Tag: studying

Putting your money where your mouth is

Author: | 6 Nov 2023

The Ministry of Justice is promising a new Prisoner Education Service, with more resources, more apprenticeship opportunities, and even a focus on helping neurodivergent prisoners.

Longford Scholar David Shipley draws on his lived experience to ask if this pledge could help more serving prisoners turn sentences into a degrees

 

Here is the good news. In announcing the new Prisoner Education Service the Prisons’ Minister Damian Hinds (pictured) publicly acknowledged that “a forward-thinking prison system must give prisoners an alternative to the cycle of reoffending, and one of the best ways to do this is through education”. He’s right. Too many prisoners spend too many years staring at the walls of their cells. When 57 per cent of prisoners have a reading age below that expected of an 11-year old, it is little surprise that on release many are unable to find work and so turn back to crime.

But education for prisoners shouldn’t be just about reducing the £18 billion cost of reoffending. Getting time out of your cell to do something purposeful improves mental health and reduces the chances of suicide. When I was in prison, I studied Creative Writing. It not only meant I had something good to do with my time each day, but also gave me hope of a new path and career after prison.

The new Prisoner Education Service aims to make a real difference. They will be recruiting senior teachers as Heads of Education, Skills and Work, reporting to the prison governor. This is a positive decision; prison governors rarely have education expertise, so senior teachers could make a real difference.

Neurodiversity Support Managers welcome

The focus on neurodivergent prisoners is also very welcome. There’s little data, and no systematic studies have been done, but some research suggests that prisoners are 10 times more likely to have Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASDs) than the average person.

The same research suggests that a quarter of inmates have ADHD. In this context the recruitment of Neurodiversity Support Managers should be welcomed. When I spoke to the Ministry of Justice, they also confirmed that they will be procuring a new neurodiversity screening tool. This is crucial. Under the current system autism assessments are only conducted at the direction of the Parole Board and, as such, are limited to lifers and those serving Extended Determinate Sentences.

The government should move to systematically test all prisoners for ASDs and ADHD, just as we already assess literacy and numeracy. Of course, this will carry a substantial cost, but there’s no indication that the MoJ has budgeted for this.

‘There seems to be little new money available’

The final big question is how the Prison Service will deliver on these goals. The tendering process for new education providers has just begun, but there seems to be little new money available. This shortage of money is reported to have caused Serco to pull out of putting themselves forward for the new contacts.

Prison education is already desperately under-resourced. This round of tendering presents an opportunity to make a real difference to the quality, range and availability of education in prisons and unless there is substantial funding made available, it’s very hard to see how the laudable goals outlined for the new Prisoner Education Service will be achieved.

Do you feel inspired to share a viewpoint as a Longford Blog.  If so contact our scholarship manager, Clare Lewis.

 

Closing the Education Gap for Prisoners

Author: | 28 May 2023

Prison is often described as ‘a microcosm of society’ but that bears little resemblance to what goes on behind the walls, reports our current Longford Scholar Carolyn*, who is doing a PhD in women’s education provision in prisons. So much potential is going to waste because of the failure of prison education to provide the challenges that match the needs and hopes of prison learners.

During my induction at my first prison, like all new prisoners, I undertook initial education assessments. These are designed to provide a snapshot of ability. The prison teachers then looked at the floor while explaining to me that prison rules required me to undertake Level 2 English and Maths qualifications, despite me having been a teacher before my interaction with the criminal justice system, with a degree in English Literature, a PGCE and a Masters degree in education. My experience of education in custody was from the start characterized by frustration, inflexibility and short-sightedness.

No other accredited qualifications were available at the prison. Instead, I applied for an external course funded by the Prisoners’ Education Trust. I chose Copy Editing but, when I was transferred to a different prison, my course book was lost in the move. I was told I was unable to request new materials or take on a new course without completing the first.

Failing has no consequences

In 2021-22, Ofsted inspections were carried out in 22 prisons. Only one was deemed to be offering a decent standard of education. If similar results had been reported by the same organization for 22 schools outside the prison walls, urgent action would have been taken, new staff brought in, and ‘special measures’ imposed. In prison, such poor judgements appear to have no consequences at all.

The 2022 Ofsted report of my first prison found that the education department ‘requires improvement’ across all five of its categories. Whilst this two-word judgement captures much of my experience there, however, it does not reflect the handful of wonderful, supportive and inspiring teachers, committed to improving the attainment and prospects of their learners. If only they could be given autonomy to do their jobs, and offer basic training in any areas learners want to upskill in, real and positive change could be achieved.

