Lost Boys Report is ‘Deeply Troubling’

A prison education expert has responded to a recent report which suggests that boys and young men are in crisis, calling its findings ‘deeply troubling’.

Following the publication of the ‘Lost Boys’ report by the Centre for Social Justice this month, James Tweed, CEO of prison education company Coracle, said the themes in the report all point to more young men being sent to prison.

Tweed said of the report:

“I find the Lost Boys report deeply troubling. In fact, it’s genuinely frightening.

“I am particularly concerned by the finding that, since the pandemic alone, the number of males aged 16 to 24 who are not in education, employment, or training has increased by 40 per cent. This does not bode well at all—we could be looking at a significant rise in young men being drawn into crime.”

James Tweed is the founder and CEO of digital learning company Coracle, which provides inmates at 91 prisons in England and Wales with access to education in their cells through laptops. In April 2023, Coracle won a King’s Award for promoting opportunity and its founder’s mission is to end digital exclusion.

Tweed went on to explain:

“We know the prison population consists largely of older men who were once themselves ‘Lost Boys’. They were excluded from school, frequently truanted, and ended up on the margins of society.

As the report states:

‘Exclusions and criminal activity are too often intimately related.’

“We also know that incarceration runs in families. Boys with fathers in prison are far more likely to be incarcerated themselves.

“So we have a huge task ahead of us in supporting young men. The prison population is already unacceptably high and is costing the country a fortune.

“We need to break the cycles of exclusion that lead to these appalling outcomes. It will require investment—but nowhere near as much as it will cost us if we fail to act.

“For me, this reinforces my belief that everyone has access to decent education. We simply can’t afford to have those not in education, employment or training. This is a challenge but, having worked in the prison sector for many years, I know it can be done. As our society becomes ever more digitised, we need to ensure everyone is included. We can’t have any more ‘Lost Boys’.”

Coracle’s tech platform means prisoners can safely access content from organisations such as The Open University and Prisoners’ Education Trust, without using the internet. It is one of the few companies permitted by the Ministry of Justice and HM Prisons and Probation Service to provide prisoners with laptops for education.