Wikipedia:Featured article candidates/Prison education/archive1

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The following is an archived discussion of a featured article nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured article candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The article was archived by Laser brain via FACBot (talk) 03:05, 9 July 2018 [1].

Prison education[edit]

Nominator(s): Freikorp (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article is probably my most ambitious featured candidate. Tackling a subject such as this one from a worldwide perspective has not been an easy task but I feel like it is now in a position where it meets featured standards. The article is GA, has recived a peer review and a copy-edit. Before anyone asks, the reason there isn't, for example, a sub-section on the history of prison education in Africa, is because to the best of my knowledge nobody has ever written about it. There are notable gaps in the literature for developing nations, and even for developed ones. For example I could only find one book written about the history of prison education in Australia; the author actually said his motivation for writing it was that nobody else had ever tried to cover the subject. Freikorp (talk) 10:24, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by GMG[edit]

Just making a space for notes. It looks to be in pretty good shape though. GMGtalk 14:19, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

  • Per WP:REFERS, the lead needs tweaked. The article is about the thing, not about the term.
  • Reworded
  • ref name=real seems to be the only ref that uses location =
  • Removed. None of my other featured articles use this parameter; I'm acting under the assumption that you want the refs consistent, rather than are asking for a location to be added to every reference, as I don't think that's part of the featured criteria anyway.
  • Yes, just consistency, which is difficult to do in the other direction, because you rarely have location for all sources. GMGtalk 00:23, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Three refs currently use "et al" in authors. That needs to be replaced with the full author list.
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's always been my understanding that we only give full author lists up to a point, and I thought that was three authors. Two of the sources in question have five authors, and the other has seven. Would you like me to add the full author list for all of them?
I...have never seen this guidance, other than in APA inline citation formatting, if you can point me to it I would be appreciative. GMGtalk 00:23, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm maybe I'm just confusing my university assignments with Wikipedia :). I've added all the authors for these sources now. Freikorp (talk) 00:41, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Probably could use a scrub for available OCLC's from world cat for documents that don't have unique identifiers. For example this ref has a record. So does this one.
  • I've searched for every academic source on world cat and have added ISSNs, ISBNs, and OCLCs where possible. Some documents had none of these and only have "unique identifiers": I added these to references with the parameter |id=. Freikorp (talk) 01:33, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • It's a photograph from circa 1900 (most likely 1899 due to date visible on blackboard in original 45mb tiff format) taken by a government employee and donated to (and currently accessible at) the State Archives and Records Authority of New South Wales. It's my understanding that government works (at least ones this old) are in the public domain. I'm not an image licensing expert so if I've used the wrong license feel free to tell me what the correct one is. Freikorp (talk) 23:53, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Umm...Ping @Majora: to be sure, since they're a wizard. GMGtalk 00:24, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@GreenMeansGo: Provided the description is correct, then yes it is fine. I've tweaked the licensing template on Commons. It isn't CC0. That is a specific license with specific terms. It isn't a catchall for "public domain". Freikorp, if you have the full version please upload it overwriting the one currently on Commons. It is always preferable to upload the full resolution photo instead of a scaled down version. The MediaWiki software will automatically resize it if you use the "thumb" parameter while placing it on the article. If you still want to crop out the border that's fine but if you have the full size please use the full size. --Majora (talk) 00:34, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the licensing fix Majora. I do have the original file, but I'm currently tethering to the internet with the very limited data on my phone. I'll try and upload the original file next time I have access to wifi. :) Freikorp (talk) 00:58, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Could probably use a scrub to make sure we're linking to articles where they available online. For example, this source and this source are currently not linked to in their respective references.
  • OK. I've punched every journal title into Google Scholar and have added URLs (and subscription tags) where appropriate. This should address all your initial concerns. :) Freikorp (talk) 02:13, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The situation was only considered to have changed in 1992 This is super awkward construction. Taken literally, it means not that the situation changed in 1992, but that "the consideration" changed in 1992. So...like...reform happened in 1873 or what have you, but in 1992 people got woke and realized how great all that stuff in 1873 really was. I don't think that's the intended meaning. GMGtalk 14:03, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reworded. In this context my choice of the word 'considered' was synonymous with "according to [my source]". Freikorp (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • secular prison education programs - I'm confused. They were secular but they had the primary goal of teaching people to read the bible? GMGtalk 14:03, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Source reads: "Educational programs have existed in prisons for many years. In the early 1800s prisoners were given instruction in religious matters by visiting or resident chaplains. In order to make the program of religious studies more effective, secular education programs in reading and writing grew out of the desire to enable the inmates to read the Bible and other religious literature." I'm happy to just drop the word "secular" to make the issue less confusing for readers though. Freikorp (talk) 14:51, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmm...maybe if we add a bit about the preexisting informal religious education that might be more clear. GMGtalk 14:55, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Reworded. Let me know if there are any further issues with it. Freikorp (talk) 09:16, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • which have been linked to reductions in recidivism Is referring to the entire preceding list, or just the last item? If the entire list, should probably be "which have all been linked". GMGtalk 14:03, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The ""Prison Education in Poland" source says it improves self-esteem, and though it doesn't say it directly reduces recidivism it implies this will help them succeed post-release. The "cost-effectiveness" source says it improves communication skills but doesn't make any link with this to recidivism. I've removed this one. Freikorp (talk) 15:23, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • $111,202 for incarceration for a year A) Holy shit Canada! How? B) The source actually says that that figure is for males only, while females cost twice as much. I kindof feel like that bit should be incorporated somehow. C) Holy shit Canada! You spend almost a quarter million dollars a year per female inmate?! GMGtalk 14:03, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Yeah pretty crazy huh? I've added that they cost twice as much. Freikorp (talk) 15:02, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose from Squeamish Ossifrage[edit]

