Prison Reading Survey, 1997

There is a widespread belief that literacy levels among offenders are lower than those in the general population. A frequently-associated belief is that if their reading problems were to be addressed, then offenders would abandon anti-social ways and pursue law-abiding careers. The Prison Reading Survey investigates the basis for these beliefs by assessing the prevalence of reading problems in a systematic random sample of 203 adult male offenders serving custodial sentences in a representative selection of several prisons across the range of security classifications in England and Wales. It enquires into the diversity and likely causes or exacerbating circumstances of offenders' reading problems, using a structured interview with assessments of verbal and non-verbal ability, receptive syntax, social cognition, and self-reported behaviours associated with childhood attention-deficit and hyperactivity; and it considers the hypothesis that developmental dyslexia is a disproportionate cause of these problems. The study also reviews the development and pervasiveness of historical accounts of the association between literacy and behaviour.