Digital education: it can provide jobs in the technology sector even for prisoners

Coracle Online Ltd has now distributed 2,600 laptops with educational software to most UK prisons, or approximately one in 30 prisoners. The results may show that digital education may have an advantage when it eliminates Internet-related distractions.

Despite all the potential that online learning brings, with platforms like Google Classroom distributing classes more effectively, a constant internet connection also comes with noise. Students who are connected to the internet are more likely to have difficulty concentrating on the task at hand, whether this is due to their phones or Internet-connected Chromebooks.

It’s no wonder that banning phones in classrooms can improve grades or that high school teachers say their students now find reading long texts without regular breaks more exhausting. Recent research recommends that teachers teaching something online should interact more with students to get their attention, and that students should turn on their cameras to maintain accountability.

Compare this to trying to get an education in prison, which until now felt like something out of the Stone Age. In fact, it is distance learning using pen and paper. The Chromebooks Coracle hands out to prisoners offer something more reminiscent of the pre-internet days of Encyclopedia Britannica CDs.

Lots of diverse educational content, but internet access is blocked for security reasons, such as preventing people from planning illegal activities or contacting victims. Inmates using Coracle Chromebooks typically spend several hours a day on their devices in their cells, reading magazine articles or watching videos of higher education courses taught by other academic institutions.

The only downside to being offline is that if they want to explore a topic like criminal justice, inmates don’t have hyperlinks they can click to read more. According to Paul Hamilton, one of the authors of a recent study by Nottingham Trent University that looked at five prisoners using Coracle laptops, some prisoners found it frustrating.

Still, everyone completed the course and earned grades, “often with high grades,” Hamilton says. The benefits include not only better employment prospects after being granted parole, but also a greater sense of strength, agency and self-confidence. Fuzzy concepts, but crucial to reintegrating into society and preventing the risk of re-offending.

The U.S. has already implemented broader initiatives to educate prisoners using digital devices, and several states have programs that include tablet distribution and Zoom lessons, although some of these charge high fees and appear to be exploitative.

One organization called The Last Mile claims that the recidivism rate among graduates of its digital courses on topics such as coding and web development is around 4%, which is a fraction of the national rate of 61%. Several graduates have found jobs in the tech industry at companies like Slack, Zoom and Dropbox, and students never have direct access to the Internet.

There are no clear-cut solutions in criminal law. Even in the case of the Nottingham Trent study, which took place in 2023-2024, one prisoner in the study dropped out early on, and another said he spent the first two weeks on his Chromebook playing chess. But he eventually got into the course and completed it like everyone else.

The evidence is clear that educating prisoners works. In the UK, around three-fifths of incarcerated people leave prison without work or education, but research shows that when prisoners participate in some form of education, recidivism rates drop by between 20% and 40%.

With any luck, Coracle could secure more contracts with the British prison system, which operates as Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, and expand its educational content so that it looks less like a limited version of the Encyclopedia Britannica and more like a ring-fenced microcosm of the web. Over time, inmates in the program may find that the isolation from endless online distractions will be an advantage.

Hamilton notes that some of his students sometimes complete year-long internships as correctional officers. “The scary thing is when they finish… they say the most liberating thing about working in a prison is, ‘I don’t have a phone,'” Hamilton says. “I can’t hear that sound of social media.” This is an obvious bonus that should be taken advantage of. ©bloomberg