Select Committee on Education and Skills Seventh Report


7  Delivering prison education in the context of the wider prison regime

286. Existing barriers to the successful delivery of prison education include overcrowding, movement of prisoners (churn), pay, timetabling, physical space and equipment, the physical environment, training of prison officers, drugs and mental health issues, sharing of information, location of prisoners etc. It is not for this Committee to make specific recommendations in many of these areas, but we concur with many of the recommendations in the recent Home Affairs Committee Report. Improvements in prison education cannot be achieved in isolation from the wider prison regime. This has to be driven from the top down, and without a strong commitment to change, these barriers will continue to prevent the effective delivery of prison education.

Barriers to the effective delivery of prison education

Mobility/churn

287. In the last 12 years, the number of people in our prisons has increased from 43,000 to 75,000. Last year there were 100,000 transfers within the prison estate. This is the context in which the delivery of prison education must be considered. As Professor Andrew Coyle said to the Committee:

288. The mobility of the prison population is widely seen to be a significant barrier against effective prisoner education and other programmes of rehabilitation work. It is considered to be a result of overcrowding. The movement of prisoners is decided by a central Government body, but it is unclear what the policy is based on.

289. In evidence given to the Home Affairs Committee in May 2004, Paul Goggins said 'I do not think it is necessarily the total numbers (of prisoners) that is the real challenge, I think it is the amount of movement within the prison system. It is that movement around that makes it difficult to work effectively on rehabilitation and resettlement.'[190]

290. In their memorandum (and other research publications), the Prison Reform Trust have argued that the frequent transfer of prisoners between institutions has a detrimental impact on prisoners' educational prospects. This caused problems for prisoners in terms of pursuing qualifications or courses through to the end. It also reduced prisoners' motivation for training and study.

291. The Prison Reform Trust said that particular problems arose when prisoners were transferred between prisons with markedly different curricula and were thus unable to recommence or rejoin their programmes of study.

292. The movement of prisoners at existing levels has to stop if the prison service is going to provide the stability required to deliver prison education and wider rehabilitation programmes. Without significant changes in this area, reform of prison education will not be effective.

SHORT SENTENCES

293. The average sentence length was 12.6 months in 2003, that is for all courts and all offences (3.1 months at magistrates' courts and 26.3 months at the Crown Court). That would suggest that the average time served in prison is about 6 months (half).[191] For young offenders, we were told that average sentences were as short as 4 months.[192] In Feltham Young Offenders Institution, where two thirds of prisoners are on remand, we were told that the average length of stay was 4 weeks amongst the juveniles (15-17) and just 2 weeks amongst the young offenders (18-21). There are fundamental questions about the appropriateness of the curriculum and expectations of learning gains within such short sentences.

294. It is clear that the length of sentence ought not to be a barrier to learning[193]. This should also apply to remand prisoners and community sentenced prisoners who often do not have access to prison education. Prisoners should be able to begin courses that they will be able to continue and complete after release.

295. In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee, Paul Goggins MP described the problem of the high number of short-term prisoners in the system 'with whom we can do very little'. He said that 'it is not really surprising that many of them come out and re-offend.' He said that what was needed was robust alternatives to prison for short-term prisoners so that they are dealt with more effectively in the community, and so that longer-term prisoners can be dealt with more effectively in prisons.

296. There is a widely held misconception that there is a very close connection between the crime rate and the proportion of a country's population in prison. It has been clear for some time from research findings that this is not the case[194], and international comparisons demonstrate the validity of such research[195]. What determines the proportion of the population in prison is much more closely connected to the sentencing policy. The increase in the prison population from 43,000 to 75,000 in just 12 years does not reflect an equivalent increase in crime rate, but instead is largely a result of sentencing policy. We now have a much greater number of prisoners serving very short sentences in our prisons for relatively minor offences. As Paul Goggins MP told this Committee:

    'We have enormous pressure arising from the increasing population. This is largely because of the increased severity of sentencing and so very many of the people going into prison are going for fairly short periods of time. Prison should be reserved for the serious and dangerous offender.'[196]

