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Cuts to learning offerings within prisons are hindering inmates' employment and skill development options, in the long run posing a risk to public safety, according to a latest report from a prison oversight organization.

Pattern of Reoffending Linked to Lack of Training

Habitual criminals often cause chaos in their communities due to the failure of prisons to provide sufficient training and work opportunities that could help disrupt the pattern of criminal behavior, the report indicated.

I hold significant concerns about the effect of real-terms learning budget cuts on currently insufficient services and about the absence of genuine desire and ambition for improvement that this represents.”

Budget Cuts Threaten Reform Initiatives

In spite of promises to enhance access to education, spending on frontline educational services in prisons is being cut by up to 50%, per latest reports.

Although the total training allocation has stayed unchanged, the expense of program agreements has increased significantly, as claimed by prison administrators.

• Only 31% of former prisoners are employed six months after release
• Ninety-four of one hundred four closed facilities were rated “poor” or “not sufficiently good” for purposeful activity
• Average participation in training activities was just 67% in reviewed prisons

Inadequate Situations Hinder Rehabilitation

Overcrowding, a shortage of workshop space, equipment breakdowns, and ageing facilities have compounded the problem, per the report.

Many prisoners wait for extended periods to be assigned an training space and are often assigned whatever is open, rather than training relevant to their employment prospects upon leaving.

Although work proceeded, full-day positions generally occupied inmates for just five hours per day, with numerous positions split into part-time slots to stretch meagre resources further.

Government Response and Future Initiatives

Correctional service has a duty to protect the public by making inmates less inclined 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 society, are more secure if prisoners are purposefully engaged, and that training, skill development and employment play a crucial role in encouraging inmates to reform.

It is understood that purposeful engagement can help to enable secure and proper correctional facilities and have a positive effect on reoffending rates.”

Unless leaders in the correctional service take the provision of high-quality training and skill development more seriously, it is hard to see how extremely high reoffending rates can be lowered.

The spending reductions are also likely to impede efforts to implement a new reward-driven prison regime that would enable inmates to earn reductions their incarceration by finishing employment, skill development and learning courses.