Education Reductions in Prisons Endanger Community Security, Watchdog Alerts

Decreases to educational initiatives within correctional institutions are hindering prisoners' employment and skill development options, eventually creating danger to community safety, according to a latest report from a correctional oversight body.

Cycle of Repeat Crimes Linked to Shortage of Training

Habitual criminals often cause disorder in their neighborhoods due to the inability of prisons to offer adequate training and employment opportunities that could help break the cycle of reoffending, the report noted.

I hold significant concerns about the effect of inflation-adjusted education budget cuts on currently insufficient provision and about the lack of real desire and drive for progress that this represents.”

Funding Cuts Threaten Reform Initiatives

In spite of promises to improve access to education, spending on frontline learning programs in correctional institutions is being reduced by up to 50%, per recent disclosures.

Although the overall education allocation has remained the same, the cost of program contracts has soared, according to correctional governors.

• Just 31% of former prisoners are employed half a year after leaving prison
• Ninety-four of 104 closed prisons were rated “poor” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful engagement
• Average attendance in educational activities was just 67% in inspected prisons

Inadequate Situations Hinder Reform

Crowded conditions, a lack of training space, equipment breakdowns, and aging infrastructure have worsened the problem, according to the report.

Many inmates remain for weeks to be allocated an training spot and are often assigned whatever is open, instead of training applicable to their employment opportunities upon release.

Even when activities went ahead, full-day jobs generally engaged inmates for just a limited time per day, with numerous positions divided into partial slots to stretch meagre provision further.

Government Response and Future Initiatives

The prison system has a responsibility to protect the public by making prisoners less likely to commit crimes again when they are freed, but too often it is falling short to fulfill this obligation.

The best administrators know that prisons, and in the end our society, are more secure if inmates are purposefully engaged, and that education, skill development and work play a vital role in encouraging inmates to reform.

It is understood that purposeful activity can help to facilitate safe and decent prisons and have a transformative effect on recidivism levels.”

Unless leaders in the correctional service take the delivery of effective training and skill development more seriously, it is difficult to see how appallingly high recidivism rates can be reduced.

The spending reductions are also likely to hinder efforts to implement a new incentive-based correctional regime that would enable inmates to earn reductions their incarceration by finishing work, skill development and education programs.