I'm going to have to disagree with your evaluation that there is no scholarship about the state of prison education in Africa, and, accordingly, oppose on comprehensiveness grounds.

One source I found useful in particular was The State of Adult and Continuing Education in Africa, which contains several independently-authored chapters, a few of which make brief mentions of prison education and offer hints about where to look further:

  • Oduaran, Akpovire (2000). "Research and scholarship in adult and continuing education in Africa". In Indabawa, Sabo A.; Oduaran, Akpovire; Afrik, Tai; Walters, Shirley (eds.). The State of Adult and Continuing Education in Africa. University of Namibia. pp. 31–48. ISBN 978-99916-53-33-4. – on p. 37, there's specific mention of pioneering work in prison education by Evakuoma Enuku at the University of Benin in Nigeria. This mention is very brief, but that's a fantastic lead for further source-gathering.
  • Walters, Shirley; Watters, Kathy (2000). "From adult education to lifelong learning in southern Africa over the last twenty years". In Indabawa, Sabo A.; Oduaran, Akpovire; Afrik, Tai; Walters, Shirley (eds.). The State of Adult and Continuing Education in Africa. University of Namibia. pp. 49–62. ISBN 978-99916-53-33-4. – the p. 57 mention that prison education activities occurred at Robben Island is also thin, but suggests further research.
  • Nji, Ajaga (2000). "Creating knowledge society through disatance and open learning in Cameroon". In Indabawa, Sabo A.; Oduaran, Akpovire; Afrik, Tai; Walters, Shirley (eds.). The State of Adult and Continuing Education in Africa. University of Namibia. pp. 65–78. ISBN 978-99916-53-33-4. – if I read this correctly, p. 70 explicitly identifies the government ministry responsible for prison education programs in Botswana.

Another book compiling independently-authored works, Strategic Learning Ideologies in Prison Education Programs contains chapters dedicated to prison education in Ghana, Nigeria, and Botswana respectively (and some treatment of prison education in Egypt in chapter 7).

Following up on the Nigerian leads is quite productive:

Sources for other areas exist as well:

And my initial searches for Kenya and Tanzania only revealed Master's theses which I do not believe would be accepted as reliable sources, but which are probably worth examining in case they cite reliable material that evaded a first-pass search. In any case, the above sources aren't a comprehensive index of what is available, and I make no effort to determine what contributions to this article based on the African sources would actually look like. But I do feel that enough material exists that a broad-topic article cannot merely ignore the continent. Separately, I made no evaluation of the article text nor the formatting/suitability of existing sources at this time. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 15:07, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

