Nordmenn i fengsel: Motiv for utdanning
Abstract
Training and education for those in prison constitutes an important but often
neglected aspect of adult learning. A fundamental principle of Norwegian prison
policy states that prisoners should have the same access to social and educational
services as other citizens. The Educational Act recognizes the right of all to basic
schooling, and all teenagers and adults who have completed compulsory school have
a right to three years of upper secondary education. Adults also have the right to
“second chance” or supplementary basic education and/or special education. Today
education is provided in all Norwegian prisons.
In order to establish a sound knowledge base that can inform both policy and
practice, and help prioritize resourcing for prisoner education and training, research
was carried out to determine the educational needs of the Norwegian prison
population. Accordingly, the research examined prisoners’ educational background
and employment experience, educational participation, educational preferences
and motives. This report presents the findings of part of that research. It outlines
prisoners’ motives for engaging in education while in prison and highlights barriers
which may prevent them from doing so.
The study was approved by the Privacy Ombudsman for Research and additional
approval was granted from the prison authorities and the Ministry of Justice and
Public Security. It was carried out over one week in October 2012. All prisoners with
Norwegian citizenship in every Norwegian prison were invited to participate. At the
time of the study, there were a total of 2439 prisoners with Norwegian citizenship
in prison. Data were collected by means of a questionnaire. Of the prisoners who
participated, 1 276 completed and returned the questionnaire. This constituted a
response rate of 52.3 per cent of the total population of prisoners with Norwegian
citizenship. Women accounted for 5.3 per cent of the prison population when data
was collected, and 5.7 per cent of the study population. The average age of the total
respondents was 36 years. Prisoners with reading or writing difficulties received help
to complete the questionnaire. All questionnaires were returned anonymously. The subjects were presented with
15 possible reasons for embarking on an educational program while in prison. They
were asked to indicate how important each of these reasons is for them. Of those
who answered this particular part of the questionnaire 683 already participated in
prison education and 592 did not. The 15 items of educational motive were factor analyzed. Three motive categories
were identified: To prepare for life upon release (Factor 1), Social reasons and
reasons unique to the prison context (Factor 2), and Competence building (Factor 3).
Three reasons were considered as the most important for starting an education, both
among those who had started already and those who had not: To spend my time
doing something sensible and useful, To make it easier to get a job after release, and
To learn about a subject. Younger prisoners were significantly more likely than older
prisoners to say that the most important reasons are to pass an exam or to improve
a previous grade; to make it easier to get a job after release and to use education
as a bridge to more education after release. Similarly, prisoners with a high level of educational attainment were significantly more likely than those with a low level of
educational attainment to say that the most important reasons are to spend time
doing something sensible and useful and to learn about a subject. These two reasons
were also considered significantly more important for those who participated in
education than for those who did not participate. Prisoners with long sentences were
more likely than those with shorter sentences to state that an education is important
to make it easier to get a job, to spend time doing something sensible and useful, to
satisfy the desire to learn, to make it easier to avoid committing crime after release,
to pass an exam or improve previous grades, to learn about a subject, and to be
better able to cope with life after release. The study also showed that prisoners with
learning difficulties were more likely than others to say that improving self-esteem
is important. The prisoners who did not participate in education were presented with 12
possible reasons for not participating. More than one in five prisoners and more than
a third of those under 25 years of age ticked the box “the length of my sentence
makes it impractical”. The mean sentence length in Norway is about three months.
Many prisoner (and perhaps some prison education staff) may feel it is too short a
time to start an education. More than one in five prisoners prefers to work rather
than to go to school. Almost one in five answered that the education programme
they are interested in is not offered in the prison or that they had not been given
enough information about education. Although many prisoners have learning
difficulties only seven percent of them say that learning problems are reasons for not
participating in education.
Publisher
Fylkesmannen i HordalandCollections
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