Charlie Taylor, HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, has warned that the ongoing failure of prisons to provide adequate education, training and work opportunities ’causes mayhem’ when prison leavers are subsequently released. 

HMI’s new report – ‘Just passing time’: A review of work and training provision in adult prisons’ – reveals far too few activity spaces, poor attendance in classes and work, and a failure to ensure that people in prison develop the skills to stop re-offending. 

In the last three years, purposeful activity in 94 of 104 closed prisons has been rated ‘poor’ or ‘not sufficiently good’ : ‘too many people in prison spend their days locked in their cells. Overcrowding, a lack of workshop space and instructors, equipment failures and ageing infrastructure have compounded a lack of purposeful activity.’ At least two-thirds of prison leavers are not in work or training six months after their release. 

Concerningly, most prisons now face a 20% – 50% reduction in their education budgets, meaning many teachers and instructors risk redundancy.

I have serious concerns about the impact of real-terms education budget cuts on already inadequate provision and about the lack of real appetite and ambition for improvement that this represents. The prison service has a duty to protect the public by making prisoners less likely to reoffend when they are released, but too often it is failing to fulfil this responsibility. There is little doubt that many prisoners already leave jail and return to criminality, creating more victims of crime. These devastating cuts are likely to make this situation worse.

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, Charlie Taylor

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