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Educational activities inside prisons

Prison education is any educational activity that occurs inside prison. Courses can include basic literacy programmes, secondary school equivalency programmes, vocational education, and tertiary education. Other activities such as rehabilitation programs, physical education, and arts and crafts programmes may also be considered a form of prison education. Programmes are typically provided, managed, and funded by the prison system, though inmates may be required to pay for distance education programmes. The history of and current practices in prison education vary greatly among countries. Those entering prison systems worldwide have, on average, lower levels of education than the general population. Prison education often aims to make the inmate more employable after release. Administrating and attending educational programmes in prisons can be difficult. Staff and budget shortages, a lack of educational resources and computers, and the transfer of prisoners between facilities are common barriers. Prisoners may be reluctant to participate, often due to past educational failures or a lack of motivation. Studies consistently show that education in prison is an effective way of reducing the rates of recidivism, which saves the expense of future prison sentences. In the United Kingdom, it is estimated that every pound spent on prison education saves taxpayers more than two pounds, and in the United States, the rate is four to five dollars saved for every dollar spent. Despite the benefits of prison education programmes, rates of education within prisons remain low in many countries, and attempts to increase funding for prison education have been opposed. Opponents argue that prison education is a waste of money and that prisoners are not deserving of the benefit.

The history and availability of prison education in Europe varies greatly between countries. Nordic countries have a long history of providing education to prisoners, and Sweden in particular is considered to be a pioneer in the field. Prison education became mandatory for inmates under 35 in 1842, and vocational education can be traced back to at least 1874, when the Uppsala County prison hired a carpenter to teach inmates woodworking. In Denmark, juvenile offenders have had access to education since the 1850s, and educational programmes became mandatory for them in 1930. Adult prisons have had educational programmes since 1866, and legislation requiring all inmates under the age of 30 to participate in educational courses was implemented in 1952. Norway opened its first prison to focus on education as a form of rehabilitation in 1851. By 1875, all eight prisons in the country were providing education to inmates, and by the end of the century, legislation was in effect ensuring that any prisoner who had not completed primary and lower secondary schooling should do so while in prison. As of 2007, every prison in Norway has a school for inmates. In Finland, legislation was adopted in 1866 which ensured that all prisoners would receive primary education, though the implementation of the order faced practical difficulties. A more successful education reform was implemented in 1899, which remained unchanged until 1975. However Iceland, which as of 2011 averaged only 137 prisoners in the country, only began implementing education programmes in 1971. Between 1939 and 1975, while under the rule of Francisco Franco, prisons in Spain were infamous for their harsh conditions and levels of repression. Attitudes later softened, with the 1978 Constitution declaring that prisons should be oriented at re education rather than forced labor. While university access existed, a 1992 Human Rights Watch report found that most prisons only offered basic education and some vocational training, and female inmates had less access to education than males. As of 2018, the National University of Distance Education is the only institution allowed to provide university education to inmates. The first significant development of prison education in England was Robert Peel's Gaols Act 1823 (4 Geo. 4. c. 64), which called for reading and writing classes in all prisons. While prison staff in the 1850s recognised the importance of basic literacy, they opposed giving prisoners any form of higher education on the grounds that education itself would not provide any "moral elevation". The Prison Act 1877 (40 & 41 Vict. c. 21) is considered to have established the prison system that remained in effect until the 1990s, which only offered education of a "narrow and selective kind". In 1918, it was recommended that children in Russian prisons should receive education alongside punishment. However, few educational programmes were implemented, because of the competing agendas of various jurisdictions and agencies. In the 1920s, efforts were made within the Gulag prison camps to eradicate illiteracy. Almost all the camps had classes on "political education", and some also had classes such as natural science, history of culture and foreign languages.

