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Decreases to learning initiatives within correctional institutions are impeding inmates' employment and training options, in the long run creating danger to community safety, according to a new report from a correctional oversight agency.

Cycle of Repeat Crimes Linked to Lack of Education

Repeat criminals often create disorder in their neighborhoods due to the inability of prisons to provide sufficient education and employment programs that could help break the cycle of reoffending, the findings noted.

I hold serious worries about the impact of real-terms education budget reductions on currently insufficient services and about the absence of genuine appetite and ambition for progress that this represents.”

Funding Cuts Endanger Rehabilitation Initiatives

In spite of commitments to enhance availability to learning, spending on direct educational services in prisons is being cut by up to 50%, according to recent reports.

While the overall education budget has remained unchanged, the expense of course contracts has soared, as claimed by correctional administrators.

• Only 31% of ex- prisoners are employed half a year after leaving prison
• 94 of one hundred four inspected prisons were rated “inadequate” or “not sufficiently good” for meaningful activity
• Average attendance in training programs was just 67% in reviewed institutions

Inadequate Situations Impede Reform

Overcrowding, a lack of training space, equipment breakdowns, and aging facilities have compounded the problem, according to the report.

Many prisoners remain for weeks to be assigned an training space and are often given whatever is available, instead of training relevant to their employment prospects upon leaving.

Although activities went ahead, full-day jobs generally engaged prisoners for just five hours per day, with many positions split into part-time places to extend meagre provision further.

Official Response and Upcoming Initiatives

The prison service has a responsibility to protect the community by making inmates less inclined to commit crimes again when they are released, but too often it is failing to meet this responsibility.

The best administrators understand that jails, and in the end our society, are more secure if inmates are purposefully occupied, and that training, skill development and employment play a vital role in encouraging inmates to change their behavior.

It is understood that meaningful activity can help to facilitate safe and decent prisons and have a positive effect on recidivism levels.”

Until leaders in the prison system take the delivery of high-quality training and training more seriously, it is difficult to see how extremely high recidivism levels can be lowered.

Funding cuts are also expected to hinder initiatives to implement a new incentive-based prison system that would enable inmates to earn time off their sentence by completing employment, skill development and learning courses.