Gove in call for prisoner education shake-up to tackle re-offending rates

Prisons are failing to effectively rehabilitate criminals, Michael Gove will say today as he laments Britain’s “horrifying” failure to reduce re-offending rates.

The Justice Secretary will float the idea of introducing a link between a prisoner’s commitment and progress in education and their release date as he calls for a new approach to better prepare offenders for their return to society.

In his first major speech on prisons since he was appointed, Mr Gove will say the failure to teach prisoners a “proper lesson” is “indefensible”, adding: “I fear the reason for that is, as things stand, we do not have the right incentives for prisoners to learn or for prison staff to prioritise education.

“And that’s got to change.

“I am attracted to the idea of earned release for those offenders who make a commitment to serious educational activity, who show by their changed attitude that they wish to contribute to society and who work hard to acquire proper qualifications which are externally validated and respected by employers.”

He will also suggest more could be done to attach “privileges” to attendance and achievement in education while behind bars.

Ministry of Justice officials will look at how the approach could work in practice over the coming months.

Although prisons fulfil their function in isolating dangerous offenders from the rest of society and punishing those who break the law, they are “not working in other, crucial ways”, Mr Gove is expected to argue.

“Prisons are not playing their part in rehabilitating offenders as they should,” he will say.

He will point to figures that show more than two-thirds of young offenders and 45% of adult prisoners re-offend within a year of being released.

“The human cost of this propensity to re-offend is, of course, borne by those who are the most frequent victims of crime – the poorest in our society,” Mr Gove will say during the speech at an event in London hosted by the Prisoner Learning Alliance.

“It is those without high hedges and sophisticated alarms, those who live in communities blighted by drug dealing and gang culture, those who have little and aspire to only a little more, who are the principal victims of our collective failure to redeem and rehabilitate offenders.

“No government serious about building one nation, no minister concerned with greater social justice, can be anything other than horrified by our persistent failure to reduce re-offending.”

Britain must be more demanding of prisons and offenders, giving inmates new opportunities by expecting them to “engage seriously and purposefully in education and work”, he will say.

“Our streets will not be safer, our children will not be properly protected and our future will not be more secure unless we change the way we treat offenders and offenders then change their lives for the better.”

He will emphasise that there must be no weakening of Britain’s attachment to codes, rules and laws “which keep our nation civilized”, adding: “We must not imagine that softening the laws on drugs, or shying away from exemplary penalties for violent conduct, will make life easier and safer for children growing up in disordered, abusive and neglectful surroundings.”

He will call for an end to the “idleness and futility of so many prisoners’ days”, saying a fifth of inmates were scarcely out of their cells for more than a couple of hours each day.

An inability to read or master basic maths made prisoners “prime candidates” for re-offending, he will say, adding: “Ensuring those offenders become literate and numerate makes them employable and thus contributors to society, not a problem for our communities.

“Getting poorly-educated adults to a basic level of literacy and numeracy is straightforward, if tried and tested teaching models are followed.

“So the failure to teach our prisoners a proper lesson is indefensible.”

A lack of operational autonomy and genuine independence for prison governors will be singled out by Mr Gove as “one of the biggest brakes on progress”, as he suggests they should be given more control.

“A more rigorous monitoring of offenders’ level of educational achievements on entry, and on release, would mean governors could be held more accountable for outcomes and the best could be rewarded for their success,” he will say.

Mr Gove, who earlier this week eased restrictions on prisoners’ access to books, will say he is posing questions “in a spirit of genuine inquiry”.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, said: “The challenge now is to translate this marked new reflective tone set by the Justice Secretary into sensible policy and to create a just, humane and effective penal system.”

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