297. Martin Narey concurred with this view that it has been changes to sentencing policy for minor offences that has significantly increased the number of short term prisoners and has resulted in overcrowding:

    'There has been the most astonishing change in sentencing policy in the last ten years. First-time offenders did not used to go to prison when they committed minor offences. ... custody has been (in the last ten years) almost the first choice for many sentencers and we need to turn that around in order that we can use prison for what it is best for, which is for dangerous people who are going to be there for long periods.'[197]

298. There was widespread agreement with Paul Goggin's and Martin Narey's views amongst our witnesses that sentencing policy should be changed because prisons should be a place of last resort only. Professor David Wilson argued that:

    'Prison actually has been expanded, and works worst when it is expanded, it works best when it has been reduced and then works best after it has been reduced with positive things filling it, of which prison education is clearly one of the things I believe in passionately.'[198]

299. Progress is being made towards changing sentencing policy, but it is slow. Professor Rod Morgan from the Youth Justice Board told us:

    'we are constantly talking to the courts, to sentencers, about the possibly counterproductive and unproductive use of short sentences and we have devoted a good deal of our effort to developing more intensive community-based sentences in an effort to persuade them not to use short detention training orders which can be for as short as four months. If they go for four months, they are going to be in an institution for two months and we agree with everything you say, that when they are first received, that may not be the trauma of being received if it is their first time, and the idea that you somehow within the first few days do a full educational assessment and start grappling with the issues and start a programme is not feasible, so what a lot of our staff say in the institutions is that we should discourage the use of very short sentences and we are doing our best.'[199]

300. It is clear that reforms to prison education cannot take place in isolation from wider reforms including addressing the existing sentencing policy in relation to short-term prisoners. The Government needs to ask the fundamental question of why the courts are sending these people to prison for such a short period and what is being achieved by doing so.

PHYSICAL SPACE

301. Physical space is a significant practical barrier to effective education in prisons. Only a small proportion of prisoners can be learning at any one time because of the physical restrictions of classroom and workshop space. A lack of space for quiet study for prisoners on distance learning and other courses is also a practical barrier to learning. In-cell study is often not easy. Prison wings can also be noisy places. Professor David Wilson told us:

302. Information provided to the Committee by the Forum on Prisoner Education (FPE) showed that out of the 139 prisons that returned information to the FPE, 68 prisons had 'study space' available for prisoners (just under 50%)[201].

303. There has been some investment in physical space for education in prisons but, based on a bidding process for individual projects, facilities vary a great deal across the prison estate. Capital funding is currently under a separate budget to the rest of education provision. We believe there should be a capital element to prison education funding, and that a significant investment needs to be made to improve facilities across the prison estate.

CONFLICT WITH OTHER REGIME AREAS

304. The wider prison regime can sometimes work against effective education. In many prisons, for example, two sessions run each day, —one all morning, and one all afternoon. Progress needs to be made in breaking up these sessions to avoid boredom. Research by NATFHE and the Association of Colleges found that 45% of governors and 43% of education managers said that 'conflict with other regime areas hindered education in their establishment.' [202]

305. It is not surprising that education is hindered by other demands within the prison regime because it holds a very low position of priority. Professor David Wilson said:

    'Promoting education firstly, you are quite right to have picked up that prisons operate both as formal hierarchies and informal hierarchies and there are certain people in jails who will be seen by different groups as being more important than others, and I think you are quite right to say the prison education comes well down the bottom of that list.'[203]

306. The profile of prison education needs to be raised. This goes back to a previous recommendation that a high level commitment needs to be given to drive forward the purpose and importance of prison education.

Prison Staff

307. Prison staff—from governors through to officers and operational support grade staff—have a pivotal role in supporting educational activities. We learnt from the evidence we received that prison staff play a key role in education—in terms of escort duties, information, advice, and guidance given to offenders, encouraging disaffected learners, encouraging individual schemes such as Toe by Toe, and working directly as trainers in some workshops.