I never said there was "no scholarship about the state of prison education in Africa", I couldn't find anyone who had written on the history of prison education in Africa, as in when it first started and how it developed. I didn't say there weren't sources on it over the last couple decades. At first glance none of those sources appear to discuss its history; "A discourse on West African initiatives since 1949" doesn't imply it has any information on prison education from the title alone, and in any case a 'history' sub-section would ideally go back a lot further than 1949. Naturally I'll look through these sources in detail as time permits, so thanks for finding them. Freikorp (talk) 23:23, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Squeamish Ossifrage: Considering the amount of effort you've put into finding these sources for me (and I do appreciate you finding them), I don't think you've misquoted me on purpose, but the fact remains I only said I didn't have sources on the history of prison education in Africa, and there's no immediate indication these sources will fix that. Accordingly, do you think you really have to oppose this early into the game? I mean, I am going to read those sources and no doubt I'll find some useful information in them to expand bits here and there, but this doesn't appear to be a game-changer. A source titled something like: 'The history of prison education in Kenya, 1876 to 1992', would be, but even then it wouldn't take me more than a few days to build a history sub-section (assuming I could access the source). I should be able to start reading through your sources later today. Freikorp (talk) 00:55, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I do want to be clear that I'm not calling for a quick-fail of this FAC or suggesting that you withdraw the nomination. When all I have to nitpick is stuff like reference formatting compliance, I start out with a neutral "comment". When there's something more structural that's wrong, I'll oppose because – if the FAC runs to completion without addressing the issue – I would consider it to not meet the criteria. But there's a lot of time for that. Now, as to the meat of the argument here, several of the sources (and I won't lie, I didn't comprehensively review them all; this isn't my topic!) do give history. It's just not as long of history. Chukwuemeka (2010) outright says that Nigeria's history of prison education essentially starts in 1999 because, before that, that's... not the sort of thing Nigerian prisons were for, shall we say. I didn't dig into the various chapters of Strategic Learning Ideologies, but I think there's history offered there, too. Several of these sources outright admit that Africa has been behind the curve on the topic. Outside of the history section, Quan-Baffour and Zawada (2012) tries to reach some conclusion about education and recidivism in South Africa, although they're working with really limited data. Honestly, I hadn't really looked at the prose when I tried to find some Africa-centric sources. Upon doing a quick read-through today, I think that the History section isn't the only problem with geographical bias. For example, the Opposition section is entirely from a US perspective. Broad topics are hard. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 13:32, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for clarifying that. I've just finished going through the sources Aoba47 recommended using, and I've now read Quan-Baffour and Zawada. I'm going away for the weekend though so I guess I'll start looking through the rest of your sources on Monday.
As for the opposition section, the first paragraph is made up of references from Australia, New Zealand, the US, and I've just added the Quan-Baffour South African source because it gave a new reason for opposing I hadn't seen elsewhere. Journal articles that discuss the benefits of prison education list the same reasons why people oppose in their introductions, pretty much what you see in the paragraph, but they typically don't go into much more detail. 'It's a waste of tax-payers money', 'they deserve to be punished not educated' etc etc, its the same arguments around the world. I've added the quote block from the Australian senator and the example of the backlash in the US pretty much to flesh out the section so it wasn't just one paragraph. I get that the second paragraph is all US (and specifically all New York), but I mean, it was the best example of a backlash I could find. I suppose I could try and find another backlash elsewhere but it's going to be more of the same, as in 'right-wing radio host or politician saying its a waste of money and kicking up a stink'. How many examples of that do we want? I don't really see how I can address this section from a more worldwide perspective. Freikorp (talk) 13:55, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Weekend plans feel through, but yay for more editing time haha. I've expanded the opposition section as much as I think I can. I'll start working on the African sources now. Freikorp (talk) 06:08, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've read Chukwuemeka. It states: "Currently, education is a marginal activity in Nigerian prisons. At the best it takes the form of unorganized apprenticeship for a small number of prison inmates which is a means of maintaining the prison system", that education varies from prison to prison, and "While the educational approach to inmates reformation has not been tried in Nigerian prisons, it has been tried with considerable success in Europe and North America." I've summarised this and added it to the 'Funding allocation and prevalence' section; I don't see anything I can add to the history section, other than to say there never has been any. More coming from other sources. Freikorp (talk) 10:04, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I've read Enuku and Omolewa now. Enuku had some decent information in it which has been summarised, and I've now added an 'Africa' sub-section to the History section. Omolewa had nothing useful in it though I've located a potential useful source via its reference list [2]; I'm going to put in a request for it via Resource Requests. Freikorp (talk) 05:59, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Squeamish Ossifrage: I've now gone through all the sources you listed and have harvested everything I think is relevant from them. 'Strategic Learning Ideologies in Prison Education Programs' costs $200 to buy in eBook format; that's well outside my price limit for sources, though I did manage to get some decent information in parts that are viewable in previews. Based on chapter titles it looks like the book does have some very good information in it in parts that I can't access, but I can't do anything about that right now. I haven't followed up the leads on Robben Island or Evakuoma Enuku yet, but that's next on my list. Freikorp (talk) 08:00, 2 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I ended up getting the source I mentioned above from Resource Requests; I was able to get a sentence out of it that was relevant. "Evakuoma Enuku" seems to be a dead end. Searching on both Google Scholar and Google only gets the original source (and this FAC in the case of the latter haha [3]). Searching on my universities catalogue gets zero results. I'm still searching for information related to Robben Island. Freikorp (talk) 05:33, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
"Evakuoma Enuku" actually appears to be a typographical error in the source. The individual's name is actually Usiwoma Evawoma Enuku, the author of one of the journal articles I listed above. And, actually, I'm not sure whether that's properly "Evawoma Enuku" or "Evawoma-Enuku", as it appears in both forms in various works. Squeamish Ossifrage (talk) 16:08, 3 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
@Squeamish Ossifrage: Thanks for pointing that out. Searching for 'Usiwoma Evawoma Enuku prison' gets me three new hits on my university catalogue. The first talks about the educational benefits of bringing amateur theater to prisons, and cites an example of this happening at one prison in Nigeria. I don't think this one play should be counted in a history of Africa section, though I did add a tidbit from this source to the 'Literacy rates and available programs' section. The second was about AIDS awareness: [4]. This source can be summed up with sentence 'Prisoners in Nigeria don't have access to AIDS awareness education though it would be a really good idea to start educating them on the issue'. I considered adding a single sentence on this to the Nigeria paragraph of the Africa section, though I thought that was a bit redundant since we already say they have no formal education, and this would include education on health matters. The third source ([5]) is interesting, but it isn't about Nigeria per se, it's about the educational opportunities (or lack thereof) that foreign inmates in general are afforded in European and North American prisons. I've added a new sentence from it to the 'Challenges' section.
Let me know what further issues you see with the article. Freikorp (talk) 11:07, 6 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Aoba47[edit]

