By Dorthe Kirkgaard Nielsen – link to Linked-in profile – for EPALE Denmark.

Education is crucial for the inclusion of vulnerable groups in society. It is for this very reason that the Danish prison system has for many years offered a wide range of educational courses to adult inmates in prisons and remand centres around Denmark.

Education is a way out of crime, a way to self-sufficiency and a way to become a citizen in a democratic society on a par with all other citizens, based on a common frame of reference.

"Our goal with the prison education is the same as with all our other employment-oriented services - that the inmates get out and live a crime-free life," says Maja Borch Hansen, development consultant at the Correctional Service. 
 

In Denmark, prisons and detention centres are run by the Correctional Service, and the offer of education in the prison system is laid down in national legislation via the Criminal Enforcement Act and the Employment Decree. The Correctional Service receives a portion of money from the Ministry of Finance for crime prevention efforts - including training.

"The need for education fluctuates from year to year, depending on the inmates," explains Maja.  

The different courses available

In detention centres, inmates have the right to employment-oriented services - including education. In prisons, inmates have the right and duty to participate in 37 hours of weekly employment. 

"An inmate can easily both work in a workshop and take Danish lessons. Others spend all 37 hours on education," says Maja. 

Both AVU - General Adult Education, FVU - Preparatory Adult Education and OBU - Dyslexia Education for Adults are offered in both detention centres and prisons. The FGU - the Preparatory Basic Education for young people, HF and individual HF individual subjects and the AMU vocational adult training courses are also offered in both detention centres and prison.

The Correctional Service itself has employed its own education counsellors and around 70 trained state school teachers. The Correctional Service procures the HF Higher Preparatory Examination Course either by having the local VUC - Adult Education Center - bring in teachers, or via distance learning. The AMU courses are provided either by the nearest AMU provider or by the local AMU school approving a special course, where the Correctional Service's own foremen or specialist teachers teach. 

Within AMU courses, the Correctional Service also runs some OPS collaborations - Public Private Collaborations, where they have agreements in place with private companies. An example might be a local masonry company, which sends out an employee to teach a masonry course approved in the AMU system. 

"So we don't just offer employment, we also give the inmates real skills, which they get a certificate for. Meanwhile, the employee from the private company might find a couple of inmates that the company could use once the inmates are released a few months later. So sometimes the courses also lead to jobs upon release," says Maja. 

Some of the prisons also offer EUD vocational training courses - typically the basic course 2 - in areas such as building painting, gastronomy, agriculture and mechanics. 

If the inmates are in an open prison, they also have the option of release to attend a course.

We give the inmates the courage to pursue an education

The training under the Correctional Service is free for inmates, and generally all inmates can receive training, which typically takes place in smaller groups. 

"All inmates can get an education if they have a real need for one. There may, however, be some conditions that can make pursuing an education difficult. For example, if an inmate has to sit in isolation, or because the person has behavioural issues that prevent them from getting together with others," explains Maja. 

The length of the sentence and the need for education also play a role, because there is a big difference in available options – depending on whether the sentence is four months or 12 years. 

"Our foremost duty is to give the inmates the courage to pursue an education. Get them to dust themselves down and make them believe that they can get themselves an education. But sometimes we find ourselves in a situation where an inmate has had 15 years of bad experiences with education, and we have four months in an open prison to work with. Then there’s not much we can achieve other than giving them professional clarity and helping them find a new way forward," she says. 

A highly motivational job

The path to education for the inmates begins with the LS/RNR screening, which is done on all prisoners. The screening is a way of uncovering the inmate's risk of relapse into crime and any areas that require work to keep the risk of relapse as low as possible. 

"This might be treatment for substance abuse, cognitive therapy, or education. If we discover that the best way forward is education, the inmate will have a chat with one of our education guidance counsellors, and they’ll work together to find the right course. The inmate is also level-tested in various subjects, because even if the person concerned has attended school, they may have forgotten everything they learned, especially if e.g. they’ve been smoking dope for the past 10 years.”

The inmates come with all sorts of issues in their baggage, and even if they themselves want and see education as their way out of crime, they may first need to get their addiction under control, undergo cognitive therapy and have some training on what it takes to go back to school. 

"Several things often require work before an inmate is able to pursue an education and benefit from it. You might be academic, but if you can’t get out of bed, attend school and do your homework, then it’s pointless. So a large part of the role as a prison teacher is about motivating them - it’s a social educational role, helping prepare the inmates for education," says Maja. 

Safety always come first

The many educational options are a great advantage for the inmates, because many of them don’t have a useful education to fall back on. Maja is also experiencing a growing demand for education. 

