Prison Education: Beyond Review and Evaluation

• DOI: 10.1177/00328855221079276
• Author: Rachel Higdon,Nick Flynn
• Date: 01 March 2022
• Published date: 01 March 2022
• Subject Matter: Articles

Prison Education:

Beyond Review and

Evaluation

Nick Flynn and Rachel Higdon

Abstract

Much is made of the potential of prison education to impart knowledge and

skills and transform life chances. Prison education is tasked with delivering

qualif‌ications and effecting recidivism. In assessing current arrangements

for the delivery of prison education and reviews and evaluations of its impact

on recidivism in England and Wales, this article argues that prison education

should be an inclusive activity. Specif‌ically, prison education should focus less

on individual development and more on whole class ‘domains,’in particular,

knowledge of (re)integration. Research, policy, and practice on civic/citizen-

ship education provide models in this regard.

Keywords

prison education, civic/citizenship education, prison governance

Introduction

Prison education is ill def‌ined, and poorly demarcated. While the reform of

criminal conduct has been interpreted philosophically, sociologically, politi-

cally, and ethically according to shifting justif‌ications of punishment, educa-

tion, as a process of learning and change has been disregarded. This article is

guided by a perspective which contrasts ‘prison education’with ‘education in

prison’. That is, prison education is formal education consisting of pedagog-

ical activities designed to impart knowledge and skills, such as basic

De Montfort University, Leicester, UK

Corresponding Author:

Nick Flynn, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester LE1 9BH, UK.

Email: nf‌lynn@dmu.ac.uk

Article

The Prison Journal

2022, Vol. 102(2) 196–216

© 2022 SAGE Publications

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00328855221079276

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numeracy and literacy, and employability skills. This distinguishes prison

education from offender reform. Acquiring knowledge in a subject area or

skills in a trade does not necessarily lead to a reduction in criminal behaviour.

Neither, is it intended to. Yet, prison education is not immune to wider penal

strategies. Indeed, as a state-mandated juridical activity, it is contained within

them. Since the late eighteenth century, when education was f‌irst introduced

into prisons--typically as Bible study to foster penitence and remorse

(Sutherland & Cressey, 1955)--and later, formally in England and Wales,

as part of the 1823 Parliamentary Gaol Act (Forster, 1996)--the role afforded

prison education has been tied to reducing reoffending. For example: through-

out the eighteenth century, consequentialist forms of legal jurisprudence;

nineteenth century, ‘hard labour, hard fare, and hard board’; twentieth

century, individual treatment and penal welfare; and twenty-f‌irst century,

strategies of risk and therapeutic rehabilitation. In sum, education conceived

as an activity with the potential to engender critical awareness and agency

unrelated to the reform of criminal conduct as an end in itself has been

marginalised.

Education in prison, on the other hand, is informal. It is an internal process

of living (cognitive and emotional), constituted through the “reconstruction or

reorganisation of experience”, albeit experience shaped by outside forces

(Dewey, 1916: 76).Determined by the impact of imprisonment, the physical

conditions, social activities, community relations, and penal strategies which

link punishment to reform, education in prison is lived experience over which

prisoners have little control. In a positive sense, prison teaches a moral lesson

(Morris, 1981) - communicating condemnation and moral censure (Duff,

2001), achieving moral regeneration through retribution, or preventing

further wrong doing through processes of utilitarian (re)education, rehabilita-

tion, and deterrence (Wilson, 1983).But, this is a partial reading. A long tra-

dition of prison sociology has given substance to the commonly held notion

that prisons function primarily as ‘universities of crime.’This learning is an

outcome of labelling and stigmatisation and aversive forms of social learning,

a result of casual peer associations favouring continued violation of the law

(Sutherland, 1947). Constituted in cultural norms and a negative f‌ield of

power, ‘the inmate world’is characterised by ‘withdrawal,’‘intransigence’,

and ‘institutionalisation’(Goffman, 1961).

This article focuses on the delivery of prison education within the present-

day context of education in prison. It assesses the environment and arrange-

ments under which prison education operates in England and Wales, as well

as the reviews and evaluations of the effectiveness of prison education in

reducing reoffending. Further, it examines the contribution and challenges

of introducing alternative pedagogical approaches to learning in correctional

Flynn and Higdon 197