Mr. Warren Graham:

I would hope there is an appetite from every inmate to engage in education, and in rehabilitation as a result of that. As I said in my submission, I started in school to engage in music, learn guitar and do home economics for a decent bit of grub. It was through that that the teachers coerced me into QQI courses. I was five years in when I started my degree in the Open University. It took six years to do and by the end of it I had completely turned myself around. My thoughts, my ideology and everything else had changed as a result of education. As I mentioned earlier, and as Senator Ruane picked up on, the knowledge is great but it hurts to realise that it probably was my destiny, and that of a lot of others like me, to be in prison. Whether rehabilitation works or not society needs to have some form of responsibility for preventing prisoners, basically. Rehabilitation is for the aftermath of a crime but preventing crime must be done from early on.

On prisoner engagement, there is good participation in the education system and particularly in music and arts, as Ms McCaffrey pointed out. There is a lot of creativity in prison. Guys get the opportunity to engage and the teachers and the education department give them that kind of engagement and the time and space they need to find themselves. It is a credit to them. The teachers would have been the biggest positive influence on me in prison. I hope there is a strong appetite from prisoners to engage in education and help themselves, their families and their communities upon their return.