In the United States, prisoners were given religious instruction by chaplains in the early 19th century, and secular prison education programmes were first developed in order to help inmates to read Bibles and other religious texts. The first major education programme aimed at rehabilitating prisoners was launched in 1876. By 1900, the states of Massachusetts, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Illinois and Minnesota had adopted the "Elmira system" of education, and by the 1930s, educational programmes could be found in most prisons. However, in 1994 Congress passed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, which denied Pell Grants to anyone who is incarcerated. The Pell ban was repealed in December 2020, reinstating eligibility for federal financial aid to thousands of incarcerated people in the US. The development of prison education within Canada has paralleled that of the US. Royal Commissions in 1914 and 1936 both recommended that work programmes be replaced, at least to some extent, by rehabilitative programmes including education. According to one 1988 report by the Institute for Policy Studies, prisoners were provided with education up to a ninth grade level, inmates were provided with training in technical skills and as much as 85% of the population worked. Political reeducation also played a major role in Cuban penology.

Education opportunities in prison are considered to be generally poorer in South America in comparison to Europe and North America. Prison education programmes began in Argentina in the 1950s. Although details about programmes and their effectiveness is limited, the lack of available data is attributed to corruption within the prison system, alongside poor living conditions and high levels of violence. A law was enacted in 1996 ensuring all prisoners with less than the compulsory nine years of basic schooling be able to participate in educational programmes. Due to administrative constraints, on average only about 25% of eligible prisoners participated in these programmes as of 2010. As of 2009, Brazil was considered to have one of the most progressive policies on prison education in South America.

The first formal education programme to be implemented in the Australian state of New South Wales was at Darlinghurst Gaol in 1862, when a schoolmaster was hired to provide elementary and moral education to any prisoner who wished to attend. Prior to this one of the prisoners had been providing educational lessons to other inmates. By the early 1900s, basic literacy programmes were commonplace throughout Australian prisons. The Senate Employment, Education and Training References Committee produced the Senate Report of the Inquiry into Education and Training in Correctional Facilities in 1996. It made several recommendations on how to improve prison education, including the development of a national strategy. In 2001, a national strategy was launched, and by 2006, all states and territories were offering some form of tertiary education to inmates. According to the New Zealand Annual Review of Education, the availability and quality of prison education in the country decreased significantly between 1959 and 2005, as government policy shifted from prisons focusing on rehabilitation to prisons focusing on punishment. A 2005 Ombudsman's report stated there were "low levels of rehabilitative and productive activities" for prisoners in New Zealand.

Prison education in Japan can be traced back to at least 1871, when practical ethics lectures were introduced into a prison in Tokyo. Reading and writing classes began being implemented into the prison system on a larger scale by 1881. By the late 1880s, it was believed that ethics classes were the most important form of education for prisoners, and by the 1890s, education was considered one of the most important issues of the prison system. In 1910, prison law in Japan ordered education be given to all juvenile inmates, and to any adult inmate deemed to have a need. Regulations stipulated two to four hours per day be set aside for education. In 1952, correspondence courses were introduced into all prisons, and in 1955, a high school was established at Matsumoto juvenile prison for juvenile inmates who had not completed their compulsory education. As of 2018, it is still the country's only high school in prison, and male prisoners nationwide can be transferred there on request. Changes were made to the prison system in China in the 1920s, following the establishment of the Republic of China. Resulting from criticism of the lack of education for inmates at the time, there was a shift in the prison system away from religious and moral teaching to intellectual education and hard labour as the primary means of rehabilitation. Authorities took considerable effort to develop an effective and diverse educational curriculum. As well as teaching literacy and arithmetic, classes also included music and composition, popular ethics, Confucianism and patriotic and political doctrine; the teaching of party doctrine increased significantly in the 1930s. In 1981, the People's Republic of China incorporated prison education into its national education programme, significantly increasing access for inmates. In India, reports showing the need for prison education were being made as early as the 19th century, however, the country's prisons focused mostly on punitive measures. In 1983, while general and vocational programmes were in place, they were considered to be understaffed and underfunded, and the types of vocational training offered were outdated. Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) is considered to play a major role in prison education in India, becoming the country's first university to operate a study centre in prison at Tihar Jail in 1994. By 2010, IGNOU had 52 prison study centres with approximately 1,500 students; several other universities were also running educational programmes in India's prisons. Enrollments remained relatively low, however, as only fee paying students were permitted to undertake courses. In 2010, IGNOU collaborated with the Ministry of Home Affairs to begin offering free education to inmates.