308. Although several of the submissions acknowledged the commitment and dedication of many prison staff, it has been suggested that some are not always as supportive of prisoners' education as they might be. The Forum on Prisoner Education "acknowledges that attitudes toward prisoner education have improved over recent years, [but] we are still aware of some staff who are unsupportive and sometimes even downright dismissive of prisoner education."[204] A Joint NATFHE/ AOC survey found that 34% of governors and education managers reported a lack of commitment to prison education among uniformed staff .[205]

309. Brian Caton, General Secretary of the Prison Officer's Association outlined the importance of discipline and order to Prison Officers:

'that is a fact. What we have got to have in the Prison Service is order and discipline because if you lose order and discipline you can have as many good educational courses as you like you are not going to get them to do it.'[206]

310. This attitude is rational and appropriate. We must keep in mind the fact that a prison is a prison and not a secure learning centre. Nevertheless, an investment in staff education and development would pay dividends to a prison service with chronic staffing problems, particularly in terms of developing a more positive attitude towards the role that education has to play in prisons.

311. The Forum on Prisoner Education argued that prison should offer educational opportunities for all who spend time there, including prison staff, officers, civilian staff and Governors. This, they suggested, would help instil a 'learning ethic', benefiting both staff and prisoners.[207] Evidence given by Brian Caton, demonstrates how far we are from having a 'learning ethic' amongst prison officers:

    'You cannot do that by sitting and talking nicely to them in the first instance. They have got to understand they are in a disciplined environment. If they do not understand that you may as well pack in and go home.'[208]

312. This Committee believes that the Prison Service has not done enough to bring prison officers on board with prison education programmes. Professor Andrew Coyle told us:

    '(we) need to bring prison officers on board in all of these initiatives and I think the Prison Service could have done more in recent years to bring the prison officers themselves into these initiatives.'[209]

313. Tom Robson, of the Prison Officers' Association described to us the positive role that prison officers can play in encouraging prisoners to be motivated to learn:

    'I understand that and we do not want to be rivals with education, we need to integrate together. I think that we need to pitch our time, as prison officers, to try to help those who are less able to push themselves forward, people who have lacked confidence, who are ashamed of the fact that they cannot read and write, and they are the people that my members generally are needed to be involved with.'[210]

HIGH TURNOVER OF STAFF

314. The Prison Reform Trust note in their memorandum the implications of staffing shortages for prisoners' opportunities to participate in education. Retention figures for new prison officer recruits are low, with 60% of those who signed up between 2000 and 2003 leaving the service within two years. Turnover at Governor level is also significant, with the average tenure for Prison Governors standing at one year and nine months.

315. The Prison Reform Trust described the consequences as follows: "Staffing shortages mean that prisoners do not get unlocked and taken to education or training programmes simply because there are not enough staff on the wing to escort them to another part of the prison. PRT has received anecdotal evidence from across the estate that this is happening in prisons on a regular basis" [211]

316. Similarly, the All-Party Parliamentary Group, in their interviews with prisoners and prison staff, were told that there were "problems getting unlocked, and getting prisoner-learners escorted to classrooms. 'on a list of eleven who'll say they want to come, we get two, for whatever reason'" [212]

ESCORT DUTIES—A KEY PERFORMANCE TARGET

317. The NATFHE/AoC research and the Prison Reform Trust research on prisoners' perceptions demonstrate clearly the crucial role that prison staff, especially prison officers, have in relation to prison education. One of the key tasks is escorting prisoners from the wing to prison education, and then being on duty in prison education centres for security purposes. The NATFHE/AoC survey found that 51% of prison education managers reported regular difficulties getting students to classes. NATFHE acknowledges that these problems stem from circumstances that are not always in the control of Prison Services or prison governors. However we do suggest that some of the problems might be overcome and there might be a greater willingness for prison officers to undertake these duties if prison education had an allocation of resources for the undertaking of escort and security duties. At the very least escort duties, the percentage of prisoners attending learning programmes and the reasons why they do not, should be part of any new specification for prison education and be part of key performance indicators for prisons.

