The need for the Government to
change the public image of prison education
72. There is a poor level of public understanding
of the purpose and role of prison education. A large part of the
public and the press see prison education as a privilege that
prisoners do not deserve, rather than having benefit to the wider
community. Professor David Wilson said in evidence to this Committee:
'..because prison education is something often
people are rather embarrassed about talking about. Andrew (Coyle)
and I were joking about the fact that one of the questions we
would often be asked as prison governors would be, "Governor,
why should the prisoners have access to computers when my kids
don't have access to computers in their schools?" So there
has always been rather a reluctance to actually trumpet the success
of what education can do.'[50]
73. Bobby Cummines, an ex-offender and Chief Executive
of UNLOCK, told the Committee:
'I think that the problem with the Government
as it is, and the Prison Service as it is, is that they do not
publish what they do well: they let newspapers publish what they
do badly.'[51]
74. Improvement in public understanding of the importance
of prison education requires political leadership. Change in attitude
needs to come from the top. Frances Crook, Director of the Howard
League for Penal Reform, told us:
'I think a change of attitude has to come from
the top and it has to be political leadership. What I would like
to see is political leadership saying people who have done something
wrong must make amends for the wrong they have done and they should
be helped to change their lives.. That is the balance which I
think the public would engage with. They do not want to see people
getting what they think as benefits from having committed a crime.
On the other hand, all of us would agree we want to see a safer
society where there are fewer victims of crime, and the best way
to achieve that is to have a new system of criminal justice which
is based on restoring the damage which has been done by crime
and changing people's lives by getting them to make amends for
the wrong they have done, and that can be done through education,
through training and through work.'[52]
'Until broadly we start promoting what education
can do in jail then I think that hierarchy where the educator
is seen at the bottom will continue. Therefore, it is about being
far more proactive about what prison education can do for the
wide community once those prisoners are released.'[53]
75. Prison education can help the wider community
by reducing recidivism and thereby reducing the number of victims
of crime affected by re-offending, reducing the significant costs
to the tax payer that result from repeat offenders (recidivism
costs £11 billion a year[54]),
as well as filling genuine skills gaps by producing skilled, trained
workers. The Government has a pressing responsibility to communicate
this message to the general public so that prison education can
be properly understood and properly supported as a key part of
reducing recidivism for the good of the community.
76. Frances Crook told us:
'People are interested when something goes seriously
wrong, when there is a death or a riot, but you do not hear ministers
talking about (prison education). It is not a high political priority.
It is never talked about and unless you have strong political
and moral leadership given on these issues noone else will
follow.'[55]
77. Neither
the Government nor the media have done enough to communicate the
importance of prison education to the general public. This Committee
believes this is unacceptable. A change in public attitude must
be driven by political leadership. The Government must act on
its responsibility to inform the general public of the purpose
and importance of prison education as part of a broader strategy
to rehabilitate prisoners in order to reduce recidivism for the
benefit of the wider community.
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