Links between reoffending and literacy

The government believes that ensuring offenders have the underpinning skills for life (literacy, language, numeracy and basic IT skills), and have developed work skills, will enable them to meet the real needs of employers in the area where they live or will settle after their sentence is complete. Getting and holding down a job is one of the key factors in reducing re-offending – and reducing re-offending benefits individuals, their children and families, the communities in which they live and wider society.

Home Office figures state that in any one year 130,000 people are or have been in prison and around 50% of these individuals have poor reading skills and 81% of all prisoners have writing skills below level 1. There is also research to suggest that many prisoners are dyslexic: in 2000 a study by Edinburgh University found 50% of young offenders in their sample could be classified dyslexic. There is a strong argument that poor reading and writing skills are a major contributing factor in offending, and there is no doubt that it is a severe disadvantage in the job market.

The connection between re-offending and education, especially numeracy and literacy, is reinforced by a report from the Basic Skills Agency in 2002. Basic Skills and Crime, analyses two sets of people - one born in 1958 and the other in 1970. The BSA says the report makes it clear there is a statistically significant connection between repeated offending and poor literacy. The report is available at www.basic-skills.co.uk.

There is also a suggested a link between oral communication skills and reoffending. In 2003, the Learning and Skills Development Agency conducted a study of 211 prisoners at four prisons. Results of this study showed reconviction rates in the first year after release among ex-prisoners who had begun a general education course between 2001 and 2002 ran at 28% compared with a national average of 44% for all offenders. The reconviction rates within the first year for those who studied the English Speaking Board's oral communication courses were even lower at just 21%. You can download the report at www.lsrc.ac.uk/publications/index.asp.

However, a House of Commons Education and Skills Select Committee report in May 2005 found education and training in prisons to be "unacceptable". It claimed that the concentration of prisons education programmes on particular basic skills qualifications "is based on little more than a 'hunch' on the part of the Government" about what will work to improve employability and reduce re-offending.

The Select Committee Report is available from The Stationery Office - www.publications.parliament.uk