Prison education is generally less well established throughout Africa in comparison to the Western world. The first prison in Nigeria was established in 1872; however, as of 2010, no formal education programme had ever been implemented by the Nigerian government; Following the death of de facto Nigerian President Sani Abacha in 1998, many political prisoners were released, bringing considerable media attention to the "grim conditions" they faced; prison in Nigeria was seen as purely punitive, with little to no resources given for infrastructure and rehabilitation programmes, like education. The provision of education was varied from prison to prison, though typically offered nothing better than informal apprenticeships in trades necessary to keep prisons operational. However, by 2016, the National Open University of Nigeria had established training centers at six Nigerian prisons, and offers inmates a 50% discount on all tuition fees. In 1961, South Africa began holding criminal and political prisoners in a jail on Robben Island. Inmates were encouraged to study when the prison opened, and education programmes to ensure all inmates were literate when initiated. Only inmates whose families could afford to pay for tuition fees were permitted to participate, and access to education improved and then regressed with the prison's ever changing policy; by the end of the 1960s, programmes were restricted on the concern they were improving the inmates' morale too much. Historians also speculate the prison system was concerned that inmates were becoming better educated than the guards. Inmates were able to undertake correspondence courses through the University of London International Programmes; Nelson Mandela completed a Bachelor of Laws while in custody, though his educational privileges were revoked for four years after staff discovered he was writing an autobiography, something which was forbidden at the time. Efforts by inmates to educate themselves politically were significantly hampered by the prison's policy to forbid inmates access to newspapers, radios and television. These restrictions were lifted in the late 1970s; Jeff Radebe headed a political education programme at the prison in the 1980s. As of 1993, education was a privilege rather than one of the inmates' rights. Basic literacy courses were provided by paid inmates, rather than qualified teachers, and higher levels of education were only available to inmates who could afford correspondence courses. With funding from the United Nations Development Programme, a basic literacy programme for inmates was launched in Ghana in 2003, and by 2008, all prisons were offering education to inmates, though the programme's effectiveness is severely affected by a lack of resources. For many years, the only prison education offered in Morocco was farming skills at the country's agricultural prisons, though a 2014 report found that educational opportunities had been increasing and that literacy, vocational and other educational programmes were being offered. Likewise, some countries consider rehabilitation programmes or physical education to be educational programmes, whereas others do not. Educational programmes within prisons are typically funded by the prisons themselves, and may be run by the individual prisons or contracted out to external providers. Primary, secondary and vocational education is typically free, though some countries require inmates or their families to pay for correspondence courses. Out of 28 surveyed European countries in 2012, 15 reported offering free distance education to inmates, and 13 reported that inmates would have to pay all associated costs. In some cases, only certain courses were free; in Denmark, correspondence courses at primary and lower secondary level are free, though a percentage of courses undertaken at a higher level must be paid for by the inmate. and accordingly, some do not offer any higher levels of education. Inmates in the UK are able to access the government student loans for university that are available to the general public, Charity groups, like the Prisoners' Education Trust in the UK, can accept applications for grants from prisoners who cannot afford to finance their distance education. In both Australia and the UK, prisoners on remand or in hospital are not eligible to undertake educational study, nor are prisoners on remand in Poland. Norway and Finland, however, do not house those on remand separately, and they are entitled to the same educational opportunities as regular prisoners. In Denmark and Sweden inmates on remand are entitled to some education programmes, though less than those available to other prisoners.