The ups and downs

My second prison was at the other end of the M4.  In contrast to the first, it seemed to be an educational utopia with a much wider curriculum, including many qualifications on offer, all of which were consistently oversubscribed. I jumped at the opportunity to take the Level 2 Fitness Instructor course. And when I wasn’t in the gym, I could usually be found in the gardens doing a horticulture qualification.

When I was released from prison towards the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, this learning became the foundation for a lockdown project to redesign part of my parents’ garden. Both of the courses I took in that second prison also arguably benefitted my mindfulness and wellbeing but still I was left wondering to what extend they had been successful and elevating in an educational capacity.

Employed as a Teaching Assistant at the second prison, my role was to support other prison learners with the Functional Skills courses (equivalent to GCSE level in English and maths). Those who made progress took pride in their achievements, but I also noticed that some made little-to-no progress. When I asked them about it, they openly explained that they failed the exams on purpose to ensure that they could stay on the course, in a warm and dry classroom, with ready access to biscuits. If they had passed it, they said, it would have automatically resulted in being timetabled to work in the gardens or kitchens.

Gender stereotyping

Like many others in prison, I experienced the disparity that exists in the regime there between the systemic dismantling of the self and the confiscation of agency on the one hand, and the expectation that I would better myself and magically emerge rehabilitated on the other. The futility and Kafka-esque routine of prison dampens motivation and aspiration. Yet prisons are teeming with untapped potential desperate to be harnessed.

As a minute 4% of the total prison population in the UK, women often feel sidelined in a prison system that is not built for them. The education arena is no different. As an education offer, hair and beauty courses cater for a tiny proportion of the female cohort, but the reality is that women in prison want to improve their circumstances as long as there is relevant opportunity. Less gender-stereotyped courses would be enthusiastically received. Accredited and practical courses such as catering and hospitality are, to be fair, becoming increasingly more available in prisons. This is excellent progress but there is still a long way to go to meet the needs of women in prison.

What success looks like

There is potential for prisons to reduce radically the cost of reoffending (standing at £18.1 billion per year, according to published Ministry of Justice figures in 2019) across the board. At the very least what is needed is a review of the current limited education offer for women and the introduction of some intelligent changes. The availability of education at an appropriate level is paramount, as is curriculum content that will support a woman to invest in a positive future on release. Access to improved digital learning tools, and also supervised access to the internet, would help to level the playing field, especially for those taking distance learning courses.

My experience of prison education was mixed but it has given me the blueprint for my research PhD – exploring women’s experiences of, and access to, education in prison. With the support of a Longford Scholarship and mentor, I am keen to begin exploring a gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach to education in women’s prisons. This would mean that women in prison have access to education opportunities to help them elevate their circumstances and live a positive future, free from crime. This could have a significant positive impact on intergenerational offending, and hence reducing offending rates for both men and women.

 (*Scholar’s name has been changed)

If you feel you could benefit from a Longford Scholarship, or know someone who could, contact Clare Lewis for details about how to apply.

 

 

What it means to be home for good

Author: | 6 Mar 2023

Many of our newly-released Longford Scholars are beginning – or continuing – their university studies at the same time as adjusting to being out, being back at home, being with their families, and with everything that goes with that. For Longford Blog, current scholar Mark reflects on the good things and the challenges he has faced since his recent release.

 

I want to try to give others an understanding of the challenges and difficulties those who have left custody face around adjusting back into family life while, at the same time, studying and trying to become a rehabilitated, functioning member of society.

 

Firstly, we all have a past, and I know there’ll be other people out there in my position who feel alone in their desire to change while still battling old habits so as to become a better person. Since release, some of the things I have noticed are stigmas and pre-judgements from those who don’t know what we have been through.

 

Change isn’t easy at any time

There is little understanding of how difficult it is redefining yourself when you have your past behaviours, the lack of self-belief you can feel, the lack of confidence and/or lack of education that gets in the way of taking the step to embark on a university degree.  Change isn’t easy at any time especially when facing how others may view you and the impact this can have.

 

When I look back to my old impulsive choices – negative choices – that I made without thinking, now I believe that these actions grew out of the rejection I faced as a child from my family, the people who were meant to love me. The lack of support I received contributed to behaviours in me that led at times to people getting hurt, often through what I would say. It was, I now see, ‘people-pleasing’ and trying to fit in. The negative opinions that people throw at you can be a huge hinderance when you’ve actively tried to change your life and be better.

