Academics Take Issue With Survey Linking Non-traditional Jamaican Schools To High Prison Population

KINGSTON, Jamaica CMC – A group of lecturers from the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) has taken issue with the findings of a survey that the majority of inmates in adult prisons in Jamaica had attended non-traditional high schools on the island.

The study, conducted by the Research, Planning and Legal Services Branch (RPLSB) of the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF), was laid in Parliament last Tuesday.

Education Minister, Rev. Ronnie Thwaites, said the findings would be used to guide the ministry in an initiative aimed at dealing with the “crime scourge” in Jamaica. He said the project is being undertaken in partnership with the Ministry of National Security.

But in a letter to the Jamaica Gleaner newspaper, the academics from the UWI Department of Sociology, Psychology and Social Work, said that the recommendations made by Thwaites in the report were “based on such an insecure foundation”.

They also argued that a number of important variables were noticeably absent that would have influenced the report findings.

The study involved 894 inmates – 851 males and 43 females – from across all adult correctional institutions in Jamaica and had a margin of error of plus or minus three percent.

The report, which was completed in March, last year, found that the persona of a “typical” inmate in the Jamaican prisons included being under the age of 34 and came from a single parent home. The inmate also came from either the Corporate areas of Kingston and St. Andrew or St. Catherine.

“Although we are told how many study participants there were (894), and that they are representative of the prison population, the report does not include data on the size of the total population from which the sample was drawn. It also does not provide any data on the characteristics of the prison population.

“The reader is, therefore, not able to decide whether the researchers have actually done what they say they have done. Interestingly, although 43 women were interviewed, they completely disappeared from the rest of the report, although they are five times greater in number than the number of respondents attending eight of the 18 schools that were named and are now shamed by being labelled ‘prison schools’ in the press.

“We cannot believe that the minister did not anticipate that this would have been the outcome, given the previous furore around schools that were named as ‘failing’,” the academics wrote.

They also took issue with the timeline for the research noting “we wonder how the 16 questions asked in the study could have been asked and answered in a mere five minutes.

“It is these factors more so than the researchers not being able to consult inmates’ files that bring the validity (believability) of the data presented in the report into question,” the academics said, adding also that the findings of such a report could impact perilously on those who were mentioned.

“Our policymakers should also consider the reputational harm that can be caused, bearing in mind that the report is in the public domain,” said the academics.

The study found that five institutions with the most persons in the penal systems were all poorly performing schools, according to rankings by the think tank, Educate Jamaica.