In 2010 I visited an incredible school serving a particularly challenging community in America. Having been a teacher for four years, I’d never seen so much joy around education and learning as I saw in every one of its classrooms. When asked how come these children were so positively engaged, the principal told me it was about incentives.
Anyone leading an institution knows how powerful incentives are in driving culture. There are few places where getting this right is as urgent as in a prison.
Back in 2015 while working on the Coates review of prison education, we found too many barriers and too few incentives to engage with education in prisons. These problems lay at the heart of why the system wasn’t working. It meant that many of the inmates who most needed education never got to a classroom.
David Gauke’s sentencing review published last month recommended a brilliant solution to this. Prisoners who engage in purposeful activity and education during their sentence will be able to earn the ultimate incentive of an earlier release date.
“Rehabilitation should be a central part of a prison sentence”
At its core, this proposal is rooted in a simple truth: it is well evidenced that prisoners who engage in education are less likely to reoffend post release. It also reinforces that rehabilitation should be a central part of a prison sentence.
But in too many of our prisons the barriers to engage in any purposeful activity are extraordinarily high. And just having the incentive in place won’t fix this.
The latest report from the HM Chief Inspector of Prisons is sobering. Of 38 adult prisons inspected last year, more than half received the lowest possible rating of ‘poor’ for purposeful activity. Only one showed any sign of improvement. In many reception prisons, conditions are particularly bleak: more than half of prisoners are locked in their cells for over 22 hours a day, even on weekdays.
This raises an obvious question: how can we expect prisoners to earn early release if they have no access to quality education or purposeful work?
We must get real about how much support many prisoners need
Literally unlocking cell doors so prisoners can attend classes is clearly necessary, but we need to do more than this. We need to get real about how much support many prisoners need to engage successfully with education. Nearly half of all prisoners in England and Wales left school without a single qualification. About three-quarters struggle with basic literacy and numeracy. Expecting this cohort to leap into self-guided learning is not just unrealistic. It’s setting them up to fail.
Technological solutions, such as in-cell tablets or remote learning platforms, are often touted as a fix. But while these tools can be valuable for more confident learners, many prisoners need face-to-face teaching alongside a culture supporting vulnerable learners to engage.
Unlocked Graduates was set up to address exactly this problem. We focus on the role of the prison officer because it is officers who set the culture on the landings where prisoners spend most of their time. This is the person who reaches all prisoners.
The best prison officers don’t just manage behaviour. They actively support prisoners to make the most of their time in prison to make sure they never come back.
“Prisons need to be accountable for prisoner outcomes”
The early release incentive is potentially brilliant, but this will only be actualised if we develop officers to understand the transformative power of education.
Prisons need to be accountable for prisoner outcomes. They need to be supported to seek more collaboration with third-sector organisations that bring expertise, flexibility and creativity to prison education.
Without careful support for the most vulnerable prisoners, those who are already well-educated – who are also statistically less likely to reoffend – will be the ones to benefit from this policy and the earned release scheme will inadvertently reinforce existing inequalities. Worse, it could then become tokenistic, where early release is granted for little more than keeping out of trouble rather than meaningful engagement with programmes which make people less likely to reoffend.
This cannot be allowed to happen. The earned release incentive offers a rare chance to reshape the narrative around imprisonment. If we’re serious about our prisons improving public safety and delivering real value for taxpayers, we must ensure this incentive is used to its fullest potential.
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