Study title

Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.

Interrupted Education: the Criminal Justice System and Educational Progress of Young Offenders, 2008-2009 investigated the impact of the criminal justice system on the lives of young men in custody. Building on their educational histories, the study looked at whether their progress was subsequently exacerbated or ameliorated by the system. The project also explored how these young people re-deployed literacy skills as they negotiated prison bureaucracy.

The research was undertaken over 14 months, centring on the experience of young men in one prison. The research centred on one establishment, engaging the whole prison, but drawing particularly on the rich narratives of selected young people. Data collected and analysed were from a pre-existing database of juvenile offenders’ experience of education; questionnaires completed by 618 young men in custody; a further 40 in-depth interviews with young prisoners; and a number of ad-hoc cumulative dialogues with a range of staff. (The data available from the UK Data Archive only includes the quantitative questionnaire data and does not include any qualitative interview transcripts.)

Further information is available from the interrupted education - interrupted life project web pages and the ESRC Award web page.

Main Topics:

The dataset covers the following issues:

• the literacy and numeracy levels of the young people
• whether the young people were first-time or repeat offenders
• what they had been doing prior to incarceration
• their hopes for the future in relation to study and work
• the length of time between committing the offence and being sentenced
• the number of times they attended magistrates court and/or crown court
• whether they had had to report to the police while awaiting sentence