Reflection
The relationship between educational attainment and offending is more complex than a simple correlation. In the psychology of criminal behaviour, a finding that is also reflected in Estonian data appears to hold: longer participation in formal education reduces the risk of offending.26 Admittedly, the relationship between education and corruption offences differs to some extent from the relationship between education and property offences or violent offences. This may also be explained by the fact that higher levels of education tend to lead individuals into different occupational fields. A person with only basic education, for example, is far less likely in practice to encounter opportunities for corruption.
When considering the link between educational attainment and the risk of offending, it must be recognised that the presence or absence of education, or the length of time spent in education, may mask other characteristics that have a stronger influence on offending risk. The temptation to conclude simply that more education reduces crime captures only part of the picture. When education is analysed in isolation from other factors that affect the risk of offending, research suggests that its weight in an offending risk profile is, depending on the study, around 5–10%. In other words, raising the level of education alone would, at best, reduce the predicted likelihood of risk behaviour by up to 10%.
At the same time, educational attainment and the time spent in education signal the presence of other, more influential factors affecting offending risk. These include literacy, verbal ability, opportunities to experience recognition even after modest intellectual effort, moral attitudes, the social norms of peers and friendship groups, the capacity for sustained intellectual effort, and the absence of substance dependency. The absence of such factors both reduces the likelihood of educational success and increases the risk of offending.
Effective prevention should therefore focus particularly on these factors that shape the course of learning. More important than the formal attainment of a given level of education are the preconditions for achieving that level and the quality of the learning environment. Too often, the mere fact of attaining a certain educational qualification is treated as more important than the development of competences, attitudes and values, and than addressing factors that appear to lie outside education, such as lifestyle. Educational policy should therefore shift its emphasis from formal outcomes towards the process and substance of education, both in supervision and in the support provided to educational institutions.
From the perspective of specific prevention – that is, with regard to the individual, including those who have already offended – broad opportunities should be provided to develop the foundations for learning, both in school and in extracurricular education. In the context of custodial sentences, greater use should also be made of legally available but currently rarely used opportunities for learning outside prison, rather than relying primarily on prison schools.
Addressing the skills, opportunities, attitudes and other factors that underpin educational attainment and reduce offending risk may complicate the execution of sentences. As a result, more readily available in-prison solutions are often preferred, even where more effective options exist outside prison. It is therefore worth considering a clearer distinction between penal policy and the function of sentence enforcement. Otherwise, there is a risk that practical and administrative considerations in the execution of sentences will begin to shape penal policy itself. Ideally, the relationship should be reversed: informed and evidence-based policy should guide practice.
