The report is on its way!
The Prison Learning Network (PLN) officially launched in March 2008 at an event where Jack Straw MP examined what he saw as the major issues in prisons policy as well as the progress and challenges in reducing re-offending.
Well, the PLN did its own invesitgation into what it saw as the major issues and the progress and challenges in reducing re-offending but with its own particular focus on offender learning and skills.
Between March 2008 – March 2009, the PLN team spoke to hundreds of practitioners, policy-makers, governors, and former and current prisoners to help inform its thinking, share learning and work towards the development of a vision for the future of learning and skills in prison.
That vision will be presented on Friday 12th February in the Prison Learning Network’s final report. Check back then to download the report, hear my thoughts and add your own. It may be a ‘final’ report, but it’s not the end of the discussion!
Launching the National Victims’ Service at the RSA
Justice Secretary Jack Straw will set out the next stage of reform in the criminal justice system, building on recent improvements to the support and assistance offered to victims of crime, by responding to Victims’ Champion Sara Payne’s report – ‘Redefining Justice’ – and officially launching the first ever National Victims’ Service.
Chair: Matthew Taylor, chief executive, RSA
To attend this event register online by clicking here.
Correlation vs. Causation
A New Year is here. 2010 promises to be another fantastic year at the RSA for me as well as for the organisation. Unlike the rest of my family and friends, the festive food frenzy and frolics was interspersed with hard study as I began to prepare the first 5000 word essay for my MA. The temptations were many but I managed to squeeze a couple of thousand words out and am thankful that I had the opportunity to reflect on everything I have had the chance to learn, see and experience over the last 6 months since beginning the course and starting to work on the User Centred Drug Services Project (both closely related to one another).
My essay has had me looking at the existing theoretical models of criminality and dependency; essentially the drugs-crime link that has dominated research and policy developments in this field since drugs use was first conceived as a threat in the mid-19th century. Initially presented as a threat to health, it quickly became framed as a criminal justice problem as it began to negatively impact on the 1914 war effort and has continued to be framed as a joint health and criminal justice issue to this day.
The fact is that most of the research about the drugs-crime link has (at varying degrees depending on the theory you’re following) successfully identified most of the correlations between drug use and criminality but it continues to fail to definitively point to the crucial causation part of the equation. Why do people take drugs? Why do people take one drug and not another? Why do people commit crime? Why do some people become dependent? And so on.
Behavioural economics and neuroscience has taught us a lot about the brain and it continues to expand our understanding of certain behaviours and I think it is here that we might be able to start tackling these whys. This is not only because our knowledge about frontal lobes, cortex’s and brain plasticity will increase but because it will open our eyes to new understandings of the environments in which we exist and develop. As my colleague Matt Grist recently wrote in relation to this fabulous publication, ‘the more we learn about what’s in our heads, the more we realise it’s what’s outside our heads that matters’.
The choice to use drugs is usually based on the effects that they produce and to fulfil certain functions. For many the perceived positive effects simply outweigh the negative effects. For some it is part of what is considered ‘normal’ where they live. Whether this is down to the ‘lost social institutions that countered the inbuilt weaknesses of our social brains’ (read Matt’s pamphlet to find out more) or something as yet undefined, drug policy cannot ignore the fact that continuing to frame drug use as a criminal justice and health issue will only continue paste over some of the cracks. This becomes increasingly essential as we find ourselves in a time when polydrug use and concomitant alcohol problems are the defining elements of the European drug problem increasing the risks of acute problems and the development of a chronic drug habit in later life for young people and complicating drug treatment, and increasing the likelihood of offending and violence among older, regular drug users.
Unfortunately I suspect the looming general election will rouse the ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ elements of the debate and focus primarily on enforcement rather than taking the risk to keep scratching at the root causes starting to be uncovered. Oh well, back to my essay…
Christmas isn’t the only forthcoming event!
Ignoring the hiatus created by the forthcoming Christmas break and the inevitable winding down and winding up periods, the User Centred Drug Services Project has wrapped itself around the holiday and has planned a series of exciting events that will bring together the broadest range of stakeholders you can think of.
