C HAPTER 19. E DUCATION AND CULTURAL ACTIVITIES OBJECTIVE The objective of this chapter is to underline that all prisoners have the right to take part in education and cultural activities aimed at the full development of the human personality. ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES Education and cultural activities shall be provided and encouraged, including access to an adequate library. Education in prisons should be aimed at developing the whole person, taking account of prisoners’ social, economic and cultural background. Education shall be compulsory for young prisoners and illiterate prisoners. The prison authorities should give this aspect of education a high priority. The outside community should be involved as much as possible in educational and cultural activities in prisons. These principles should be presented visually and remain on display throughout the session. BASIS IN INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS Exercise: Using the Compilation of Instruments, the trainees should work in pairs in order to discover the basis for each of these principles. Ask for the information to be reported back to the group. IMPLICATIONS Statistics show that many of the people who are sent to prison have a very poor level of education. For this reason, and to encourage a return to a law-abiding life in the community, access to education, in the broadest sense, is necessary. Resources allocated to prisoners can be a contentious issue, especially if they are in short supply in the community; the trainees may well have strong feelings on the subject. The answer is generally to divert the discussion from the emotional to the rational. The issue of insufficient resources within the community should certainly be tackled, but not necessarily in a discussion on the correct way to treat people deprived of their liberty. 102