Evaluation of Distance-learning Communities in Welsh Prisons (also known as the Welsh Prisons Project)

Abstract

Drawing on theoretical perspectives on adult education and distance-learning, and also literature on prison environments and regimes, this report presents the views of prisoners and prison education staff on initiatives intended to develop distance-learning communities and cultures in five Welsh prisons. Given significant differences in the nature of the populations they contain and the purposes they serve, the report finds that for distance learning communities to develop, due consideration must be taken of regimes and organisational arrangements that may actively restrict the development of higher-level learning in prisons.