City & Guilds helps keep reoffenders locked out of prison
The Ministry of Justice has published an analysis which examines the reoffending behaviour of 5,768 people who registered for one of six City & Guilds courses whilst in prison.
10 January 2019
The results show that those who registered for and participated in a course in Construction, Hospitality or Maths and English were less likely to reoffend, and committed fewer reoffences, than those who did not register for any course. Today’s release follows on from statistics published in February 2017, which found that offenders who had enrolled on a City & Guilds qualification and gained certification within the year being analysed, were less likely to re-offend, had a lower frequency of re-offences, and took longer to re-offend than those who had not.
The analysis released today measures proven re-offences for a ‘treatment group’ of offenders who undertook a course in prison some time between 2011 and 2016, and for a ‘comparison group’ of similar offenders who did not take one.
The findings clearly show the positive impact learning has, with reoffenders taking City & Guilds’ courses in Construction, Maths & English and Hospitality all significantly less likely to commit another offence than those who do not.
As well as reduced reoffending rates, those undertaking a City & Guilds course were also more likely to experience longer gaps before reoffending. There are over 80,000 people currently in prison across the UK and numbers have been rising steadily over the past few decades. This costs the tax payer large sums of money and removes potentially productive people from society.
Kevin Wilkinson, Business Development Manager at City & Guilds said: “We’ve always believed in the power of learning to create positive change. Equipping prisoners with skills to help them become employable upon their release is an important step towards reducing the prison population and crime rates in this country – this report provides us with the data to be able to back up our beliefs.”
City & Guilds works with over 120 prisons across the UK and supports around 50,000 learners a year to gain the knowledge and skills they need to secure employment and realise their potential. City & Guilds works directly with Her Majesty’s Prisons as well as the Offender Learning and Skills Service (OLASS) through contracts held by Novus, Milton Keynes College, Weston College and PeoplePlus. It also works with the private prisons network, either directly or again through education contractors. City & Guilds extends its reach beyond the gate with probation officers to help give prisoners a pathway through to further education and training.