Prison Education: spaces and places

Helen Poole

IndividualNeeds,

ambitions& aspirations

FearsResistance

SocietyEmployabilityReintegration/

inclusion

PolicyCrime &

punishmentEducation

Social Economic

Prison Educational

OpportunitiesCoursesStaffing

Resources

Prison Experience

RegimeEnvironmentStaff Security Overcrowding

Background Educational

SocialCultural

Offending

Prisoner Learner

Aim of research

What is the function of prison education in the 21st century and has this changed over time?

Examine: Design Spaces Discourse

Design

Bentham’s Panopticon

Radial design

Mid twentieth century

Traditional prison design

Secure College

Space and place

Secure training centre classroom

YOI art room

Art room

Art room

Discourse

Secure Training Centres

Discourse from Secure Training Centre Parliamentary Debate 1994

Conservative member ‘If a young person qualifies for custodial

treatment, he is in need not of punishment but of a rescue operation.

Such establishments should principally be schools that happen to have a fence around them, not prisons that happen to have a few teachers inside them.

but I feel that the Bill should be amended in Committee to provide for that, if a court thinks it appropriate, it can send someone 10 or 11 to a secure school.

Cont’d

Such children should be educated in secure schools for as long as needed...it should be possible for them to be detained in that school until their normal school leaving age.

I see no reason why a headmaster should not have the right to use the cane on boys in appropriate circumstances in those schools; nor do I see why the headmaster of any school should be prohibited from using the cane on boys.’

And…

Opposition members do not seem to have grasped the point that what we want to do with young offenders, to re-programme their minds by education...

the persistent hard-core juvenile offenders are what we say they are – hard-core, hard-bitten; it has gone into their souls. We must somehow get hold of their souls and change them.

Learning Works Model Prison

Education is primary focus Prisoners housed in ‘live-learn’ units Houses networked with screen and intranet

working Parallels with community educational policy Space designed for education and therapy Prisoners have free movement and

responsible for own learning

But….

‘The design is a blueprint for both palpable and managerial efficiency. The architecture helps in the management of the prisoner. The building mitigates the intense and wasteful aspects of managed movement and security through the organisation of prisoners into viable groups, housed in simple spaces, ostensibly learning environments adjacent to freely accessible external space. The architecture fulfils both a social and psychological role, through the creation of humane, secure but not repressive environments, and an economic role, crucially by releasing staff time to conduct the new regime of learning initiatives’.

‘The use of technology and the planning of the day are designed to facilitate a learning programme for prisoners. By designing the building in the form of a house structure, we minimise the costly movement of prisoners while providing clear sight lines for surveillance.’

Foreward to consultation outcome for Secure Colleges January 2014

This Government believes that providing high quality education to young offenders in custody is central to tackling this problem. 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.

Cont’d

We have a responsibility to give young people the best start in life, including access to high quality education that gives them the opportunity to work hard and fulfil their potential. This does not change if a young person breaks the law. We must give them help and support to get back on the right track, equipping them with the skills, training and self- discipline they need to stop offending and contribute positively to society in adult life.

Conservative member

I make no apology for saying, as I have on a number of occasions, that I think that is it crucial that we do better than we have in the education of young people in custody. They are school-age children and we have an obligation to educate them. There are formidable challenges in doing so, as the hon. Gentleman rightly says, but that does not mean that we should duck that responsibility. Secure colleges are a way for us to seek to address it..’

The Secretary of State’s view of the matter is that we should move from the point where we are essentially adding education to detention facilities, to a point where we enforce detention in an education facility. There is a real difference of approach, and we hope the design of the buildings and the general environment will reflect that.

Functions of prison education

Penal functions Micro-management Managing establishments Macro-management Reducing crime Managing costs Ideological/ symbolic Denunciation Retribution

Functions

Educational functions Student-centred Humanist Social/ situational Teacher- centred Traditional Behaviourist Cognitivist

Functions

Social functions Control/ power Production Reproduction Self-regulation