Abstract
ABSTRACTPrison education is seen in both criminal and education policies as a way of assimilating inmates ‘back into society’. In spite of the policy emphasis on education, the practices in prison education vary from prison to prison. The stated aim of prison education in EU and in Finnish national level policies is to teach inmates the skills and knowledge that they can use in life after release and thus reduce recidivism. In this paper, we analyse policies and practices related to education programmes in closed prisons in Finland with discourses of employability and therapisation of education. International and national policy documents and ethnographic data and interviews with young people and teachers have been use as data sources. Our aim is to draw a picture of multiple and complex power relations that shape the young adults in prison as flexible subjects that are able to make the transition from prison ‘back’ to civil society.
Highlights
Michel Foucault (1977) states in his famous book “Discipline and Punish” that prison as an institution has managed to build both itself and its inhabitants to be something outside society
Our aim is to draw a picture of multiple and complex power relations that shape the young adults in prison as flexible subjects that are able to make the transition from prison ‘back’ to civil society
We argue that applying a discursive approach in analysis of everyday speech, interviews and documentary data about prison education provides illumination about the subtle ways in which discourses of employability and therapisation in education speak through language and social relations
Summary
Michel Foucault (1977) states in his famous book “Discipline and Punish” that prison as an institution has managed to build both itself and its inhabitants to be something outside society. The discourse of a smooth transition from prison to working life with the help of education is questioned with the comment “At least we hope so” We heard this and other similar comments while taking part in programmes, raising a question about the ideals of individuality and rational choice constructed when young adults negotiated with the discourse of employability (e.g Brunila et al 2014; Fejes 2010). In both policy documents and in interviews, this consensus that most inmates suffer from some kind of learning disability was constantly present and worked as an unquestioned starting point in planning and conducting educational activities (see Brunila 2012): Different learning difficulties and lack of basic skills hamper the employment of an individual and that is why tackling them, increasing knowledge and skills, strengthening self-esteem and learning how to know one’s own strengths are crucial. The alliance significantly changes ideas related to knowledge by reducing it to knowledge about feelings and the coaching of appropriate emotional responses
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