U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

NCJRS Virtual Library

The Virtual Library houses over 235,000 criminal justice resources, including all known OJP works.
Click here to search the NCJRS Virtual Library

Tea Ceremony and Tatami Mat Making: Gender Differences in Access to Educational Programs in Japanese Prisons

NCJ Number
152543
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 74 Issue: 4 Dated: special issue (December 1994) Pages: 462-473
Author(s)
J Gerber; S L Weeks; F Denq
Date Published
1994
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This study compared access to educational programs in Japanese prisons for male and female inmates.
Abstract
Data collection, which was conducted during early 1992 in Japan, was done with a questionnaire administered in two prisons near Tokyo. A total of 101 inmates in the female prison were surveyed, and 73 inmates in the male prison participated. In addition, researchers conducted personal interviews with 14 male and 10 female inmates, as well as some correctional officers in both institutions. Researchers also reviewed documents and other information from the two prisons as well as information provided by the Japanese Ministry of Justice. Given the research on educational programs in prisons in several nations, the study hypothesized that Japanese female inmates would have less access to programs than would men and that the programs to which they did have access would be gender stereotyped. With one significant qualification, the data support this hypothesis. The qualification is that although female inmates generally had less access to educational programs than men, male inmates apparently did not have much access to prison education programs either. 2 tables and 35 references