The federal prison system is looking at ways to reduce its inmate population by increasing their educational opportunities. And in the Bay Area, former White House lawyer Dabney Friedrich, is pushing for a program she knows will work. Friedrich invited NBC Bay Area to see the special education at work at the federal women’s prison in Dublin. It is a program she said is both better than many in the federal system and still wholly inadequate. Between her work in Washington, D.C on the seven-member sentencing commission and her family in San Mateo County, Friedrich volunteers once a week as a special education tutor at Dublin’s federal prison.
Dublin program targets inmates with dyslexia for educational program
Reducing the federal prison population
Friedrich started volunteering two years ago, about the same time her 8-year-old son was diagnosed as dyslexic. The boy had hidden his inability to ready by memorizing words, a common coping method among dyslexics. When her son was finally diagnosed, Friedrich and her husband moved heaven and Earth to get him help and found it. It’s a very explicit method and it’s tough in a very specific way,” she said. “The child might read a sound, write the sound, hear the sound and maybe use their finger to trace the sound
The prison’s GED program recently had just over 100 graduates for the first time. A few came from the special education class in Dublin, but Salais said half the women she knows cannot read or write.
Laura Lurns · Learning Success expert
Key takeaways
- A large number of prison inmates are dyslexic.
- The current education system in U.S. prisons is severely lacking.
- The Federal Women’s Prison of Dublin has introduced a special education program with more success U.S. prisons.
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