§ 11. Mr. Hector Hughesasked the Secretary of State for the Home Department if he will give figures showing the working of the education programme now in operation in Her Majesty's prisons, indicating the number and nature of prisoners dealt with in this way and the effects on them.
§ Miss BaconAll inmates of borstals and detention centres attend educational classes. In prisons attendance is voluntary, and some 8,500 prisoners out of 24,000 elect to attend. About 500 take correspondence courses and a few attend further education institutes outside prisons. About 300 prisoners and 300 inmates of borstals and detention centres attend classes for the illiterate or semiliterate. In addition, about 3,500 receive physical education. The effects of education cannot be precisely evaluated, but there is no doubt of its importance in the training of prisoners.
§ Mr. HughesI thank my hon. Friend for that Answer. Does the programme referred to in my Question include training in spiritual, moral and social duties to the community in which we live, and has it had any effect on reducing juvenile delinquency, in particular?
§ Miss BaconI am sure that inside prisons and borstals there is the kind of training to which my hon. and learned Friend refers. But I cannot say that training in prisons and borstals would have any effect on juvenile delinquency since by the time people get to borstals and prisons they have passed the stage of juvenile delinquency.