Many mainstream pedagogical practices carry directly over to prison education, and commonsense pedagogical considerations are often found to be the most effective, though prison restrictions can act as a detriment to their implementation. Prison education programmes have been considered to be a "delicate balancing act" between enough cooperation with the criminal justice system and genuine efforts to offer meaningful learning experiences. For example, while teachers may wish to provide ongoing support, prisons may forbid inmates from contacting them outside of their class times for ongoing feedback and help with studies. In some prisons, teachers may be required to not address inmates by their names and instead call them "offenders", which causes a barrier to developing trust between teachers and students, often considered an important factor for successful education. Many other barriers exist to both running and participating in educational programmes in prisons. Teachers may be faced with the challenge of instructing a class that has a large variance in age, educational levels, or employment history. Similar challenges exist in juvenile prisons, due to the varying academic and emotional needs of children. Prisons consider security concerns more important than educational goals, which restricts how some vocational trades are delivered because of concerns about prisoners manufacturing weapons. Standard security measures, such as headcounts and searches, cause frequent disruptions. Some prisons have introduced tablet computers with offline educational content to compensate for this. Shortages of available space in existing educational programmes can lead to significant waiting lists for enrollment. In some cases inmates may not be able to access education because the wait times are longer than their sentences. quotebox|align=left|width=30%|Sometimes study is just another added pressure. You're tearing your hair out because four hours a week is not enough time in the education room to keep up with all the assignments. I have to study on the floor too because there's no single cells. I'm thinking of just giving up. It's another stress you don't want to put on yourself in here.|source=—An Australian prisoner commenting on the difficulties of studying in custody a lack of educational resources in prison libraries, not having a dedicated room to hold classes in, not having a suitable place to study (shared cells often do not have desks) and not having a suitable place for group work activities after classroom hours. Prison education programmes may also face a lack of support or outright opposition from prison personnel where they operate. For example, some prison staff may resent the inmates' educational opportunities, because they are poorly educated themselves, or because they had to pay for their education while inmates are receiving theirs for free. Prisoners who have to pay for tuition, however, may be reluctant to enroll as they will not receive refunds if they cannot complete studies due to lockdowns or other circumstances beyond their control. They are also often reluctant to take out student loans for fear of leaving prison with debt. Prisoners may also be hesitant as education can be used as a way of further punishing or controlling them, as studying is a privilege officers can threaten to take away for trivial reasons. Other reasons for reluctance to participate in programmes from inmates include previous failures in education and lack of motivation. Juvenile prisoners may face difficulties transferring back to regular schooling after their release, due to problems recognising course credit for studies undertaken in prison. Lecturers working in prison report prisoners are more likely to have prepared for classes and read course notes than students in the general population. The COVID 19 pandemic exacerbated many of the existing challenges to education in prison, such as increased lockdowns and transfer of prisoners between facilities. Teachers and staff were often not allowed to enter prisons due to restrictions, resulting in educational programmes being suspended. In other cases, external institutions that provided education to prisons themselves closed down during the pandemic. Posted materials being quarantined also impacted programmes that continued to run, resulting in instructors often receiving coursework from inmates well after they were due.

Recidivism in many countries is high, with rates over 50% not uncommon. Recidivism rates are difficult to compare between countries, due to differences in laws and also what constitutes recidivism. Some countries consider simply being re arrested as recidivism, whereas others count re conviction or re imprisonment. There is also little consistency in the periods of time measured,

People in prison systems worldwide are consistently less educated than the general population, and ex prisoners are also less likely to obtain employment after release than people of the same age that do not have a criminal record. Prison education programmes are intended to reduce recidivism by increasing an inmate's ability to secure employment. studies have shown that the majority of benefits from high school equivalency programmes in prison come from the experience of learning, rather than from the opportunities that arise after obtaining the qualification. UNESCO has suggested general educational programmes for prisoners as a way of combating extremism. Education has also been advocated for prisoners who are not expected to ever be released, on the grounds that it promotes a better atmosphere in the prison community, and prisoners serving life sentences often act as role models for others.

Observational studies of the effects of education on recidivism have been criticised for self selection bias: it has been argued that recidivism is not due to the educational courses themselves, but only reflects the positive attitudes of people who volunteer for them. Such fully experimental interventions (randomized controlled trials) are rare in criminology; practical difficulties are often cited as a reason for this lack, but the culture of the academic field may be more relevant. A study in North Carolina using data from 1990 1991 found that there was no significant difference in outcomes for prisoners who volunteered for programmes, compared to those who were required to participate in education due to official mandates, supporting a call for mandatory literacy programmes in prison. Some studies on the link between recidivism and education in prison disregard results if an inmate does not complete the educational course; such studies therefore never measure the potential benefits of simply participating in courses. Due to the disparaging factors that prevent inmates from completing education programmes, studies that only record results for graduates are especially vulnerable to selection bias, as they utilise an independent variable that is strongly associated with ability and motivation, though they are not able to adjust for these factors.