  • These comments are adding to the above discussion. Just wanted to add other sources that I found for prison education in Africa: 1234567. I found these sources through a brief Google search. I think with these sources and the other sources provided above, there should be plenty of material for a separate section for Africa. Aoba47 (talk) 16:47, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here are others sources on prison education in Jamaica and the Caribbean: 1223456. I am not sure these sources are helpful to the article, but I wanted to let you know about them. Aoba47 (talk) 21:08, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thanks for the sources, though as I noted above I never said there was no information on the state of prison education in Africa, I said I didn't have any sources to build a sub-section specifically on the history of it. I will read through these sources and add anything of value from them, so thanks for finding them. :) Freikorp (talk) 23:27, 28 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the clarification! There is a chapter called "History of Prison Education in Ghana" in this source here. I am not sure how much help it will be. Aoba47 (talk) 01:10, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • The source looks good, but its not the holy grail I've been looking for, or at least the preview isn't anyway. The full ebook costs $200, which is about 10 times what I'm willing to pay for a single source on Wikipedia, and the first few pages on prison education are hidden. From what I can see a program was launched in 2003 to offer basic literacy to inmates, but there's no indication if this was the first such program, so I don't think it would be appropriate to add it to the history section. Nevertheless there's some good data in the preview that I'll be able to use elsewhere. Cheers for finding it. :) Freikorp (talk) 03:10, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've looked through most of these sources now, and have expanded the article here and there where appropriate. I've got three more to search through, though I will note I have no way of accessing the 'Caribbean issues' source from 1974, which does look like it would have been particularly useful. Freikorp (talk) 04:40, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Thank you for the update! I just want to clarify that these are suggestions so only use what you feel would benefit the article. This is a very expansive topic so hats off for working so hard on this. Aoba47 (talk) 05:13, 29 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Here is an additional source (Education Within the Middle East and North African Prisons: Challenges and Opportunities) that revolves around prison education in the Middle East and Northern Africa, with an emphasis on Lebanon. Unfortunately, it is a chapter in a book that cannot be accessible online so it could be hit or miss for this particular article, but I wanted to raise it to your attention. You could make a request for it on here (I think that Wikipedia has a place where you can request for information from these more academic sources, but I could be wrong.). Maybe you could find free portions of it online to get a better grasp on it. I also ran across this source (Incarceration, Education, Emancipation), which connects prison education back to Plato. It might be help for the article in terms of history (though it was probably more of the philosophy on the idea then the actual implementation of it). I am wondering if more people made the connection between prison education and Plato (and similar figures). Aoba47 (talk) 19:16, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hmmm, the article is referring to Plato's Allegory of the Cave, which just seems to be saying education is the key to freedom in general, and uses an analogy involving prisoners to make its point. It's not actually about prison education. I did find a useful quote from that article though, which I've added to my collection of potential material on the article's talk page. I've also put in a request for the other source at Resource Request. Freikorp (talk) 12:31, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Jens Lallensack[edit]

