition for Adult Literacy.
The Fortune Society was founded in 1967 with two main goals: (1) to  
educate the public about prisons, criminal justice issues, and the  
root causes of crime and (2) to provide support for people as they  
come home from prison. Fortune serves over 3,000 former prisoners a  
year, offering education, career development, counseling, substance  
abuse treatment, housing, health services, and alternatives to  
incarceration. It continues to play a strong role in advocating for  
criminal justice and prison reform.

Stephen J. Steurer, Ph.D.
Steve is the  Executive Director of the Correctional Education  
Association, a professional organization of educators who work in  
prisons, jails and juvenile settings.


Our guests have suggested the following readings:

The Urban Institute's web site at
http://www.urban.org/justice/index.cfm
has a complete list of its publications, most of which are online. Of  
particular interest may be those that highlight individual state  
reports in the multi-state Returning Home project.
http://tinyurl.com/2cm7jp
These are all accessible online.

Taylor Stoehr's articles. There are a number on the Changing Lives  
Through Literature web site:
http://cltl.umassd.edu/IssuesClassroom3.cfm
"Enforcing the Rules" is especially recommended.

The topic of prison location/release location will also be useful to  
the discussion. There are several articles listed on the Urban  
Institute’s re-entry mapping pages, several from 2004.
http://tinyurl.com/2687ma

These two books have a lot to offer: Joan Petersilia's "When
Prisoners Come Home: Parole and Prisoner Reentry" Oxford University
Press 2003, and Jeremy Travis' "But They All Come Back: Facing the
Challenges of Prisoner Reentry" Urban Institute Press 2005.

Also, see http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/181413.pdf for a paper  
by Jeremy Travis on this topic.

As mentioned earlier, here’s the link to the Correctional Education,  
Family Literacy and Transitions discussion that were hosted here in  
September 2006:
http://wiki.literacytent.org/index.php/ 
Corrections_Education#2._Correctional_Ed.2C_Family_Literacy_. 
26_Transition--On-Line_Discussion.2C_September_2006 or, for short,
http://tinyurl.com/yrzwlk

David J. Rosen
Special Topics Discussion Moderator
djrosen at comcast.net




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