 

How day-release helps

It was good to have the opportunity to come home on ROTL before coming home full-time. I could start to plan for release and to think about what a new routine might look like. Being home meant I was able to do work around the house that was certainly required and overdue – like decorating the wear and tear in the children’s bedrooms and other areas of the home that have come with their additional needs around behaviour.

 

And it has allowed me to spend time with my partner and children, rebuilding those ties and bonds. I could take them to school and be part of their education and be visible to their teachers. I attended their hospital appointments and, thereby, took some of the  pressure off my partner. There were fun family activities too. I began get to know them again as they have grown up a lot in the time I was away.

 

Most of the time, then, it was a positive exercise. But it was also very hard for the children to see me come and then go. They couldn’t understand why Dad couldn’t stay at home. One thing I will never forget was when I came home and decorated and changed their bedrooms. They didn’t believe I would do it before I had to go back to prison. But I did.

 

It’s not as simple as it sounds: you are always worrying about when you must be back at the prison and therefore spend a lot of time clock-watching. If you are late, even by five minutes, you can be stopped from doing ROTL again.

 

Home for good

Now that I am home full-time, those time pressures have gone. Yet, there are new challenges – living with four children whilst working  and studying. A few months in, I am pleased to say that I have managed to keep up with my university work and fully intend to keep going.  But it is not easy. I am at work four days on and then have four days off. I try to spend one full day in the local library but this doesn’t always happen as anything can come up with four children.

 

When I am not at work, I tend to do the cooking as my partner does everything the rest of the time. The huge hike in the cost of living has had its impact too. I am now fully responsible for my four children, my partner and the household finances. At times that is scary. How to make ends meet causes me to lose sleep. Unexpected bills like school trips can be a huge burden. When I came home I needed a car to get to work but, due to my criminal past, the insurance was much higher than I had expected.

 

In prison time was never an issue with my studies. Now it’s hard to find. To be honest, I wasn’t prepared for what the change would mean or look like. There have been obstacles to climb.

 

Living proof

Another challenge facing those like me who haven’t had a regular education is finding the continuing motivation and support required to study at university level.  But I’m living proof – having almost completed my BA Hons in Psychology with the Open University – that with the right people like The Longford Trust behind you, it is possible and achievable. If I can do it, others can too.

 

My advice would be to be honest with those who are working with you, not to feel it’s wrong to be struggling or finding things hard as you almost certainly will at points. When the journey feels lonely and challenging have faith in what you can achieve, take it in small steps, and always make your goals SMART – specific, measurable, assignable, realistic and time-related.

 

If you are in prison or newly-released and want to study for a degree but worry about managing the challenges that will present, go to The Longford Trust’s website to find out what support is available. Or email our Scholarship Manager, Clare Lewis.

I was scared of taking on a degree

Author: | 8 Jan 2023

For Longford Blog, Simon, from our latest intake of scholars, reflects on his journey from arriving in jail and dismissing the idea of a degree because ‘all I had was GCSEs’, to overcoming his fears, beginning studying, and continuing on release from prison. If I can do it, he urges others, so can you…

Adjusting to being in prison at the start of my sentence was extremely hard. I needed a release to keep my mind focused. This is when I discovered training in the gym. It was my escape and kept me mentally and physically strong through tough times.

I was also thinking about how to improve myself so as to leave prison physically and mentally stronger. One day an Open University team came in to give a talk. From the first moment they spoke, I knew this was the path to go down. My biggest problem was what subject to study?  I asked family and friends for advice and decided sport, fitness and coaching.

Taking a leap of faith

I was scared. At no point in my life had I ever thought I was capable of studying at degree level. I’d done GCSEs but nothing more. A friend on my wing who I would train with in the gym reassured me. ‘You enjoy training and sport. You can spend many more months thinking about what you want to do and if you are capable. Or you can take a leap of faith, study a subject you enjoy and give 100% to it.’

That was the day I sent in my application. I wanted prove to my family that I could be a better man and achieve great things. To show them my dedication to studying was a way of  showing them and myself that the future could be better.

At the start of my studies I found it extremely hard to keep up with deadlines and find the time to study in the prison environment. As time went on, though, it became more natural. I began going to the prison library and borrowed all the books I could find on academic writing to try and learn. Soon I was achieving marks of between 70-80 per cent for all my modules. Access to computers and study material was really hard, but this was something I was doing for my future so I made sure I did all I could on my own, to reach my targets

Happy with the man I am today

Over the course of my sentence, I believe I have matured immensely, and feel happy with the man I am today. I put it down to maintaining a strict routine with exercise and studying. Without these, I don’t know how I would have reached the end.