I agree with the above reviewers that balance is an issue especially in the history section. Not only that Africa is lacking, there is also no mention on Middle and South America, including very large nations such as Mexico and Brazil, and all of Asia except for China and Japan is missing. Regarding Europe, the article discusses Scandinavia and the United Kingdom in great detail, and even Island with its 137 prisoners has two sentences, but no mention on the rest of Europe. It appears a little bit as if all available information, as disparate they may be, have been tried to fit into the history section. This not only creates imbalance, but also is not very instructive for readers. I will briefly outline what I would try to do, maybe you can get some ideas out of it: Generally, I would try to reduce the content to the important points. If there are no adequate sources on the general history of prison education, it is prudent to have the section concise. Following from that, I would not try to discuss nations individually. Also because there are just too many of them. Histories per nation could be covered by an article History of prison education if needed. I would name individual nations only when they were the first to introduce something, are leading in some aspect, or are otherwise notable; in any case, it should become clear to the reader why this and not another nation is mentioned. For other mentions of nations, I would clearly mark them as examples, and only mention them to illustrate important general points made. Instead of focusing on nations, the section could focus on general developments, with a clear common thread. In this context, I would also think about if the subdivision in the separate continents makes sense at all, or if another structure (maybe types of education offered) is more suitable. These are only my ideas; I can imagine that this is a very difficult topic, and I'm glad to see a topic like this appearing here, it does not happen often. --Jens Lallensack (talk) 07:05, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The section is organised into continents because that's what my earlier reviewers (GA and/or PR, can't remember which) suggested. I am open to alternate suggestions, but until now there have been none.
To the best of my knowledge, no-one has ever tried to write a history of prison education from a worldwide perspective; I appear to be the first, and yes, it's very difficult given the limited sources. Accordingly, to the best of my knowledge there are no adequate sources on the general history of prison education.
The reason I have covered Iceland with its 137 prisoners is because when searching for information on the history of prison education I found a source on it. The reason other nations aren't covered is because I didn't find sources. It's all well and good to say I don't have the history of other European nations, but it's another thing to actually find the sources. I have looked for sources on prison education in Europe. What I've found is in the article. I have looked for sources on the history of prison education in Asia. What I've found is in the article. I'm not saying there isn't more out there. I'm saying I couldn't find it. I'll give you an example of what I'm up against. I just finished reading this source[6] on prison education in the Caribbean, which was given by one of the above reviewers. The source covered seven countries in The Caribbean, though only gave any form of the history of prison education on one of them. It actually mentioned the history of another was unknown. Accordingly, I've got a nice little paragraph on the history of prison education in Barbados (I've added it to the 'Additional info' section on the article's talk page, where I keep all the interesting info I've found that hasn't been added to the article yet), but I don't know what to do with it as if I add it to the article that's just going to make people complain that I haven't added other Caribbean nations, and then I'll have an even bigger problem. I don't really know what to do anymore. In any case I still haven't had a chance to look through all the sources on Africa that were listed above by another reviewer. I'm trying to do one thing at a time so I'm going to just stick with working through that for now. I'm not opposed to a complete restructuring of the history section, though I'd like to hear more opinions on whether that is necessary (and what kind of restructuring would be appropriate) first. Freikorp (talk) 08:50, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Update: I've decided to just add the paragraph on Barbados to the North American section. Also I'm starting to think having a very concise History section would be a good idea, and splitting the article, with a new article specifically on the history of it. I'm not sure how feasible that is but I like the idea anyway. Freikorp (talk) 09:18, 30 June 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Comments by Nick-D[edit]