As you may know, the project is working in Bognor Regis and Crawley in West Sussex. Why? Well, the area encompasses a mix of coastal, rural and urban environments. Bognor Regis, the mid-West Sussex rural belt, and the Broadfield Estates in Crawley offer a rich diversity from which to learn from. Working in these areas also allows us to consider different supply and demand dynamics, both open and more closed drug markets, rural access problems, and ethnic diversity. And it seems that the county has an average number of problem drug users, with around half of those referred to treatment reporting opiate problems, a quarter cocaine (unspecified) problems, and about one fifth cannabis problems. The area therefore provides a typical sense of scale and distribution of problem substances. So that’s why.
The first events will be a series of local workshops delivered locally in Bognor Regis and Crawley. These events will bring together a range former and current drug and alcohol users, service providers, local community groups, local government and local council, community members, GPs, academics, policy makers and RSA Fellows, to help thrash out some of the findings from the initial primary research carried out in September.
These workshops will also develop the local messages that will inform one of the RSA’s most ambitious events, the Route Maps to Recovery Symposium planned for the 18th January 2010.
From in depth primary research, more than 150 drug and alcohol users have told us what they want from a comprehensive service, when they need it and how it should be delivered. They have described what would make them engage more, what would help prevent relapse, who they would want to speak with, how their families and friends might be involved, where they would want to go, who they would want to go with, what barriers exist, what the opportunities are, what is missing and what will help them to stay on the road to recovery.
Using this information we want to design the operating system that could support this and to develop a broad, non-exhaustive menu of new service ideas and support add-ons for delivering personalised, expansive and joined up services that will deliver to user needs and aspirations. We hope that these events will help us do just this!
Want to be involved? Click here to find out how.
and join the discussions here
Credit crunch makes it harder to re-integrate prisoners in society
One under reported impact of the recession is that it makes it much harder to reintegrate ex-prisoners into society.
Strong evidence shows that having a stable job is key to avoiding re-offending. So with economists forecasting a 12 year high in the total number of unemployed people by next year – 3 million – it doesn’t look hopeful for ex-prisoners. The skies are looking black for the country’s recent graduates so imagine how bleak it must seem to those recently released from prison.
Even with the recent focus of resettlement work on getting prisoners into employment, times are going to be hard especially when [too] often the development has been in those industries that are being affected most by the recession such as construction.
Exclude me?!
I take it as a given that the world and his dog is online, using email, has a mobile phone and knows how to use it. Well OK, my mum continues to struggle with predictive text and asked me recently ‘darling, what’s this about birds telling people what they’re doing’ – ‘do you mean Twitter, mum’ – but she’s there, she has a presence in this technologically driven world.
The proliferation of these technologies has created such a profound socio-technical change in the way we live our lives (I don’t remember a time without Google or Facebook) – 60% of current and 90% of new jobs require ICT skills and our social and family networks are increasingly maintained online.
The impact of these changes seems to be ubiquitous – a recent research report highlighted the increasing divide that the changes in the way young people communicate are creating between children and their parents – and they see each other everyday. Imagine then, if you have been imprisoned, without access to any of these communication devices or facilities, unaware of the rapid changes that are occurring in the way we work, learn or socialise.
It’s clear that embedding technology – not necessarily just computers and the internet - is vital in prisons. In Norway, prisoners have computers in their cells with internet access. This might be shocking for some, but as the Norwegian prison officer explained to Erwin James, “… they must be able to access the internet, to help in their education and also so that they know they are still connected to the world.”
Undeniably, there are some great examples of progress taking place in some UK prisons but we seem to be a fair distance away from the Norway ideal. Movement is however in the right direction and the PLN will be exploring this further in its forthcoming reports.
Welcome to the PLN blog!
Thanks for visiting the Prison Learning Network blog! Maybe you’ve heard about the work we’re doing at the RSA, maybe you found this blog through a link, or maybe you just thought it sounded interesting…whatever the reason – I’m glad you’re here!
Fran, PLN Blogger.
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Current RSA Events- The Selfish Society April 22, 2010
- The Big Short April 19, 2010
- The Tyranny of Guilt April 19, 2010
- Red Tory: The future of progressive Conservatism? April 1, 2010
- Doing Good is Good Business? From rhetoric to reality March 30, 2010