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Reductions to educational programs within prisons are impeding prisoners' employment and skill development opportunities, ultimately creating danger to public security, according to a latest report from a prison oversight body.

Cycle of Repeat Crimes Linked to Shortage of Education

Repeat offenders often cause chaos in their communities due to the inability of correctional facilities to offer sufficient training and employment opportunities that could help disrupt the pattern of reoffending, the report noted.

“I have serious worries about the effect of real-terms education budget reductions on currently insufficient provision and about the lack of genuine appetite and drive for progress that this represents.”

Budget Reductions Endanger Rehabilitation Efforts

Despite promises to improve availability to learning, funding on frontline learning programs in correctional institutions is being reduced by as much as 50%, according to recent disclosures.

Although the overall education budget has remained the same, the expense of program agreements has soared, as claimed by prison administrators.

• Just 31% of ex- prisoners are working six months after release
• 94 of 104 closed facilities were rated “inadequate” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful engagement
• Average attendance in educational activities was just 67% in reviewed institutions

Inadequate Situations Hinder Rehabilitation

Crowded conditions, a shortage of workshop facilities, machinery breakdowns, and ageing infrastructure have worsened the problem, according to the report.

Numerous prisoners remain for extended periods to be assigned an training space and are often assigned whatever is available, rather than instruction applicable to their career opportunities upon leaving.

Although work went ahead, full-day jobs generally engaged inmates for just five hours per day, with numerous positions divided into partial slots to extend limited provision further.

Official Position and Future Plans

The prison system has a duty to safeguard the public by making inmates less likely to commit crimes again when they are released, but frequently it is failing to meet this obligation.

Top administrators know that jails, and ultimately our communities, are safer if prisoners are purposefully engaged, and that education, training and employment play a vital role in motivating prisoners to reform.

“We know that purposeful engagement can help to enable safe and decent correctional facilities and have a positive effect on reoffending rates.”

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

Funding cuts are also expected to impede initiatives to implement a new incentive-based correctional regime that would allow prisoners to earn reductions their sentence by finishing employment, skill development and learning courses.