Abstract

TRAINING prison inmates as paraprofessional social workers is something new for social-work education. A more common situation has been for the prison to be a field setting for graduate social work students. However, the program for training inmates as paraprofessional social workers described in this article suggests new opportunities for social work education and correctional practice. From the inception of the training program, problems and issues developed that needed to be addressed if social work education was to provide inmate paraprofessionals effective in institutional and community-based human service programs. This article reviews these educational issues and highlights the efforts of one under-graduate program to address them. Prison Education Programs Prisons generally have not been considered likely settings for college education. Given their priority to provide custody and