🔗 Share this article

Cuts to learning programs within prisons are disrupting prisoners' work and skill development options, eventually creating danger to public safety, per a new analysis from a correctional watchdog organization.

Cycle of Repeat Crimes Linked to Shortage of Training

Repeat offenders often create chaos in their communities due to the failure of prisons to supply adequate training and employment opportunities that could help break the pattern of criminal behavior, the analysis noted.

“I have serious worries about the impact of real-terms education budget reductions on currently inadequate services and about the lack of real desire and drive for improvement that this signifies.”

Funding Reductions Threaten Reform Efforts

Despite commitments to improve access to education, funding on direct educational programs in correctional institutions is being cut by up to 50%, per recent reports.

While the overall training allocation has remained the same, the cost of course contracts has increased significantly, according to prison governors.

• Just 31% of former prisoners are working half a year after release
• Ninety-four of one hundred four inspected prisons were rated “inadequate” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful engagement
• Average participation in training programs was just 67% in inspected prisons

Inadequate Situations Impede Reform

Overcrowding, a shortage of training space, machinery breakdowns, and aging infrastructure have worsened the problem, per the report.

Numerous prisoners wait for weeks to be allocated an training space and are often given whatever is open, instead of training applicable to their employment opportunities upon release.

Although activities went ahead, full-day positions generally occupied inmates for just five hours per day, with numerous roles split into partial places to extend limited provision further.

Government Response and Future Initiatives

The prison service has a duty to protect the community by making prisoners less likely to commit crimes again when they are released, but frequently it is failing to meet this responsibility.

Top governors understand that jails, and ultimately our society, are more secure if inmates are meaningfully engaged, and that education, training and employment play a crucial role in motivating prisoners to turn their lives around.

“We know that purposeful engagement can help to enable safe and decent prisons and have a positive impact on recidivism levels.”

Unless officials in the prison service take the provision of effective education and training more seriously, it is difficult to see how appallingly high recidivism levels can be lowered.

Funding cuts are also likely to hinder efforts to introduce a new incentive-based correctional system that would allow prisoners to earn reductions their sentence by completing work, skill development and learning programs.