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Last Updated: Thursday, 13 August 2026 12:39

Published: Monday, 29 March 2021 13:22

Written by Patricia Sumner

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Having worked in prison education programmes in Canada, both in federal and provincial institutions, and completing a degree in criminology and psychology focussing on prison education, I was delighted to be asked to review Degrees of Freedom. The book was produced as a celebration of the 50^th anniversary of the Open University, particularly for its work in prisons, with prisoners. It is unashamedly and unapologetically, as one reviewer of the book proposal put it: “…a bit like a love letter to the OU” (p.1). Ten of the sixteen contributors to the book studied with the OU whilst in prison, and the editors provide short biographies of each. It is inspiring that most of those ten either completed their studies inside and/or continued their studies outside the prison, and furthermore, that many are employed in higher education. 

In Chapter one, the editors provide the reader with a ‘map’ through the book, explaining the purpose of each section, and the chapters are organised in such a way that each links to and contributes to the whole. The following three chapters provide a broad foundation, outlining the historical, organisational and sociological contexts in which the OU’s work in prisons was developed, while the last nine chapters, written by prisoners and ex-convicts who have studied with the Open University, provide a superstructure. Finally, interspersed amongst the chapters, are nine vignettes – short narratives by prisoners about their experience of studying in prison – personal tales of the challenges, emotions, interactions with tutors and study within the prison routine. This excerpt in CrimeTalk from The Long Firm captures one possible scenario, after Harry, the gangster on an OU degree, played by Mark Strong, reviews his lecturer's book manuscript.

In chapter two, the changes in the OU curriculum delivery over the last 50 years is discussed, especially vis a vis digital technology; the transition from prisoner to student; and post-release challenges and need for support. The section “Learning in a digital world” in particular struck a chord. Not only do many OU courses require access to a computer, the internet and email, and television for course-related programmes, but “Digital skills are vital for everyday existence; without them prisoners are significantly disadvantaged, and less likely to successfully integrate back into society upon release” (p19). For ‘security’ reasons, policy-makers and prison managers usually do not allow prisoners access to computers. Thus, prisoners are released with an immediate impediment to normal everyday life – use of smart phones, computers and other digital devices.

Northern Irish prisons during the ‘Troubles’, much less prison education offerings in them, is not a subject I’d ever encountered, So the third chapter about the OU in Long Kesh and the Maze prisons near Belfast was intriguing as much as it was enlightening. I finished the chapter in awe of the potential of education to engage competing political groups in resolving ideological issues. I thought about this chapter whilst reading ch. 12, “From D102 to Paulo Freire: an Irish journey” (Laurence McKeown). His statement: “My academic study with the OU…was closely integrated with my developing political consciousness and activism…” (p.179) is both subtly and overtly expressed in other chapters and vignettes.

The historical geopolitical and cultural environment in which the Open University was born is the subject of chapter 4: “A university without walls”. The government’s “…desire to maintain and develop society through broadening prospects for social improvement” and OU staff’s vision of “…the university as part of a social democratic commitment to rehabilitation” (p.51) are central premises of the OU work in prisons, and provided theoretical and practical foundations: “Their pedagogy encouraged learners to be active in constructing knowledge by reflection on experience” (p.51). The inclusion of this chapter, along with the other three in the first part of the book, is pivotal in understanding and appreciating the perspectives of the authors in the second half of the book. Each person reflects on their own lives and the transformation that higher education facilitated in understanding their new identities.

Rod Earle’s and James Mehigan’s chapter, “Open universities, close prisons: critical arguments for the future” contains many compelling and persuasive arguments about the carceral archipelago, the colonial aspects of the prison, the end of the penal rehabilitative dream, and the historical and changing role of universities (both in society and within the prison). 

Personally, this was the most challenging chapter, because, after working in and studying prison education programmes in theory and practice for more than 10 years, I had reached the conclusion expressed so well on page 85: “… the prison is the ultimate symbol of a failed system of criminal justice, …that should be scrapped as part of a wider and more systematic struggle for social justice”. My vision of prison education became more difficult to reconcile with 'correctional' institutions, 'correctional' education and 'penitentiaries'; I no longer wanted to be part of the custodial team by surveilling prisoners’ activities in the education block/classroom.

On the other hand, I met so many earnest and engaged students like Abdulhaq Al-Wazeer (Chapter 10), that I adopted a motto of “If only one person benefits from my work here, then it is worth it”. Abdulhaq expresses it thus: “If the whole society can be afflicted by just one crime, then likewise the whole society can stand to benefit from the education (and thus rehabilitation) of even just one prisoner” (p.163).

One of my mentors in the Simon Fraser University Prison Education Programme and an expert in the field, Stephen Duguid, revisited the demise of education programmes under the ‘What Works?’ agenda in American, Canadian and UK prisons. He states: “…I argue that through education programs prisons can provide for a more ‘natural’, ‘organic’, or ‘authentic’ process of self-transformation through empowerment, communication of values, and the formation of new interests…. It is essential to understand how it works for some and why it fails for others….Once we do this, we may be able to … generate …a dialogue that allows us to view prisoners as subjects rather than objects....” (Duguid 2000: ix).  Ultimately, the strongest commendation for Degrees of Freedom is that it fully respects the prisoners’ voice. 

Happy Golden Anniversary, Open University!

Reference

Stephen Duguid (2000) Can Prisons Work?: the Prisoner as Object and Subject in Modern Corrections. (University of Toronto Press).

Reviewer: Patricia Sumner, BA (Criminology/Psychology) Simon Fraser University, Canada. Former teaching assistant in Prince George Regional Correctional Centre and TA/coordinator in the SFU Prison Education Programme in 3 Federal penitentiaries in B.C. medium & maximum security and sex offender prisons. 

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