Question to the Ministry of Justice:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made, if any, of the effect on re-offending rates of prisoners participating in higher education while serving their sentences.

The Ministry of Justice has enabled the Open University and the Prisoners’ Education Trust to use The Justice Data Lab to explore the rates of reoffending for prisoners participating in higher education. The Justice Data Lab provides group-level reoffending information to organisations who have worked with offenders and would like to understand the impact of their intervention.

The Justice Data Lab Analysis (2019) reports that 14% of people who studied for an OU degree committed a proven reoffence within one year, compared to 18% who did not.