MILLIONS of pounds have been spent by the Home Office on “thinking skills” courses for offenders who are unable to understand them.

The programmes are too demanding for many offenders with reading and writing skills below that of an 11-year-old child, according to research published yesterday .

The findings are the latest blow to the courses introduced by the Prison and Probation Service to reform criminals. Early results suggest that teaching offenders to empathise with their victims has made little difference to reconviction rates.

The study of Think First, Enhanced Thinking Skills and Reasoning and Rehabilitation courses in six probation areas found a serious mismatch between the content of the courses and the skills of offenders placed on them. One offender told researchers: “We would understand it better if the language was easier.”

The report concluded: “For many offenders, the demands of the three programmes exceeded their literacy skills.”

The offending behaviour programmes aimed to teach offenders how to analyse and change their thinking in the hope that it would reduce re-offending.

Courses are delivered in classroom settings and offenders are required to listen to tutors, read handouts, participate in group discussions and complete written exercises.

The study found that the reading and writing abilities of 57 per cent of offenders were below those of an 11-year-old, although the courses demanded reading skills of an 11-year-old or above.

A further 17 per cent had reading and writing skills at or below that of a 7-year-old and 1.7 per cent were unable to read a sentence.

Offenders also had speaking and listening skills well below those required to understand the courses. Their ability needed to be “very high” — at least GCSE grade A-C level or beyond, but 74 per cent of participants were below this level.

The demands of early sessions of the courses were found to be too much for some offenders. “People are put off by the psychometric tests and the complexity of the first few sessions,” one tutor said.

One pupil commented that the early sessions were difficult. “I didn’t understand what they were going on about,” the offender said.

Participants had problems with the vocabulary and language used in the three courses, while some admitted that they were unable to understand or participate in classes.

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