The article doesn't appear to cover the education delivered in military prisons at present. These can be an interesting variation on civilian prison education: for instance, inmates at the Defence Force Correctional Establishment (Australia) undertake intensive military training with the goal of rehabilitating them to return to their unit. The Glasshouse (British Army) notes that despite the brutal conditions in British Army prisons, inmates had access to guns and ammunition so they could be drilled! Nick-D (talk) 09:51, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

(edit conflict) You're right, it doesn't take military prisons into consideration, though I'm not sure that it should. I mean, 'military prison' and 'Prisoner-of-war camp' are stand alone articles. Writing a article about the history of education at them around the world and all the ins and outs and different programs and effectiveness etc could potentially be just as large as this article is now. I think education at those types of prisons should just be a sub-section at their respective articles, with at most a paragraph here linking to the 'main articles'. I think trying to merge that all in here will just convolute this article, especially since the goals of prisoner of war camps in particular are considerably different from those of civilian jails. Your thoughts? I'm also not convinced drilling people in the use of firearms counts as education if using firearms was already their job (though that information is certainly interesting!). Incidentally I am a former Australian soldier though I never spent time in a military prison. Freikorp (talk) 11:20, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
This is what this article looked like in February before I started working on it: [7]. I mention this as while there isn't an article on 'military prison education' at present, if someone put the effort in I'm sure one could be made that rivals this article in size. My point being I think that information should be included elsewhere, and that this article shouldn't be penalised because it currently isn't. Freikorp (talk) 11:28, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
POW camps are out of scope, as they're not prisons per-se, and the activities POWs are and aren't supposed to do are governed by the Geneva Conventions and other agreements. Where circumstances permitted they have had 'improving' elements (for instance, western Allied POWs in Germany in World War II sometimes organised courses), but I don't think that governments holding POWs are under any obligation at all to provide education. I don't see why military prisons would be out of scope here: they're a small, but specialised, part of the prison system. In many countries with such prisons, their goal is to prepare personnel the military judges worth retaining to return to service, so they have an explicitly educational focus - including by reinforcing core military training such as drill. Military personnel who commit crimes which are seen as so serious that they can't continue in the military are often sacked and sent to civilian prisons. Nick-D (talk) 23:43, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Umm...at least in the US, violation of the Uniform Code of Military Justice that justifies imprisonment sends you to a military prison, not a civilian one. But I agree that POW camps are out of scope, and military prisons are such an exceedingly small portion of the world's prison population that it's hard to argue due weight with regard to WP:SS. The article also doesn't include incarceration in recognized US native reservations. But again, at some level of granularity you have to call it an encyclopedia article and not a book. GMGtalk 23:51, 7 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree: this is a non-trivial part of prison systems worldwide (especially in the era of mass conscription), and a significant part of prison education. A couple of paras would do the trick. Nick-D (talk) 00:16, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I dunno. Currently at least in the US it looks like we have a few thousand military prisoners, while we have a few million prisoners. On such a broad article, I struggle to see the due weight. GMGtalk 00:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not sure why you're so resistant to covering this type of prison education: surely the article should be comprehensive? It covers other interesting examples of prison education such as the ability of the 472 people held in custody in the Australian Capital Territory to be issued with their own computers. Bear in mind that numbers of people held in military prisons used to be much higher during the age of mass conscription (for instance, Australia had large networks of military prisons during both world wars, but now has only a single small military prison). Nick-D (talk) 02:43, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
Nick-D, if I did add a couple paragraphs on military prison, where do you suggest I put it in the article? A sub-section in 'History' after all the continents? Also the comment about computers in the ACT is just to give an example of how prison policy differs around the country. Freikorp (talk) 05:10, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]
A sub-section of the history section would probably work best. There may be scope for similar cross-cutting sections covering other specialised forms of prisons/imprisonment (for instance, on women, youth and indigenous peoples). Nick-D (talk) 07:59, 8 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Coordinator note: I think it's clear there is significant work required here to address opposition and develop consensus on balance and sourcing. I will be archiving it as this work is best done outside of FAC. --Laser brain (talk) 03:03, 9 July 2018 (UTC)[reply]

The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/Prison_education/archive1&oldid=849580880"