Dominic Speight joined the Fair Education as part of a two-week work placement with the Unlocked programme. Unlocked works to reduce rates of re-offending by identifying brilliant people and supporting them to spend two years working as front-line prison officers. During his time at the FEA, Dominic looked into the relationship between educational inequality and incarceration, and what initiatives are working well to tackle these issues.
Read more from Dominic about this research and his work with Unlocked below.
When I joined the Unlocked graduate scheme as a prison officer two years ago, I knew that I would get to complete a two-week work placement. I am now coming to the end of both my work placement with the Fair Education Alliance and my time with unlocked.
At the beginning of my placement I was tasked with researching the relationship between education inequality and incarceration and what was being done to tackle these issues.
This involved attending e-meetings with a variety of charities and organisations involved in reducing inequality in education. I also used my knowledge and experience to give the Fair Education Alliance a picture of what education is like in prison.
During the last two-years I’ve spent as a prison officer I have become aware that illiteracy rates in prison are very high and have witnessed first-hand the problems that this can cause. For example, it can reduce their ability to engage with society constructively. Often this can be as simple as such being unable to write a complaint letter, resulting in feelings of anger.
I also came across many prisoners with negative experiences of education and an unwillingness to engage. It therefore came as no surprise to me when I discovered that nearly half of prisoners are at primary school level of English and Maths and over 40 percent were permanently excluded from school. It was this awareness that made me passionate to find out more about why this correlation between exclusion and incarceration exists.
To gain a better understanding of the correlation between exclusion and incarceration I decided to perform a literature review.
I had a tight deadline to complete this project, so my review was limited in depth. Despite this several themes did begin to emerge. The first was that the Alternative Provision schools that children attend when they have been excluded, often do not create an environment conducive to learning. This can be down to several reasons.
Alternative Provision schools often lack in qualified teachers meaning that children do not experience high quality learning.
Alternative Provision schools are usually located at a distance from where the student lives. In some areas this may result in the student needing to enter an area where they do not feel safe resulting in poor attendance.
In addition, children excluded from school are much less likely to go on to receive level 5-9 at GCSE and more than one fifth of pupils with a Permanent Exclusion go onto be not in education, employment or training (NEET).
I was also able to find multiple statistics that further supported this correlation.
83% of excluded pupils are boys while 95% of the prison population is male.
Children of an Afro-Caribbean background are six times more likely to be excluded and Black men are 26% more likely to be remanded in custody.
Care leavers are over 20 times as likely to be in prison while children in care are over 10 times as likely to be excluded.
Despite there clearly being a correlation, further research revealed that it is not as simple as exclusion leading to incarceration. It needs to be considered if, when including informal exclusions in analysis, the statistics about boys predominantly being excluded would remain true. It also needs to be considered that children from deprived areas are represented disproportionately highly in exclusion figures.
Children from these deprived areas are more likely to experience socio-economic factors growing up that contribute to an increased likelihood of incarceration. This suggests that although there is a correlation between exclusion and incarceration involvement in crime may not be a direct consequence of excluding a child.
As well as delving into some of the literature around this topic I was also able to have e-meetings with a variety of people from a number of different charities and organisations focused on reducing inequality in education.
These included the Centre for Social Justice, The-Difference, the National Literacy Trust, Social Finance, Prisoners’ Education Trust and Right to Succeed. It was insightful to hear the expertise and experience that these organisations offered. It was also inspiring to hear about the amazing initiatives that they are involved in and promote.
One particularly brilliant and inspiring programme that I came across was from The Difference.
The Difference work to place the country’s most committed, capable, and creative teachers in Alternative Provision schools. I think that this is an excellent way to improve the standard of education that students who are excluded will receive. I feel an initiative like this is supported perfectly by the classroom practices that Right to Succeed promote such as positive behaviour management. This involves not looking at young person as problem and blaming them but rather a child with different needs.
In my experience as a prison officer it is common to have individuals who have never in their life been told they are anything but a badly behaved and as a result they feel that their only option is to act this way. I feel as though this change in approach can challenge this narrative.
There is also fantastic work taking place to reduce the upward trend in the number of exclusions every year.
Social Finance work identify those at risk of exclusion early on and intervene effectively. This is vital work as early identification and effective intervention can improve the welfare of these individuals further down the line and ensure that Alternative Provision schools are not overwhelmed.
I was also fortunate and able to speak with someone form the National Literacy Trust about their Books Unlocked campaign and the work they do in prison.
Although Books Unlocked focuses on supporting people in prison and young offender institutions to read, I feel the fantastic work that they do is relevant to schools and how they can reduce educational inequality. The open and flexible approach that removes the classroom setting is a fantastic way to get a population generally disengaged with education involved.
They also engage prisoners by bring in writers to prison who have lived experience of prison. In my experience with the right encouragement and in the right settings it can be amazing to see how much prisoners will throw themselves into projects. I am aware that there may be similar projects to this in the education sector where children who struggle get to meet people who have been through a similar experience and that there are lots of efforts to take children away from the classroom setting in order to help them learn. However, I feel that looking at the national literacy trust and books unlocked can show how powerful this sort of approach has the potential to be in schools and Alternative provision schools.
Courtesy of the amazing people I was able to meet and the initiatives and front-line experience that I heard about there are a few key takeaways are in terms of what can be done to reduce educational inequality and its link to incarceration.
A lot of what I have said is already being done I just think it needs more emphasis.
Firstly, I think early identification of those children who are at risk of exclusion is key. There is great work already being done about this, but I think it is incredibly important and needs more focus.
Secondly, I think improving Alternative provision schools is key. Even with the work that is being done it might always be necessary that children are excluded from school. I think that these children still need receive a good education.
My final point is that it is important that the child needs to stop being seen as a problem but rather someone with different needs. I know that this is something that a lot of people already promote and do but I think it needs to be done more. This something that in my experience as a prison officer is something that can be so powerful to encourage and reward an individual doing something positive.
Educational inequality and its link to incarceration is an incredibly complicated issue and in two weeks I do not feel I was able to even begin to scratch the surface. There is so much incredible work being done that I have not mentioned and so many avenues that I ran out of time to explore. What I feel I do know for certain from my experience working in prison is just how important this work is. I am grateful to have been able to speak with so many amazing individuals and hear about the inspirational work that is being done in this sector. When I go back to work, I will be taking a more optimistic and open-minded approach to ways that I can make a difference. Working with the Fair Education Alliance for two weeks has been an valuable, inspirational and eye opening experience that I am extremely grateful for.