Research and analysis

Prison education in England: Educational background and needs

Analysis of prison leavers’ participation in education over time in custody, linked to other sources showing characteristics, educational needs, and experiences

From:
Ministry of Justice
Published
11 September 2025

Applies to England

Documents

Prison education in England: Educational background, characteristics, and criminogenic needs

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Technical guide: Prison education in England: Educational background, characteristics, and criminogenic needs

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Participation in prison education: prison leavers in 2024 main tables (cohort 1)

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Participation in prison education: prison leavers in 2024, highest level of qualification achieved in English tables (cohort 1)

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Participation in prison education: prison leavers in 2024, highest level of qualification achieved in mathematics tables (cohort 1)

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Participation in prison education: prison leavers in 2024, highest level of qualification achieved in vocational courses tables (cohort 1)

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Participation in prison education: MOJ-DfE matched prison leavers main tables (cohort 2)

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Participation in prison education: MOJ-DfE matched prison leavers highest level of qualification achieved tables (cohort 2)

ODS, 25.4 KB

This file is in an OpenDocument format

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Details

This ad hoc statistics report was produced as part of the Better Outcomes through Linked Data (BOLD) programme at the Ministry of Justice.

The analysis presented provides descriptive statistics based on linking prison education data for two specific groups of prison leavers with other sources about their background and characteristics including offender assessment data and National Pupil Database (NPD) data from the Ministry of Justice-Department for Education data share.

It focuses on examining differences in participation in prison education courses over the full period served in custody (rather than courses delivered each year), and compares prison leavers with different characteristics, educational needs and experiences.

Updates to this page

Published 11 September 2025

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