By Eve Tailor and Dan Jones

Numerous prisons, charities, and prison education providers deliver peer mentoring schemes relating to education, skills, and work (ESW). Where successful, these schemes are viewed as significant in the delivery of ESW and have been highly praised by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and Ofsted. However, practice is inconsistent and there is limited evidence about which delivery models are most successful. The rationale for undertaking this research was to understand effective practice in ESW peer mentoring in more detail, including the functioning of these schemes. The findings from this study will be used by the HMPPS Prisoner Education Service team to inform ESW peer mentoring policy development.

Findings are based on 48 qualitative interviews with mentees, mentors and ESW staff members across 5 male prisons in England in April and May 2023.

1.2 Key Findings

A variety of mentoring schemes operate in ESW within men’s prisons. The setting, structure, purpose, and formality of schemes explored in this study vary significantly. For example, formalised schemes had structured mentor/mentee relationships and clear staff oversight. These schemes tended to focus on skill development, such as reading. Less formalised schemes often had flexible and less structured operation, with mentors supporting multiple mentees. These less formalised schemes often involved supporting staff to deliver ESW services. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to peer mentoring in ESW, allowing individual sites to tailor their provision to the learners at their site.

Some of the enablers of effective practice identified by participants in this study included:

• mentors having previous experience as a mentee or mentor in other custodial and non-custodial settings,

• approachable mentors helping to facilitate mentee recruitment and effective running of schemes,

• privileges and low-risk status enabling greater access to the prison site and recognition of the hard work of mentors.

Some of the barriers to effective practice identified by participants in this study included:

• regime and restricted movement preventing access to mentoring,

• limited awareness from operational staff about the purpose of peer mentoring,

• lack of appropriate space on wings to provide support,

• recruitment issues arising from stigma and lack of awareness, and

• a lack of a ‘pipeline’ for new mentors which made some schemes unsustainable.

Participants identified a range of benefits and drawbacks associated with ESW peer mentoring. Benefits included improved staff-prisoner relationships and the development of soft skills such as communication and learning new skills.

Drawbacks identified by participants included mentors having to deliver mentoring during association and losing their ‘down time’, becoming demoralised by the lack of engagement, and previous poor experiences of mentoring being “off-putting” for future participation in schemes.

Ministry of Justice Analytical Series, London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2024. 41p.

By: John Tillson and Winston C. Thompson

In this chapter we analyze general views on punishment in order to consider what behavioural requirements schools may establish for students and which (if any) they may enforce through punishment, during compulsory education. Punishment, as we use the word, is the intentional imposition of burdensome treatment on someone – usually on the rule breaker – for having broken a rule, partly because the treatment is burdensome. By carefully analyzing various aspects of punishment, we aim to identify principles that should guide and constrain which behaviours schools punish, and how and why they punish them. In brief, we develop the following principles regarding legitimate requirements that can be made of students and the ways punishment may be used to enforce them. Before children are autonomous, schools may establish both paternalistic, and other-regarding requirements, but not requirements imposed from within comprehensive conceptions of the good. They may punish children in order to ensure a fair distribution of the burdens and benefits of social arrangements. Schools may punish children for paternalistic reasons, including developmental reasons, but not for reasons of general deterrence. When children become autonomous, compulsory schooling may establish only other-regarding requirements of student conduct. They may punish to ensure a fair distribution of the burdens or benefits of social arrangements; this includes punishing for reasons of general deterrence, due to children’s responsible choices enhancing their liability, as well as for other-regarding developmental reasons.

We acknowledge that more or less detail may be given for operationalizing and implementing these principles. Given the generality of our task, we offer limited detail in this regard. A yet more comprehensive account would explain by what authority schools may make and enforce requirements, and to what extent (if any) students or parents should have a role in the deciding requirements. For our present purposes, we highlight that however this authority is distributed, there are better or worse decisions that can be made. In this chapter, we seek only to guide the content of these decisions through identifying appropriate goals for and constraints on school discipline.

Pedagogies of Punishment The Ethics of Discipline in Education, Bloomsbury

By Jon Collins

No-one disputes the importance of prison education. But does it help people turn away from crime and live personally fulfilling lives? And what are the key elements which make for ‘good’ prison education.

In this evidence review, Jon Collins, Chief Executive of Prisoners’ Education Trust (PET), looks at:

• The educational needs of people in prison

• The current state of prison education

• The evidence base for the effectiveness of prison education

• Critical success factors for high quality prison education.

Mildenhall Suffolk UK: Clinks, 2024. 21p.

By Judith A. Ryder

The rate of female incarceration continues to surge, resulting in over 714,000 women currently being held behind bars worldwide. Females generally enter carceral facilities with low educational profiles, and educational programming inside is rarely a high priority. Access to education is a proven contributor to women’s social and economic empowerment and can minimise some of the obstacles they encounter after being released from custody. Support for the intellectual potential of incarcerated female ‘students’ can address intersecting inequalities that impede access to social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure. Policymakers, academics and activists concerned with gender equality must begin by focusing on academic and vocational program development for female prisoners, built through strong community partnerships, and inclusive of trauma informed supports.

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(1), pp. 139-149. 2020

By Benjamin Justice

Researchers have written a good deal in the last two decades about the relationship between public education and criminal justice as a pipeline by which public school practices correlate with or cause increased lifetime risk for incarceration for Black and Latinx youth. This article flips the script of the school-to-prison pipeline metaphor by reversing the question. What are the effects of criminal justice on public schooling? Reviewing recent social science research from multiple disciplines on policing and incarceration, this article describes the relationship of criminal justice to public education as hobbling, a social process by which the massification of policing and incarceration systematically compromises the ability of target demographics of American children to enjoy their rights to a free and appropriate public education.

Annual Review of Law and Social Science, vol. 17, 2021. pp 31-51