A 2021 report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons – ‘Neurodiversity in the Criminal Justice System’ – suggests it’s entirely possible that half of the people entering the prison system can “be expected to have some form of neurodivergent condition which impacts their ability to engage.” 

It’s troubling information: it represents both a huge fraction of the prison population and a worrying trend in the life chances of neurodivergent people living in the UK today. But the data goes further, if we pursue it: studies on dyslexia cited by contributors to the Review suggest that the prevalence of the condition in the adult prison population could well be over 50%. Speech and language professionals who contributed to the call for evidence cited an estimate that a staggering 80% of prisoners had some form of speech, language or communication need. 

The scale of low literacy and literacy needs within the UK prison system cannot be overstated, and like most complex issues, it’s deep-rooted and nebulous. We need to look to the nucleus of the trend to properly understand how to fix it.

And that means going back to school.

Understanding the school-to-prison pipeline   

The ‘School to Prison Pipeline’ is a term that originated in the United States and is used to refer to the disproportionate nature of youth incarceration that has its beginnings in the education system. It provides a simple model around the disproportionate disciplining between racial groups, leading to unbalanced sanctions, school exclusions, and expulsions. This – and the general climate of their time in school altogether – results in low literacy and lower life chances when they come to the end of compulsory schooling age.   

In the UK, the pipeline tends to be termed the ‘PRU (Pupil Referral Unit) to Prison Pipeline’ and operates slightly differently. The PRU is an alternative educational provision for those who have been excluded from school or are unable to attend mainstream education, and we generally pinpoint this as the main transitional stage between an individual being pushed out of a school and into the criminal justice system. 

Data on exclusion 

• Excluded pupils are 7 times more likely to have special educational needs.  
• The Institute of Public Policy’s 2017 Making the Difference Report notes that only 1% of learners in PRUs go on to get 5 good C-A* (under the new grading system, 9-4) GCSE grades.   
• They also note that in 2017, out of an estimated 85,975 people in the UK prison system, 54,164 had been excluded whilst they were at school. 
• The Youth Safety Taskforce notes that disengagement with learning and exclusions are strong indicators for those at risk of being involved in youth violence.  
• The APPG for School Exclusions and Alternative Provision posited in 2019 that school exclusions make vulnerable young people even more vulnerable, as being excluded leads to a reduction in the number of hours spent in a supervised, supporting environment.  

Literacy and life chances 

Low literacy means that some life chances close off. Employment, further and higher education, and even some social opportunities tend to be harder to come by when there’s a reading barrier. Illegal activity becomes a much more likely prospect within the landscape of an individual’s life, usually because of a couple of factors. 

People who aren’t employed or able to complete the necessary steps to find employment can often feel disenfranchised, leading them to participate in acts that can have quality-of-life-loss consequences, such as physical altercations, substance abuse or anti-social behaviour. Low literacy can also lead to financially-motivated criminal activity: if standard employment becomes difficult to find, somebody who’s struggling to generate income might have to turn to dealing substances or even theft to fill that income gap. 

The end of the pipeline? 

There are, in short, a lot of statistics.  

As a sector, we possess a huge amount of data. We can draw a lot of powerful, valid conclusions; and there is a large population within which to explore neurodiversity and prison and form the basis of a huge pool of very valuable research. But that’s not the important part: we’re not actually seeking causality data and on-paper answers about prison literacy.   

We have that already. We broadly know why low literacy widens the chances of entering the criminal justice system. We know that by raising literacy, we can help people stay out of the criminal justice system. The biggest issue we have in the study of prison literacy today is the focus dropping off once we’ve explored that relationship between a person and why they’ve ended up in the criminal justice system. We still largely see prison as the end of the pipeline – and that’s simply not true.   

We need to re-frame how we think about prisons and literacy and give people the power to break cycles of reoffending. To do it, we have to further explore how we can bolster literacy in a prison setting and give incarcerated people the power to change their narrative, rather than simplify the relationship to a one-way pipeline. Low literacy might, in some cases, lead an individual to the prison system – but literacy fostered whilst within the prison system can reverse the flow, and send somebody back across the bars into a better life. 

Supporting prison reading with the right resources, the appropriate care and attention and dedicated, secure reading aids can change a formerly incarcerated person’s life when they leave the justice system.  

To find out more, check out Secure Reader 2.