When Covid came around, studying and prison life became very hard. We were all locked behind our doors for 23 and a half hours a day. I used the time to study extra hard and dedicated eight hours each day to reading and writing and an hour a day to learning a new language (Mandarin) to fill the time. I also wrote in-cell workout programmes and nutrition plans for other inmates to ensure we were all keeping active.

Fast forward to 2021 and I was transferred to an open prison which was great because I had more freedom and better facilities to focus on my studies and plan for my future. On day-release on several occasions my family travelled up and I was able to spend quality time with them.

My transition from prison back into the community has so far been a smooth process due to careful planning and a wide range of support. Not long before being released I made my application to the Longford Trust and was granted a scholarship. This involved a financial grant, a laptop to study with, and a mentor. Now I am continuing on the outside with the final year of my degree with the security of the trust’s support.

My mentor is amazing

My Longford Trust mentor is amazing. He will sit with me and go through my work, help me to understand areas where I could improve. He is also there for emotional support should I need it during these challenging times.

If I could give any advice to other prison leavers, it would be to be realistic in your future plans. Locked behind a door can give you a false view of the world and what to expect. Use all resources and support as best you can because life outside of prison is a huge transition.

Find out more about our Longford Scholarships and Frank Awards. You could soon be walking in Simon’s educational footsteps!

 

Why You Can’t Better A Christmas Book

Author: | 15 Dec 2022

If you’ve got a spare moment this festive season, for Longford Blog former scholar Dempsey tells his story of prison, Christmas, books and their power to transport us wherever we find ourselves

A supermoon shining older and colder than superstition cast a wintry light over London while the world hurried over cobblestoned streets to the seasonal sound of bells.  Gleaming brass bells ringing hopefully and insistently in the white-gloved hands of the streetcorner Santa.

From high-end boutiques dressed up and down and all around in silver and gold, from the gap-toothed vendor selling bourbon-laced eggnog with candy cane straws, to the young and old church group singing “We Three Kings” beneath a Victorian-era lamppost, make no mistake about it, Christmas time was here.  Here holding the candle of religion in one hand, here bearing the torch of commercialization in the other.  “Ring-a-ling, hear them ring, soon it will be Christmas Day.”

A venerable smell

I was headed toward Hatchards, a Piccadilly bookshop that has been doing business in greater London since the 1700s.  I walked into the carpeted shop and over to a vintage end-table neatly stacked with contemporary works of fiction.  On an adjacent end-table were books of military history.

Surveying the shop as if I were about to rent a room, I could sense its comfort had been earned rather than given.  The place looks venerable, smells venerable and, with its glossy mahogany tables, ornate banisters, and green-shade bankers’ lamps, feels venerable.

I found the section with the works of Charles Dickens in paper- and hardback resting on high shelves and long tables. Taking David Copperfield in hand, I sat down on a well-worn burgundy leather Chesterfield that felt like the ne plus ultra of comfort.  While I reread the first page of the classic for the first time in a long time, an orchestral rendition of “Carol of the Bells” stole through the entrance whenever someone entered or left.  I felt a deep sense of belonging in that bookshop, a supreme contentment created by the holiday season, antiquated atmosphere, and the ghosts of all those Dickens characters floating from stories of the long ago.

Novels that sustain

I didn’t always have the luxury of visiting an elegant bookshop in a cosmopolitan city because I had been in prison for most of my life.  Been right behind the looming concrete walls of a prison in a part of New York State that stayed cloudy, stayed dreary, stayed brutally unsympathetic and impersonal, but most of all, simply stayed.

I was occasionally asked how I did my time.  How I served a lengthy sentence without breaking down and dissolving into the earth.  I invariably replied that I was saved by the novel, spared the destruction of imprisonment because of the novel’s ability to transport the mind, reroute and redirect thought and feeling.

The novel can entertain as much as it can sustain.  Books also shore up the abiding loneliness of imprisonment.  Lessen the sting of prolonged banishment.

In prison books are my world

A large part of life consists of the people who come and go from your life.  Some people you don’t mind never seeing again, others you do.  Books, their characters and the stories they tell become your friends.  Friends who remain.  Important and towering allies in an often cold and alienating world.

In prison books were of paramount importance to me.  When I was young, I felt that my friends were my world.  In prison my books were my world.  They were fulfilling and reliable and if I’ve yet to fully express what the novel has meant to me and can mean to anyone, I’ll offer up the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald: “That is part of the beauty of all literature.  You discover that your longings are universal longings, that you’re not lonely and isolated from anyone.  You belong.”