LITERATURE SEARCH

During the course of this project, an extensive literature search was carried out through Metroline, a computerized bibliographic search service at the Metropolitan Toronto Reference Library, on a number of on-line data systems, including:

• The Criminal Justice Periodical Index, 1975 - 89:
• The GPO Monthly Catalog, July 1976 - Nov. 1989;
• The GPO Publications Reference, to October 30, 1989;
• The Legal Resource Index, 1980 - 1989;
• The Conference Papers Index, 1973 - 1989;
• The Current Contents Search 1989, Weeks 1 - 44;
• Dissertation Abstracts Online, 1861 - November 1989;
• Psycalert, to October 30, 1989;
• Psycinfo, 1967 - 1989;
• Social SciSearch, 1972 - 1989, Week 44;
• Sociological Abstracts, 1963 - 1989;
• CODOC the Co-operative Documents Project of the University of Guelph;
• PAIS International, 1976 - 1989;
• NCJRS, 1972 - 1989.

Each of these indices was searched for references to literacy needs of women in conflict with the law. To say that references in this area were scarce would be a gross overstatement. In fact, the only relevant material uncovered by the search came from Dissertation Abstracts Online, in the form of an abstract entitled "Development of a Freire-based Literacy/Conscientization Program for Low-Literate Women in Prison'', by Gillian Craig of Pennsylvania State University.

Since the mandate of this research project was to explore the literacy problems of women in Canadian prisons, it was felt that an American needs assessment would be only minimally relevant. This dearth of material highlights the invisibility of the problems of literacy among women in conflict with the law, a problem which evidenced itself over and over again during the course of this research project.