In the US, there were few studies on the relationship between educational programmes and recidivism before the 1970s. Other results at the time were not unanimous. A meta analysis in 1975 and another in 1983 found that while education programmes in prison were beneficial for inmates, their effects on recidivism were inconclusive; A 1987 study of Federal Bureau of Prisons inmates found that those who participated in education programmes were 8.6% less likely to return to prison, and a 1997 study of 3,200 inmates in Maryland, Minnesota and Ohio found a reduction rate of 29%. A meta analysis of 15 studies done in the US during the 1990s found that, on average, inmates who attended tertiary level education in prison were 31% less likely to re offend. The RAND Corporation meta analysis found that, on average, there was a reduction rate of 13% for inmates who participated in educational programmes, and a meta analysis of 57 studies in the US between 1980 and 2017 found the average recidivism reduction was 32%. A meta analysis between 1980 and 2023 found an recidivism reduction of 24% overall, and a reduction of 12.4% when sources were limited to those since 2010, which were considered to be of the highest quality. An educational programme created by the Bard Prison Initiative has a recidivism rate of 4% for people who only attended the course and 2.5% for those who completed it. A 2005 report found that in the Australian state of Queensland there was a 24–28% reduction in the rate of recidivism among inmates who completed education courses. A study of 14,643 prisoners in Western Australia between 2005 and 2010 found that those who undertook prison education were 11.25% less likely to be re incarcerated. A prison education programme in Ukraine had only three out of 168 participants (1.8%) re offend in 2013; As of 2012, the re offending rate in the Dominican Republic for persons incarcerated in prisons with mandatory educational programmes is less than 3% after three years, compared to about 50% for those in prisons without such programmes. Studies also show higher level qualifications are associated with lower re offending rates. A 2000 study by the Texas Department of Education found that the overall re offending rate was 40–43%, though the rate for inmates who completed an associate degree or bachelor's degree was 27.2% and 7.8% respectively. In England and Wales, education courses linked with reduced recidivism are priced at about £250 each as of 2014, compared to an average annual cost of £37,648 to incarcerate each inmate. As of 2015, the average cost of incarcerating a prisoner in Australia is $109,821 a year. Studies have found that due to the increased post release employment and decreased recidivism associated with prison education, the financial savings to the community more than offset the cost of the programmes. A 2003 study found that a prison education programme in Maryland reduced recidivism by 20%. Government analysts estimated that the programme was saving taxpayers more than $24 million a year based solely on the costs of re incarceration. while vocational and basic literacy education were both found to have a 98% chance of being cost effective, with net savings of $17,226 and $11,364 per inmate respectively. A meta analysis in the US between 1980 and 2023 found positive economic returns for all education programs, ranging from an additional 61.15% return on top of the initial investment for university education, to 205.12% for vocational classes. The lower return for university studies was due to the high costs of the courses, not the effectiveness of the education. Estimates on the cost effectiveness of prison education are typically conservative, as they are unable to measure the indirect savings as a result of fewer victims, and reduced strain on police, judicial and social service systems. Taxpayers save additional money as former prisoners who gain employment pay taxes, are better able to support their families, and are less reliant on public financial assistance. A 2009 study found that in the UK, every £1 spent on prison education saved taxpayers £2.50. The 2013 RAND Corporation study estimated that every dollar spent on education saves taxpayers $4 to $5, and that to break even on the cost of education programmes, recidivism must be reduced by between 1.9% and 2.6%. According to a 2013 article by Glenn C. Altschuler and David J. Skorton in Forbes, given the relatively low cost of education and long term financial savings "it's hard to fathom why there isn't a national, fully funded prison education program in every [US prison] facility". Funding for tertiary programmes was reduced from $23 million in 2008 to $17 million in 2009. A study in 1994 of 34 countries found that half offered basic literacy programmes to inmates, and one third a form of education higher than that. In 2004, 27% of US inmates participated in an education course, As of 1996, only 6% of prisoners in Venezuela had access to education, and many prisons there did not offer education at all. In 2012–13, 14,353 of Morocco's 70,675 inmates participated in educational programmes, an increase of about 20% on the previous year. As of 2017, 50% of inmates at Naivasha prison in Kenya are undertaking formal education, and inmates across the country can complete distance education through the University of London. As of 2016, imprisoned students in Egypt are allowed to complete university degrees, but only those that do not require practical components such as the laboratory work that science degrees would require. Prisoners are also entitled to complete their Thanaweya Amma tests. As of 1992, 440 inmates (1.3% of the prison population) in Egypt were attending secondary or university education. Inspectors from Human Rights Watch were shown classrooms purported to be used for teaching basic literacy at two prisons, though they reported the rooms appeared to not have not been used for some time, and also heard an allegation that inmates were only permitted to access education if they first converted to Islam. Prisoners in Jordan have access to secondary and tertiary education, though female prisoners are typically given access to less educational programmes than men. Roumieh Prison, which houses about half the prisoners in Lebanon, has 12% of inmates enrolled in secondary education and 7% in tertiary education as of 2014. Prisoners formally had access to a wide range of industrial vocational education, however, these programmes were terminated in 1975 due to concerns about manufacturing weapons; as of 2017 the only vocational education offered is computer literacy. Both the European Convention on Human Rights and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union state that no person shall be denied the right to education, and the European Prison Rules state the education of prisoners shall "be integrated with the educational and vocational training system of the country so that after their release they may continue their education and vocational training without difficulty". Twenty one of the countries reported there had been an increase in participation over the last five years, five reported no change and three reported a small decrease. Participation for juveniles was considerably higher; these results were expected as juvenile inmates are generally under the mandatory age for school attendance. Eleven of the countries reported a rate of above 50%, and a further 10 countries reported a rate of over 75%. The survey also found that general education was offered to adult inmates in all prisons in 15 countries, in the majority of prisons in six countries and in less than half of prisons in 10 countries. As of 2016, only 16% of those who leave prison in the UK completed an education or training placement. According to a 2014 report, Belarus had 82 correctional centres, five of which were running primary and secondary schooling for inmates and a further 21 of which were offering vocational training. In 2013, between half and three quarters of inmates in Germany participated in education programmes. Similar laws are in effect in Austria,

