🔗 Share this article

Cuts to educational initiatives within correctional institutions are impeding prisoners' employment and skill development options, in the long run posing a risk to public safety, according to a latest analysis from a correctional oversight body.

Cycle of Reoffending Linked to Lack of Training

Repeat offenders often cause chaos in their communities due to the failure of prisons to provide sufficient training and employment opportunities that could help break the pattern of reoffending, the report stated.

I hold serious concerns about the effect of real-terms education funding cuts on currently inadequate provision and about the absence of genuine desire and drive for improvement 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%, per latest reports.

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

• Only 31% of former inmates are employed half a year after release
• Ninety-four of 104 closed prisons were rated “poor” or “below standard” for meaningful engagement
• Average attendance in training programs was just 67% in reviewed prisons

Insufficient Conditions Hinder Reform

Crowded conditions, a lack of workshop facilities, equipment breakdowns, and aging infrastructure have compounded the problem, according to the report.

Numerous prisoners remain for weeks to be allocated an training spot and are often given any is open, rather than instruction relevant to their career opportunities upon release.

Even when work went ahead, full-day positions generally engaged prisoners for just five hours per day, with numerous positions split into part-time slots to stretch limited provision further.

Government Position and Future Plans

The prison service has a duty to protect the public by making inmates less likely to reoffend when they are freed, but too often it is failing to fulfill this responsibility.

Top administrators know that jails, and in the end our society, are safer if inmates are purposefully engaged, and that education, skill development and work play a vital role in motivating inmates to change their behavior.

It is understood that purposeful engagement can help to facilitate safe and decent prisons and have a transformative impact on recidivism rates.”

Until officials in the prison system take the provision of high-quality training and training more seriously, it is hard to see how appallingly high recidivism levels can be reduced.

The spending reductions are also likely to hinder efforts to introduce a new incentive-based correctional system that would enable inmates to earn reductions their incarceration by completing employment, training and education programs.