03-07-2025
Prisoners at HMP Hull learning basic reading and writing to prevent reoffending
Convicted criminals at an East Yorkshire prison are being taught primary school-level reading and writing in a bid to stop them reoffending.
ITV Calendar was given exclusive access inside HMP Hull to see first-hand a scheme in which trained prisoners teach fellow inmates how to read.
Some, including violent criminals and sex offenders, are being taught basic letter sounds, or phonics, in lessons normally aimed at five-year-olds.
One repeat offender, who is serving his latest sentence for attacking an emergency worker, said: "I didn't go to school at all as a child and obviously I couldn't read and write. But then that affected me thereafter as well."
The man said in the last 10 months the lessons had helped him to read a letter from his daughter for the first time.
He said: "I cried, to be honest. It was the first email that I could properly read for myself. I sat in the pod and cried when I read it. But it was nice tears."
More than 70% of people in prison struggle with reading. Some cannot read at all.
Around two thirds struggle with basic numeracy.
At Hull - a category B prison built in the 1870s and housing about 1,100 men - each new arrival is asked if they struggle. Those who do are referred to the programme.
The sessions are run by the adult learning charity Shannon Trust, which supports people who have fallen through the cracks in formal education.
The charity says formal education for prisoners makes them much more employable - and having a job halves their risk of reoffending. About 200 have learned to read in the last year.
Analysis by reporter Helen Steel
For more than 150 years, criminals have been housed at HMP them, the Moors Murderer Ian Brady and Charles Bronson, once dubbed Britain's most dangerous in one quiet corner of this overcrowded Victorian establishment, the scene more closely resembles a primary school classroom than a correctional facility.
Inmates sit around a table sounding out digraphs - two-letter combinations like "ch", "sh" and "th".
I have previously reported on the efforts taking place in some secondary schools to help 15 and 16-year-olds learn the basic skills they should have mastered years earlier.
But it is even more striking to witness these grown men, serving time for serious offences, struggling to grasp rudimentary reading and writing.
Some on the outside might take issue with the idea of those on the inside learning soft skills rather than facing tough justice, but the Shannon Trust insists that, ultimately, society at large stands to benefit.
They say that reading is a right that many here have been denied from childhood.
And by giving them that opportunity inside these walls, it will break the cycle of reoffending that so many in here have struggled to overcome.
Teresa Drinkwater, head of education at the prison, said many of the inmates had spent a lifetime hiding their lack of education.
"They are masters at disguising the fact that they can't read or write and they manage that through school," she said.
"When you talk to people who have learned to read, it's the best kept secret."
One of the mentors, who was locked up in January, said he struggled during school but he wanted to help others escape a life of crime by becoming a volunteer with the Shannon Trust.
"My school life was very hard so I truanted a lot over the years," he said.
"I do believe this is why a lot of people do go into crime - because of the reading problems. If I can actually make the difference and help people turn away from crime by learning how to read rather then, yeah, it's great you're making a difference."
Prison officer Jane Good said: "Prisons are always at capacity, unfortunately, and so therefore I think whatever we can do to change that trajectory of life - let's let's just put as much effort into them being able to get on the ladder."
