Putting Education at the Heart of Custody? The Views of Children on Education in a Young Offender Institution
| Author | Ross Little |
Transforming Youth Custody
Thinking about education in prison has been on the recent policy agenda of government. The United Kingdom coalition government between 2010 and 2015 sought to make significant changes to the composition of the youth justice secure estate in England and Wales. They proposed a new network of Secure Colleges, the first of which was planned for 2017 on a site in Leicestershire, next to the existing HMYOI Glen Parva (MoJ, 2014). The apparent motivation for this new approach was the poor level of education in prisons or children. The government response to the consultation on their Transforming Youth Custody Green Paper (Ministry of Justice, 2014) highlighted several particularly concerning findings in relation to the educational achievements of children in prison:
'Latest figures suggest 86% of young men in Young Offender Institutions (YOIs) have been excluded from school at some point, and over half of 15-17 year olds in YOIs have the literacy and numeracy level expected of a 7-11 year old. Research also indicates that 18% of sentenced young people in custody have a statement of special educational needs.' (MoJ, 2014:3)
The high rates of exclusion from school for children prior to custody have previously been documented by Cripps and Summerfield's (2012) review of findings from two HMIP reviews on the resettlement provision for children and young people and the care of looked after children in custody. However, government recognition of these problems has not usually been so forthcoming. The proposal for a new network of secure colleges would apparently put "education at the heart of youth custody".1*
Developmentally appropriate education and skills provision is vital to help children move on from life after prison (McAra & McVie, 2010; Youth Justice Board, 2014). What this might look like in practice, and what children have to say about the education they receive has been sidelined during political discussions over whether we have a Secure College (network) or not. Whilst the Secure College plans were quietly abandoned by government (Hansard, 2015), interest in increasing the number of hours spent in education provision has remained. The number of hours spent on education doubled from 15 to 30 in August 2015, with 60% of these hours being 'protected' as part of a new 'core day' (Youth Justice Board, National Offender Management Service, NHS England, 2015).
The reasons for this increase in the quantity of education are multiple, but the changes take place in a context in which the numbers of children in custody at any one time have dramatically reduced in recent years, whilst re-Offending rates remain stubbornly high (see Bateman, 2014). There is no reason to suggest that the priority given by the secure estate to security and control is changing, but there may be a recognition that something different needs to be done. The appointment of a previous secretary of state for education as the secretary of state for justice, following the general election in May 2015 appears to have helped continue the emphasis on education and employment (BBC News, 2015).
The Youth Justice Board has education, training and employment as the third of seven identified national 'resettlement pathways' (Youth Justice Board, 2014). The stated main objective is to "provide all young people with suitable and sustainable education, training and employment throughout their sentence and beyond" (Youth Justice Board, 2014: 4). This is laudable, but worthy of exploration from the perspective of children experiencing the education provision inside prison.
About the research
This paper draws on research undertaken by the author when working as part of the U R Boss project, a youth justice participation project funded by the Big Lottery Fund and hosted by The Howard League for Penal Reform. Access to Young Offender Institutions for the purposes of research, information gathering or discursive, participatory work can be very challenging, particularly for employees of prison reform groups with a reputation for airing their views about the state of our nation's prisons. The author of this paper's involvement in a Youth Justice Board working group on access to college education for children in prison, also attended by senior staff from Young Offender Institutions, helped facilitate access to a YOI. The aim of the research was to find out what children's experiences of education in a YOI were like from children themselves.
There were three methodological elements to the research: a questionnaire, a discussion group and one-to-one interviews with individual children accommodated on different wings of the prison, including one on the Care and Separation Unit.
The questionnaire asked participants 18 questions about the type of educational activities they were involved in at the YOI; whether they were in education prior to entering the YOI; whether they had ever been excluded from education; about their educational qualifications; what courses they had been on at the YOI; what kind of help and support they had received to help them find education and employment; what kinds of education and employment plans they have for after the YOI; potential barriers to these plans and, what else the YOI might do to help them. Eighty-five questionnaires were distributed by YOI staff at the end of June 2012. Respondents filled in the questionnaire of their own volition. These were either handed directly to young people attending education classes in Warren Hill during the final week of June 2012 or placed under their cell door. Fortyseven questionnaires were returned by participants, a response rate of 55%. There was no extra support provided for filling out the questionnaire. Whilst respondents did not need to write much, they would have needed to be able to read the questions. Not every participant responded to every question, so question response numbers reported in this article may not always equal 47.
Five discussion groups were facilitated over three days in July 2012. Each lasted up to two hours, the duration of the morning and afternoon education slots, to fit in with the prison regime. There were 24 discussion group participants in total, an average of five children attending each discussion group. Themes explored were the same as those covered by the questionnaire, with scope for the discussion to flow in ways determined by the participants. Because the groups were live discussions between humans, the precise nature of conversation varied between the different groups, depending on the level of engagement of the participants, their curiosity and degree of comfort with the set-up and their fellow participants. Each of the discussions was facilitated by two members of staff from the U R Boss project at The Howard League for Penal Reform. One facilitator tended to facilitate discussion while the other was responsible for note-taking. The purpose of the project and that participants' anonymity would be respected was explained to each group. These groups lasted one or two hours each, focused on exploring the questions attached and were carried out with a member of YOI staff present. The presence of the YOI staff member was a condition of the discussion groups taking place and may have impacted on the responses of some of the children.
Also completed were four interviews with individual young people on three different wings, including one on the Care and Separation Unit, colloquially known as 'The Seg' owing to the segregation of its inhabitants from the mainstream YOI population. These individuals had been deemed unsuitable for group work by the management team. These individual sessions took place subject to the agreement of the individual child. Whether or not they were asked to participate would have been the decision of the senior member of prison staff facilitating the research. The research may have therefore excluded the involvement of children experiencing the most difficulties in the prison at the time. YOI staff were not present for these meetings with young people. A brief outline of the context for each of the four children interviewed in segregation appears at several points in the text, relating to points made about experiences of, or attitudes towards, education in the YOI.
Taken together, the research engaged with up to 75 children detained in the YOI, around half of the population there at the time. The reason it is not possible to be precise about the number of different individuals engaging with the research is because there was no way of matching discussion group participants to questionnaire respondents. Individuals attending the discussion groups were asked whether or not they had completed the questionnaire but only half a dozen indicated that they had. Findings from the questionnaire, discussion groups and interviews were presented to the management team at the YOI later in the same year. This report, including the questionnaire, can be found on the U R Boss website (U R Boss, 2012).
In terms of how the sample was selected, questionnaire respondents did so of their own volition and returned completed questionnaires in a blank envelope. Potential participants for the discussion groups were recruited from education classes.
It should be noted that the research took place before some of the effects of the government's budget reductions had impacted on staffing levels across the secure estate and before the YOI was 're-rolled' to become an adult prison the following year.
Ethics
There are complex ethical and moral issues to consider when undertaking work of this nature with children in custody. A key issue is the ability of child participants to consent to their involvement in the research (NSPCC, 2013). It was important that participants were able to participate voluntarily in the research based on informed consent. However, the very nature of a prison environment in which an individual is being...
To continue reading
Request your trial