Offering prisoners earlier release dates if they participate in education courses will not work unless the government improves “underfunded” education services, ministers have been warned.
According to a report in The Times this week, ministers are drawing up early plans to copy the success of a scheme in Texas which allows prisoners to shorten the time they serve if they take part in education.
The policy proposal, understood to have been briefed to the newspaper by special advisors, comes almost 10 years after former justice secretary Michael Gove claimed to be looking at the policy.
But the Prisoner’s Education Trust’s chief executive has warned that prisons currently lack the capacity for classrooms, teachers or prison officers to meet demand.
Prison education shortage
Jon Collins, whose organisation provides 130 distance learning courses to prisoners, welcomed prioritising education as “fresh thinking” that could help to solve the prisons crisis.
However, he told FE Week: “The biggest problem with prison education in England and Wales isn’t with demand – by and large, people in prison are keen to access education – it’s with supply.
“Prison education is underfunded, what is on offer is narrow and limited, and there aren’t enough classrooms or teachers to accommodate more people or enough officers to escort them to education departments.
“The first priority must be to make high quality education more widely available in prisons, with the capacity to support more learners. Once that is in place, the focus can shift to how to encourage more people to participate.”
According to the Ministry of Justice’s prison performance ratings, more than half of prisons failed to meet their targets for progress in English and maths (57 per cent in category B prisons and 64 per cent in eligible reception prisons) in 2023-24.
An FE Week investigation earlier this year highlighted concerns about declining prisoner participation in education, contracts that prioritise value for money over quality, and a focus on English and maths over more interesting or advanced courses.
Not a new idea
The idea to incentivise prisoners to study through earlier release dates was floated by Gove during his 14-month tenure as justice minister in 2015.
He reportedly asked MoJ civil servants to draw up detailed proposals before then prime minister Theresa May sacked him in 2016.
None of the eight Conservative justice ministers who followed Gove in the last eight years appear to have revived the plans.
In 2022, the MoJ accepted “in principle” a House of Commons education committee recommendation that it consider education as an incentive for early release.
‘Counterproductive’ warnings
However, officials said directly linking early release to education “could be counterproductive”.
They added: “The essential criteria are whether the temporary release applied for will further the prisoner’s rehabilitation, and whether they can be safely released.
“As is demonstrated by our strengthened performance management metrics on prisoner attendance at education, we are keen to ensure that governors can take decisions as to how best to incentivise their prison population to engage with education and training.”
Peter Cox, managing director of prison education provider Novus, which operates at more than 40 prisons and young offender institutions across England and Wales, said: “Reoffending costs taxpayers £18 billion each year, and Ministry of Justice research has demonstrated that individuals who take part in prison education are 7.5 percentage points less likely to reoffend.
“We welcome moves to look at what more can be done to support rehabilitation in prisons, including exploring approaches which have proved successful in other countries.” The MoJ declined to comment.
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