"Today you can't get a job without an education - whether it's different AMU certificates, and the inmates are aware of that, but our set up has certain limitations," she says. 

"Although we offer a wide range of courses, we are a prison - not an educational institution. So safety always comes first, and this can occasionally cause issues around the qualifications and levels on the various programmes. For example, for security reasons, none of the inmates have access to a computer, which has its limitations when it comes to some of the courses and levels, such as maths where you need to use digital learning tools," adds Maja. 

The difficult transitions

The team sizes on the various courses vary – depending on the level of security at the individual location. However, the teams are always much smaller than at regular educational institutions. 

It is precisely the fact that many people are on training courses that can cause problems when the inmates start training after release. 

"Some drop out of education because they can’t be in a different environment with too many students," says Maja. 

Transitions tend to be difficult, which is why the Correctional Service needs to work closely with both authority workers in municipalities and civil organisations such as Café Exit, which can support the inmates once they are released. 

Despite the challenges, however, Maja has no doubt that education while serving a sentence makes a huge difference to rehabilitation in society. 

"Education can provide a calmer sentence and gives the inmates the opportunity to spend their time on something sensible. When they get out, education is a way out of crime, a way to self-sufficiency and a way to becoming part of society, where you contribute, have a job, can help your children with their homework and write an email to the public sector,’ says Maja.  

Changed his life path

For 37-year-old Kasper Asmussen, education during a prison stay made a genuine difference. It has changed his life path, and today he is studying a master's degree in psychology at the University of Copenhagen.

He was 26 when he was arrested in 2013 and subsequently sentenced to 14 years for serious drug offences. He has been in several detention centres and several closed prisons, in an open prison, a pension and at his own home with ankle chains. In the summer of 2021, he was released on probation on educational terms - the first two years with supervision.

He began his education in a detention centre, where he took some subjects under AVU - General Adult Education and FVU - Preparatory Adult Education. He mostly remembers it as being a little too unstructured, with different options available for subjects in the different detention centres, and a little too cosy. 

"We had some really lovely teachers, but it was a bit too much of a fun club, a bit too easy, a bit too slow, so for me there wasn't an awful lot of professional learning, rather I learnt to socialise," says Kasper. 

When he moved to the prison administration, he continued the AVU and FVU, then he took a combined science course with biology, geography and chemistry with HF subjects at level C - and with religious studies on the side. Over the years, he went up through the levels and finished with a full HF - with an average grade of 11.7. 

He is a big supporter of the opportunity to retrain while serving a sentence, but for the training to be successful, you need the support of the entire prison staff and some motivating and committed teachers who don’t get annoyed when the students ask what a noun is for the umpteenth time. 

"Even though I had gone to school up to and including the 9th grade, I hadn't kept up and I hadn't passed any exams, so I came away with almost nothing. I read my first book in prison and I wrote my first written assignment in prison," he says. 

The fact that he himself achieved a full HF, he largely attributes to the personal study support he received through the Youth Red Cross. 

"If it hadn't been for my student support Josefine, I don't think I would have got my education and certainly not with such a good result, because she took me by the hand, supported me and taught me how to write. I had a spoken language, but didn't know how to string sentences together," explains Kasper. 

Concerns and openness

Despite a full secondary school diploma from his time spent in the closed prisons, Kasper continued to take secondary school courses when he moved to an open prison. 

“I wanted to continue my education, but I was worried about whether I would be able to fit into a class with a lot of other people. So I was given the freedom to come and go and took some HF subjects at VUC Frederiksberg. It went really well and I got 12 in all my subjects," he says. 

Since the school had to monitor his attendance, the teachers knew about his prison stay from the start, and pretty soon he was telling his classmates about it too. 

"You can say that you aren’t able to do group work in the evenings a couple of times, but not six times, and my experience is that it’s best to just be open about your situation. In any case, I only received positive responses. Not on my crimes, but on the fact that I am trying to get out of crime by getting an education," says Kasper. 

Need for help and support

He expects to finish his psychology studies in the summer of 2025, and would then like to work with a mix of clinical psychology and research. For him, education is clearly a way to become a democratically contributing citizen. 

"Many criminals are often illiterate and not particularly reflective, but an education teaches you to reflect and change your behaviour, so I really believe that education is the way out of crime, although it’s hard to implement. Because there is a great deal in the inmates' environment that works against them. When you choose to get an education, you are seen as a nerd by the other inmates," he believes. 

Success requires someone to push and support you, or that special education departments are set up, as was the case at Søbysøgård, where he also served part of his sentence. Because everyone there is employed in education, and so it’s easier to stay motivated.