Charles Hanson - Education and Training in Prison

 

The Prison Service claims to commit itself to a Training and Education Policy that will assist an offender to lead a 'good and useful life' on release and in doing so enhance that offender's prospects and a reduction in his or her re-offending but what of the reality?

Little training exists within the prison system that would meet those objectives, for most inmates they will continue to have little or no stake in the community, unemployment and the lack of any skills and without qualifications will assign the majority of inmates to life's scrapheap, the unwanted, the worthless and useless who have little or nothing to offer the community and it is the participation of a cause greater than oneself that I would argue is the most fundamental ingredient of belonging to it.

Prison's do not exist as colleges for the unskilled or as learning centres for those with learning difficulties, they presume to meet the needs of those who fall within those two groups but their function has always been to 'Keep in Safe Custody those Committed by the Courts' whatever else they may do, the chances of that offender remaining out of prison is significantly reduced from the moment he or she enters prison.

Whilst there is a limited programme in vocational training, the courses on offer vary from prison to prison and it may be that a particular inmate's choice is closed to him because the operating establishment is of a different security category to that of the applicant or it may be that the prison where a specific course is held will only select inmates from within that prison.

The majority of prisoners will serve his or her sentence reduced to mundane and tedious work that offers but mere pocket money; for example packing steel washers in plastic bags, folding paper, or re-fitting ear plugs to headphones for use by airline passengers.

Cleaning jobs are often much sought after, after all they require little or no supervision and enables the inmate to have the freedom to roam within a particular area of the prison, the earnings for this type of work is also of the same level for many of the jobs available in prison workshops, moreover whilst everyone else is locked away a cleaner will invariably be left unlocked.

Prison managers make much of the term 'purposeful activity' but within most establishments there is little of that available. Being allowed out of cell is almost per se considered 'purposeful activity', well please forgive me but I am one of a majority of prisoners who can find useful activity within my cell, for little exists outside of it that commends itself to 'purposeful activity'.

Standing around a pool table taking serious issue with who is to play the next game is hardly stimulating activity and for most prisons that is the extent of any associated activity.

Education is not a serious option unless one is unemployed and in need of the funds paid to students for attending which is always below the level of that paid to those who actually do have a job. Those seeking education because of an actual desire to improve themselves are in the minority, many prisons offer but the mere basics and for the more ambitious there will be an uphill struggle to obtain funding for distance learning courses that prisons themselves don't or cannot offer.

My own experiences suggest that education in prisons is now far more limited than it was 30 years ago when the Prison Service directly contracted tutors in such subjects as foreign languages, photography, debating societies, history, geography, first aid, tailoring, technical drawing and bakery which was taken by a trained prison catering officer, my present prison Kingston comes nowhere near providing such an adequate programme and must fare as the worst example of education delivery that I have experienced.

 

Nowadays what we have on offer are very limited computer skills classes but for the most part the emphasis is on basic literacy skills which is I suggest of limited interest and value, it is hardly inspiring to those who would still lack the other skills needed to survive and maintain themselves or their family, indeed I personally know of people who cannot read or write and for sure there are many in the traveling community who are financially and comfortably off, having material comforts and security but who have vocational skills that enable them to earn a living and who are mostly self-employed in what they do.

What is achieved by teaching basic literacy skills to those thought to be in need of them when all that we are turning out are burglars who can read and write, packing metal washers in plastic bags or cleaning out prison toilets? All these alone, do not in any sense fit an offender to a productive life outside of prison where crime may continue to be seen as a more attractive proposition.

Many prisons have now introduced into their educational curriculum such dubious and often nonsensical classes as 'assertiveness training' 'personal development', 'living skills' and a Host of other ‘science fiction’ educational programmes which are so value laden and designed to get us all thinking the same way thereby depriving us of any sense of individuality and independence that it surprises me that anyone enrolls for such tripe.

Be as it may, inmates do and I suspect not always for the right reasons, when one is confined to a locked cell there is some advantage in being out for whatever reason and because these classes look impressive with all their 'pie in the sky' solutions it's easy to surmise that when people are caged and vulnerable easy solutions always seem attractive to life's problems,

Moreover they can become a vehicle to impress Parole Boards and prison managers who really have as little a clue as to the vocational and educational needs of prisoners anymore than a trained monkey might.

For prisoners there are few benefits and little mileage in prison educational programmes, what it does provide is a well paid job for those in charge and a 'gravy train' for those often untrained wannabies whose qualifications would hardly impress the local job centre but who do have good ideas and dare I say it the sickness called political correctness.

Little progress has been made since the late 19th century when Sir Edmund Du-Cane the first Prison's Commissioner stated: -

"Experience has shown that literacy education has not the reformatory influence which was once expected/rom it and that moral and industrial instruction are the most potent of the educational influences which can be employed with that object.'"

We could learn something from that unless in the long term we should continue to build more prisons where prisoners can pack items into plastic bags, clean out toilets and learn the art of speaking up for oneself.

As a lifer with years in front of me still to serve as are many others lifers a new course has been introduced on self-employment, writing CV's and that which would help us in the job market which raises some interesting points, what skills do most lifers have, and is it not a little premature before those skills are acquired if ever they will be.

I can only speculate that such courses are cheap to run, require no great skills to teach and fills in those empty spaces in the prison's educational timetable, and for inmates the award of an impressive looking certificate which has as much value as the paper it's written on.

Well thought out vocational and educational programmes are a must if there is to he any valid claim to effective training otherwise the concept is totally meaningless.

[Written whilst Charles was in HMP Kingston in 2001, but unfortunately still very relevant today.]