In 1996–97, the rate of prisoners undertaking education in Australia ranged from 28% in South Australia to 88% in New South Wales, and averaged 57%. For 2006–07, the national average was 36.1%. A 2014 report found that the decrease in participation was due to the inability of prison educational courses across the country to cope with the growth in the prison population. In every state and territory in Australia, the demand for prison education greatly exceeds the available space.

quote box||width=30%|quote=Community perceptions of prisons and prisoners were essentially a product of sensationalist media reportage, and the advocates of a commitment to rehabilitation tended to be howled down as 'do gooders' or worse. There was little place for the suggestion that the majority of prisoners might be fairly ordinary people involved in fairly extraordinary circumstances, for whom prison should provide an opportunity to re establish themselves as citizens and workers on their (inevitable) return to society.|source=—Senator John Tierney commenting on public opinion to prison education in a 1996 Australian federal government report It has also been argued that giving imprisoned people education is "rewarding" them for having committed crimes, and that it is unfair for inmates to receive free education when law abiding citizens must pay for it. According to criminologist Grant Duwe, the complaint that giving prisoners free education effectively treats them better than regular citizens is valid, though the practice should nonetheless be encouraged due to the significant savings for taxpayers as a result of decreases in crime. In response, three Republican congressmen introduced a bill entitled the Kids Before Cons Act, which aimed to remove Pell grants and federal financial aid for prison education, but the bill was never brought to a vote. Efforts to expand prison education in the Australian state of Queensland by the Labor Party have frequently been opposed by the Liberal Party; in 2016, then Shadow Minister for Police Jarrod Bleijie said that prison "shouldn't be a place where we want to invest all this money into making sure [inmates get] a better education than what our kids are".