London Review of Education
Volume 12, Number 2, July 2014
Anne Costelloe and Kevin Warner
The nature of the education offered in prisons varies greatly. Provision can be focused narrowly on limited objectives, such as training for employment or seeking to ‘address offending behaviour’. On the other hand, where prison education follows the policies of the Council of Europe or the European Union, which are drawn from the traditions of adult education and life-long learning, it becomes a more comprehensive and transformative experience for men and women held in prison. Underpinning these different approaches are two very different perceptions of those held in prison: one sees merely ‘an offender’, while the other recognizes ‘the whole person’ and his or her membership of society. Where narrow and negative concepts of the men and women held in prison prevail, one tends to find severe limitations on the quality and quantity of the education offered. Four such ‘curtailments’ are discussed.
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While a doctoral student at Trinity College in the 1970s, Paul O’Mahony also did research for penal reform groups. Then, from 1981 to 1993, he worked in the Prisons Division of the Department of Justice. Word had it that the Department of Justice didn’t really want a social psychologist focused on research – but they got one anyway courtesy of the Civil Service Commission. They were fairly ok with psychologists looking inside people’s heads, but not so keen at looking at wider issues such as the lives those in prison experienced, their backgrounds and the social issues which brought them