PRISON OFFICERS ARE WORKING UNDER CONSIDERABLE PRESSURES

318. The Prison Officers are under a great deal of pressure from over-crowding, churn, and short-staffing. There is a question of how much can be asked from prison officers in this position. Their priorities are driven by the pressures the system puts on them. Professor Andrew Coyle stated:

319. The culture of prison officers is, largely speaking, to see education as outsiders coming in to do the easy work. Brian Caton explained why he thought it was difficult for prison officers to respect professional teachers coming into the prison. He said:

    'Prison officers in the main come to work to look after prisoners, to make sure prisoners are looked after, to make sure the security of the establishment happens, and it is very difficult for a prison officer whose feet are firmly planted on the ground to deal with this floating academia that drifts in and drifts out.'[214]

320. There is definitely no commitment to a reform in education provision from prison officers at present, except in some individual cases. In Professor Andrew Coyle's words:

    'There is another element which has been there for many years, which is that prison officers see themselves as having to do the hard, difficult part and other people come in and do the nice part. I think, in fairness again, the Prison Service has been working hard to bring the disciplines and the skills together, but that is made more difficult when the people who are delivering this are actually not part of the system, they are coming from elsewhere. The prison officers know what their priorities are. They know what is going to lead to a black mark on their record and it is not primarily about education.'[215]

TRAINING OF PRISON OFFICERS

321. We know from evidence given to this Committee that the initial training period given to a Prison Officer has been reduced from 11 weeks to 8 weeks. Paul Goggins MP told us that:

322. Evidence taken from the Prison Officers' Association confirmed that further mandatory training has been abolished and that training to encourage and motivate prisoners to learn has never been a part of their training:

    'The initial training (for a prison officer) is 7 weeks. There is no minimum qualification to become a prison officer. The mandatory training which took place for prison officers throughout their career has now been abolished and it is down to each individual governor.. how they utilise their budget. There has never been an element of prison officers' training that would give the skill to impart skill to others.'[217]

323. Brian Caton agreed that the seven week initial training period for prison officers is inadequate. He said:

'I do not believe that seven weeks is adequate for the training of a prison officer. I do not believe that 12 or 16 is; I really do not. I would like to see the training more challenging. I would like to see the training longer.'[218]

324. The importance of appropriate training for prison officers to bring the UK in line with international standards, was highlighted by Professor Andrew Coyle:

    'The key people in prisons remain uniformed prison officers. They are the key to a successfully managed prison and I think, again using my international experience, we have one of the shortest and most basic forms of training for prison staff of any country, certainly in Western Europe. The initial training of prison staff was recently within the last year or so reduced from something like eleven weeks down to eight or nine weeks now. So we take someone in off the street, we give them eight or nine weeks' basic training and then we ask them to go to deal with young offenders, to deal with high security prisoners or to deal with women, or to deal with long-term prisoners. Now, that passes a message about what our priorities are and what we expect of our staff. The staff, I think, in reality deliver much more than we are entitled to expect and one could contrast that with a number of other countries in Western Europe where the training of prison officers equates to the training of a nurse or a teacher, a two or three year course, because if that is really what we want the staff to deliver then we have to give them proper training. So while the Prison Service has, I think, made significant improvements in the processes, there are these basic underlying needs which do not contribute to what you call a learning environment. Most prisons are not learning environments.'[219]

325. Professor David Wilson added:

    'It therefore concentrated on security, security, security, and in the same way that Andrew (Coyle) has been reflecting that it has been reduced, that is in a sense to reflect the external pressures that have been placed on the Prison Service at a time of expansion where prison officer numbers are needed.'[220]

326. When asked if there should be a minimum entry requirement for prison officers, Brian Caton said:

    'Test them and give them a qualification that is unique to that particular role. Being a prison officer is a unique job. Is not something that is easily learnt and I do not think it necessarily follows that if you can get through a Masters degree or get an honorary doctorate in the study of mental health and crime like me that you necessarily would make a good prison officer.'[221]

327. If the Government is to recognise the important role played by prison officers in relation to prison education, then it must invest in prison officers appropriately, to enable them to undertake the sort of behaviours and activities we have recommended. As Professor Augustin John said:

