Since becoming involved with HMP (Her Majesty’s Prison) I have
become very interested and concerned about the number of inmates with literacy
and numeracy problems, e.g. dyslexia and other
learning difficulties.
Within
the population of the
This is
clearly a problem that will have affected these individuals throughout their
life and may provide clues as to why a higher percentage of the population with
learning disabilities go to prison compared to the population without such
difficulties.
From a
young age if an individual with a learning disability is unable to cope with
their school’s teaching methods and exams due to their specific learning
requirements this can create feelings of isolation within this individual which
can cause truancy and also misconduct, even to the point of expulsion from
school, which would lead to poor performance and low exam results, if any
results received at all.
“Nearly half of male sentenced prisoners were excluded from school and nearly a third of all prisoners were regular truants whilst at school and more than half of male and more than two-thirds of female adult prisoners have no qualifications at all.”
Prison Reform Trust (2003/2004)
Report on ‘Social Characteristics of Prisoners’.
It is
therefore not inconceivable that an individual with a learning disability can
leave school being unable to read and write, having no qualifications and
little prospect of employment due to even seemingly small details of being
unable to fill in an application form or read an article to find a job. In this
situation do you think you could support yourself or even a family?
Now it
would not be correct to say that people in this situation will automatically
turn to crime because the majority of people with learning disabilities do not
use crime to support themselves and their families. But still many tens of
thousands do and this can become the start of a vicious circle. With possibly
no qualifications or employment, low confidence and self-esteem because of this
and now also a criminal record the future will not appear to offer many
alternatives to these individuals other than those of repeat offending and
consequently rising prison populations.
“On
Sources from Home Office Statistics Report
on ‘Prison Population’.
These
rising figures should be of concern for the country, not just because of the
crime levels they reflect but also for the financial implications of holding
inmates. When the Prison
Service
met its 2002-03 KPI (key performance indicator) targets, which ensure that the
average cost per prisoner does not exceed £36,539, the
cost per prisoner was £36,268. (£271 difference!)
Info from Prison reform Trust.
With
dyslexia being an hereditary problem, this could be
one of the reasons why we get certain individuals and families coming in and
out of prison. If a family member has not received help themselves for learning
difficulties, then it can be harder for them to help subsequent generations and
the cycle of feeling isolated in learning situations is at risk of repeating
itself. There is clearly a problem here. So I mentioned this to the Director
General of the prison service, Mr. Phil Wheatley, at a HODS (Home Office
Disability Support) annual meeting. The response I got from him was quite
astonishing, as his attitude seemed intent on laying blame with single parents.
I cannot make the connection between individuals with a disability and single
parents and unfortunately we did not have long enough together to discuss his
comments so I am unable to understand what he may have meant.
This
comment aside, I will credit Mr. Wheatley with the fact that there is a slow
but growing help in the prison service for prisoners and staff since the DDA
(Disability Discrimination Act) of 1995 has already been introduced in the
first three main stages. The first stage of the DDA is Definition of
Disability, Part 2 is Employment Provisions and the Duty of Trade Organisations
to their disabled members and applicants, Part 3 is Access to Goods and
Services for disabled people and the final stage, which was introduced in
October 2004, is Consultation with service providers to ensure physical
features do not restrict services to disabled people.
There is
good work going on in the prison service with educational training, work groups
within the prison, resettlement advice to prepare prisoners for life in the
community after release, and so much more. But what became apparent to me after
talking to prisoners with learning difficulties, speaking to them individually
and in small groups, is that they have very little confidence and self-esteem
and they will not ask for help, because they do not want to be isolated,
ridiculed or classed as stupid by the other inmates and some members of staff.
It is very similar to the schoolyard mentality of not wishing to appear
different from others. They also relate their previous experiences of schooling
to the education and training offered in prison and are
put off by the thought of a lot of reading and writing. Therefore the majority
of inmates with dyslexia do not end up going through education or training, but
some do work within the prison because there is little or no reading and
writing required so they can keep their learning difficulties hidden from their
peers.
According to the Offenders Learning and Skills Unit in the
Department for Education and Skills,
…just
under a third of the prison population is attending education classes at any
one time, half of all prisoners do not have the skills required by 96 per cent
of jobs and over 50% were unemployed before imprisonment.
How can
we go about trying to solve this problem? I think firstly we have got to make
people aware, most importantly the inmates themselves, that if they have
learning difficulties they are not stupid and there is help available to them.
It is encouraging to let people know that there are many distinguished people
with dyslexia, such as Albert Einstein Henry Ford, John F. Kennedy, John
Lennon, Leonardo da Vinci, Pablo Picasso, Richard
Branson, Walt Disney, Winston Churchill and so many more, I do not think that
anyone now would class these people as stupid.
If we can
increase inmates’ self confidence through awareness of their own learning
requirements, removing the stigma of ‘stupidity’, and help them understand the
value that training can have in broadening the possibilities available to them
in “outside” life, we would get a lot more prisoners being willing to enrol for
education and training. As soon as an inmate decides they are open to the
prospect of learning they have made the first step to enriching their own lives
by increasing their knowledge and gaining a new perspective on life.
Once
inmates are enrolled it is very important for those in teaching positions to
follow the Special Educational Needs and Disability Act of 2001, which offers
guidelines on how to adjust an educational environment for people who have
disabilities, and for teachers to understand that people with dyslexia learn
with entirely different learning strategies from traditional teaching
practices. Approaches such as multi-sensory teaching methods, tactile (sensory-based)
and kinesthetic (movement-based) methods and very
practical based learning and training can be used so students can learn through
their actions rather than just word-based input. Small class sizes help all
students as the teacher can devote more time to each person, but some
individuals with dyslexia may need one to one tutoring, particularly inmates
who are unfamiliar or uncomfortable with the idea of educational training, even
a different learning environment from the usual classroom setting could improve
their ability to learn. Other aspects to be considered include exercise and
diet, which should include fatty acids like cod liver oil which helps the
memory retain and recall information and improves the ability to concentrate.
With technology
constantly evolving dyslexic people can overcome some of their difficulties
with
such things as texthelp and speech recognition
computer software, reader pens and digital voice recorders. Audio books can
introduce spoken literature and even watching television can help literacy with
ceefax teletext’s written
subtitles that show a written word which corresponds with the word being spoken
and helps to reinforce recognition of the patterns of letters that create
words.
If the
prison service could just get these individuals educated and trained and help
them to gain a sense of satisfaction in their personal learning achievements
these inmates self-confidence and ambition would have a chance to grow and they
may be able to change their lives for the better and for the people around
them.
Written
by Mr Levon Lumb (dyslexic)