With the justice system failing so comprehensively to do the business for prisoners, as last week’s FE Focus report on basic skills for inmates shows, it is timely that a group of 12 judges are to mix it with the people their profession has sent down.
The judges will visit Birmingham Prison, where they will observe prisoners taking part in lessons.
The visit has been organised for Friday next week by the Forum on Prisoners’ Education which, says its own blurb, “believes that education in prisons should be centred on the needs of the individual prisoner, for whom it can hold the key to living without crime by building self-esteem”.
Most worthy, but do criminals lack self-esteem?
Admittedly, being caught is bound to be damaging to one’s confidence, but the fact that so many criminals re-offend must, in itself, show that many criminals, far from suffering poor self-esteem, have a great deal of faith in their abilities.
