The United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners do not express the basic principle that would support a serious educational approach to prison administration. The crucial missing rationale is the concept of the inherent dignity of the individual human prisoner. This concept has certain basic educational implications, culminating in the concept of education directed to the development of the total human personality. Such a concept is quite foreign to contemporary approaches to prison administration. In actual practice, prison education is seen as a tool of incarcerational technology. Prison education, which normally includes both academic and vocational programs inside prison walls, is mostly of inferior quality. Most prison authorities attach little value to conventional educational programs, and the idea of rehabilitation is largely being abandoned. The role of the prison is often reduced to the protection of society. A case for prison education should be approached from the ideas of right and fraternal obligation to fellow men. The educational approach to prison administration possesses characteristics related to these topics: the prisoner as a person, the prison as educational, and the educational model and justice. The Rules should be amended to express recognition of the principle of the dignity of the human person. (YLB)