Weekly Meeting - Jim Costello

1 August 2019 Prison Education – Jim Costello

Jim Costello was the club’s guest speaker this week. A member of neighbouring Newark Castle Rotary Club, his talk centred on his experiences in the provision of education to prison service inmates, initially at Ranby and later at Nottingham and Whatton prisons.

He provided a background to UK prison’s with a population of 80 000 males and 4 000 females.  He described BAME: Black & Asian Ethnic Minorities, with 14% of our population, but 25% of inmates. Young offenders (16 -21) contain 51% BAME. Cost per prisoner at £38k p.a. He first started in HMP Ranby in 2005 teaching ESOL (English to speakers of other languages). He explained the different categories of Prisons and some information about their Workshop system: Wood Mills, Plastics, Laundry, Textiles and education {Jim’s area where they offer Maths, English and IT (Sage); but now involved in Open University courses.

He outlined the different challenges posed by prisons with differing offender profiles, and provided a comprehensive and occasionally surprising overview of the attitude to education among the prison population, all delivered with humour.                                                                                SC/AR