The national inmate profile indicates that most inmates are functionally illiterate, come from socioeconomic deprivation, are school dropouts, are members of a minority, were abused as children, have substance abuse problems, and lack adequate job skills. This is not the profile of most Idaho inmates, however. Idaho inmates have traits not attributable to differing ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds, abilities, and experiences. Their most notable traits are the desire for instant gratification of their wants, unrealistic self-esteem, unconventional value systems, self-destructive and ineffective coping behaviors, reluctance to take appropriate risks, and unwillingness to assume responsibility for their own actions. A curriculum designed to address these impediments to social adjustment has yielded a recidivism rate of 8.3 percent among the 289 inmates who completed the program and were released between July 1983 and November 1987. This is impressive when compared to a general recidivism rate of over 50 percent. 6 references.