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Decreases to educational offerings within prisons are impeding prisoners' work and training opportunities, ultimately creating danger to public safety, according to a recent analysis from a prison watchdog organization.

Pattern of Reoffending Connected to Lack of Training

Habitual criminals often create mayhem in their communities due to the inability of correctional facilities to provide adequate education and work programs that could help disrupt the cycle of criminal behavior, the report stated.

I hold significant concerns about the effect of real-terms education funding reductions on currently inadequate provision and about the lack of real desire and drive for progress that this signifies.”

Budget Reductions Threaten Reform Efforts

In spite of promises to improve availability to education, funding on direct learning programs in prisons is being cut by as much as 50%, per latest reports.

While the total education budget has stayed the same, the expense of course contracts has soared, according to correctional administrators.

• Only 31% of ex- prisoners are employed six months after leaving prison
• 94 of 104 closed prisons were rated “inadequate” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful activity
• Typical participation in training programs was just 67% in reviewed prisons

Insufficient Conditions Hinder Rehabilitation

Crowded conditions, a shortage of training facilities, equipment failures, and aging facilities have compounded the problem, according to the analysis.

Numerous prisoners remain for weeks to be assigned an activity spot and are often given whatever is open, rather than training relevant to their career prospects upon leaving.

Even when activities proceeded, full-time jobs generally occupied inmates for just a limited time per day, with numerous positions divided into part-time places to extend meagre provision further.

Official Position and Future Initiatives

The prison service has a responsibility to protect the public by making prisoners less likely to commit crimes again when they are freed, but frequently it is failing to fulfill this responsibility.

Top administrators understand that prisons, and in the end our society, are more secure if inmates are meaningfully engaged, and that education, skill development and work play a crucial role in motivating inmates to reform.

It is understood that meaningful activity can help to facilitate secure and decent correctional facilities and have a positive impact on reoffending rates.”

Until officials in the correctional system take the provision of effective training and skill development more seriously, it is hard to see how appallingly high recidivism levels can be reduced.

Funding reductions are also likely to hinder initiatives to introduce a new reward-driven prison regime that would enable inmates to earn reductions their incarceration by completing employment, training and learning courses.