Education Reductions in Prisons Threaten Community Security, Oversight Body Warns

Reductions to educational offerings within correctional institutions are hindering prisoners' work and skill development opportunities, in the long run posing a risk to public safety, per a recent analysis from a correctional oversight body.

Pattern of Repeat Crimes Connected to Shortage of Education

Repeat criminals often create disorder in their neighborhoods due to the inability of correctional facilities to provide sufficient training and employment programs that could help disrupt the pattern of criminal behavior, the report indicated.

“I have serious worries about the impact of real-terms learning budget cuts on already inadequate provision and about the absence of genuine desire and drive for progress that this signifies.”

Budget Reductions Threaten Reform Efforts

Despite commitments to enhance access to learning, funding on frontline learning programs in correctional institutions is being cut by as much as 50%, according to recent reports.

While the overall education allocation has stayed the same, the cost of program contracts has soared, according to prison administrators.

• Just 31% of ex- inmates are working six months after leaving prison
• Ninety-four of 104 closed prisons were rated “inadequate” or “below standard” for meaningful engagement
• Average attendance in educational programs was just 67% in inspected institutions

Insufficient Conditions Hinder Rehabilitation

Crowded conditions, a shortage of training facilities, equipment failures, and ageing infrastructure have worsened the situation, per the analysis.

Numerous inmates wait for weeks to be assigned an training spot and are often assigned any is open, rather than instruction relevant to their employment prospects upon leaving.

Even when activities proceeded, full-day positions generally engaged inmates for just a limited time per day, with many roles split into partial slots to extend limited provision further.

Official Response and Future Plans

The prison system has a responsibility to protect the community by making inmates less inclined to reoffend when they are released, but frequently it is failing to meet this obligation.

The best governors know that jails, and in the end our communities, are more secure if inmates are meaningfully occupied, and that education, skill development and work play a vital role in motivating prisoners to turn their lives around.

“We know that purposeful activity can help to facilitate safe and proper correctional facilities and have a transformative effect on recidivism levels.”

Unless leaders in the correctional service take the provision of effective training and training more seriously, it is hard to see how appallingly high reoffending levels can be lowered.

Funding cuts are also likely to hinder efforts to introduce a new incentive-based correctional regime that would allow prisoners to gain time off their incarceration by completing employment, training and education programs.