Study in Capital Letters:Formal education in Venezuelan Penitentiary Institutions

Abstract

This research aims to reveal the intentions and meanings of the given formal study of those deprived from freedom, held imprisoned in Venezuelan correctional Institutions. The lack of theoretical works and backgrounds to approach the problematic of people studying while being held, evidences the lack of records of the notions produced in these secluded classrooms. The approach to one of the less published events of prison activity goes to study the complexity of humanizing processes, formation and re-education of inmates inside the prison walls. Departing from a qualitative approximation, the essence and significance of the phenomena are presented in the words of the protagonists. The access to the experiences, was made through the privileged information recollection technique: The participant observation and in depth interview. The following Correctional Centres were selected for the research: Instituto Nacional de Orientacion Femenina, and Internado Judicial Los Teques where educative activities were developed. The research counted with the participation of 25 people: 15 women and 10 men. The interpretation and content analysis, in a progressive reduction of data, was categorized and included in the consequent dimensions and categories. Three important elements were evidenced in the process of becoming free again: (internal, external and a combination of both); to begin with the factors due to an imprisoned person, the ways they internalize and assume the moment they´re going through, their emotions, motivation, having family support or not having it-sentiments of hope and guilt, shape and give meaning to the fact of studying and train in prison. These study from the protagonists words reveal that classrooms in a prison, give real meaning to what prisons should be made for; prisons can become what they ought to be: reinsertion spaces.