    'it seems to me that the conditions have got to be created wherein prison staff could have an investment made in them so that they could acquire the capacity to assist offenders and aid the rehabilitation process ... so that, while they may not have expertise in particular areas of education provision or delivery, they should have some general competences in terms of facilitating people's development.'[222]

328. Paul Goggins MP agreed that if the Government wants to get the most out of Prison Officers, they will have to properly invest in their training. He told this Committee that Prison Officers should have an entitlement to receive appropriate training:

    'I think that staff do have an entitlement to expect to receive appropriate training. In the end, what are they being trained for? They are being trained to work with and motivate the prisoners who are in their custody and care. What we are trying to do in prisons is to change lives and that requires tremendous skill on the part of an officer who has to be responsible for security and safety but also has to be able to motivate and help people change their behaviour and attitude. That is a highly skilled job.'[223]

329. The initial training period of 8 weeks for prison officers is totally inadequate. The Government must encourage the development of prison officers if prison staff are to be expected to encourage the development of prisoners. The initial training period must be significantly increased to a level that reflects an appropriate investment to enable prison officers to play a key role in the education and training of prisoners. Furthermore, prison officers should have an equivalent entitlement to training and development once they are in post.

SUCH CHANGES ARE OUTSIDE THE REMIT OF THE DFES

330. Professor Andrew Coyle told the Committee that it is the very nature of prisons that result in these barriers to prison education:

331. Paul Goggins MP told us that the scale of reform that would be required to remove such barriers is being considered at present:

    'The second comment is simply to emphasise that this discussion, this inquiry and the work that we are doing to develop further education and skills training in prison is happening within the biggest reform of prisons and probation that has been undertaken for decades as we develop the National Offender Management Service'[225]

332. The barriers to prison education that exist within the regime itself, including overcrowding, churn, staffing shortages, and staff attitudes to education, cannot be overcome by the DfES alone. These are complex and long-established barriers that need tackling from within the prison service itself if the provision of prison education and training is to be significantly improved. The Government should be aiming to develop a culture within prisons in which education and skills are a priority. The Home Office must take the lead in the large scale reform that is necessary to remove these barriers, and we encourage them to be bold in the reform of prisons and probation that is reportedly taking place at present.





189   Q 35 Back

190   Home Affairs Committee, First report of session 2004-05, Rehabilitation of Prisoners, HC 193-I. Back

191   Ev 178 Back

192   Q 479 Back

193   Ev 4 Back

194   The Carter Report on Correctional Services and its response, Reducing Crime; Changing Lives Home Office, January 2004 Back

195   For example, we know that the significant decrease in the rate of imprisonment in Finland since the 1950s was the result of deliberate, long-term, and systematic policy choices.Lappi-Seppälä Tapio 2001, "Sentencing and Punishment in Finland: The Decline of the Repressive Ideal." In Punishment and Penal Systems in Western Countries, edited by M. Tonry and R. Frase. New York: Oxford University Press. New York. Törnudd Patrik, 1993, Fifteen Years of Decreasing Prisoner Rates in Finland. National Research Institute of Legal Policy. Research Communication 8/1993 Back

196   Q 760 Back

197   Q 6940 Back

198   Q 45 Back

199   Q 106 Back

200   Q 40 Back

201   Information was sent to the Forum on Prisoner Education in preparation for the Directory of Offender Education.The FPE collated this information for this Committee. Back

202   Ev 79 Back

203   Q 7 Back

204   Ev 3 Back

205   Ev 4 Back

206   Q 1042 Back

207   Ev 4 Back

208   Q 1042 Back

209   Q 63 Back

210   Q 378 Back

211   Ev 94 Back

212   All-Party Parliamentary Group for FE and Lifelong Learning, Prison Education in 2004 and Beyond Back

213   Q 41 Back

214   Q 1054 Back

215   Q 41 Back

216   Q 770 Back

217   Q 329 Back

218   Q 1032 Back

219   Q 65 Back

220   Q 70 Back

221   Q 1047 Back

222   Q 405 Back

223   Q 773 Back

224   Q 41 Back

225   Q 757 Back


 
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