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Cuts to educational offerings within correctional institutions are impeding inmates' employment and skill development options, in the long run posing a risk to public safety, per a new report from a prison watchdog agency.

Cycle of Reoffending Connected to Lack of Education

Habitual offenders often create disorder in their communities due to the failure of prisons to provide sufficient training and work programs that could help break the cycle of reoffending, the analysis indicated.

I hold serious concerns about the impact of real-terms learning funding cuts on already inadequate services and about the lack of genuine appetite and drive for progress that this represents.”

Funding Reductions Endanger Rehabilitation Efforts

Despite commitments to improve access to education, funding on frontline educational programs in prisons is being reduced by up to 50%, according to recent reports.

While the overall education budget has stayed the same, the expense of course contracts has increased significantly, as claimed by prison administrators.

• Only 31% of former prisoners are employed half a year after release
• 94 of one hundred four closed prisons were rated “poor” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful engagement
• Typical attendance in training activities was just 67% in inspected prisons

Insufficient Conditions Impede Reform

Overcrowding, a lack of training space, equipment failures, and ageing facilities have compounded the problem, per the report.

Many inmates remain for extended periods to be allocated an training spot and are often given whatever is available, instead of instruction relevant to their career opportunities upon leaving.

Even when work went ahead, full-time positions generally engaged inmates for just five hours per day, with numerous roles divided into partial places to extend limited resources more widely.

Government Response and Upcoming Initiatives

The prison service has a duty to safeguard the public by making prisoners less inclined to commit crimes again when they are freed, but too often it is failing to fulfill this obligation.

Top administrators know that jails, and in the end our society, are safer if inmates are purposefully occupied, and that training, skill development and employment play a vital role in motivating prisoners to turn their lives around.

“We know that purposeful activity can help to enable safe and proper prisons and have a positive effect on reoffending levels.”

Until leaders in the correctional system take the delivery of effective education and training more seriously, it is hard to see how extremely high reoffending levels can be reduced.

The spending reductions are also likely to hinder initiatives to introduce a new incentive-based correctional system that would enable prisoners to gain time off their sentence by completing employment, training and education programs.