It has just been announced that Prison numbers have reached an all time high 80,812 an increase of 154 in the past week, with 320 spare places left. At this rate the prisons will be full (including operation safeguard) within the next month. This is a very serious situation and the government have clearly not done anywhere near enough about the obvious need for an increase in prisons.
Operation safeguard costs about £450 a night in a police cell compared to the £66 a night for a normal prison space and since October has so far cost £23million. The situation is extremely serious and New Labour are responsible for this, the rising crime rates over the past ten years coupled with little expansion of the prison service being the major causes.
What are they doing about it now though; the biggest course of action has been to split up the home office’s responsibilities so that the Prison service is now dealt with by the new ministry of justice. Effectively the Home Secretary is passing on the job to someone else, but the problems that the prison service are facing will not be solved by this change, instead I fear it will create a whole range of new problems.
There is a serious problem with our prison service and it’s not just the lack of expansion of the prison service we have more of our population in prison than anywhere in Western Europe; somewhere around 147 people per 100,000. Is this because we are just more criminally minded or is it intrinsic problems within our sentencing system?? Whatever the answer may be we’re still facing the same problem…
25/05/2007 at 12:30 |
I’ve always thought it very well for people like Michael Howard to say “Prison works!”. The problem is however, that we have pne of the highest prison populations in Europe. It does make me wonder if there’ s anything we can do to prevent criminality in the first place, and if we we are doing enough regards rehabilitation.
25/05/2007 at 13:01 |
What needs to happen is to have a better dicipline ethos with children in schools and other instiutions, this way the likelyhood of criminality is reduced. Prison does not work if it is there to solely punish, but it also does not work if it is there to just provide reasonable accomodation to those convicted. Prison only works if there is intially a tough facade to entrench a ethos of respect and then once thast is done follow that up with extensive rehabilitation and continue to help prisoners on release. in our Young Offender Institutions we have an 82% recidivism rate, this needs to change or else YOI will just be a pre school to HMP.
25/05/2007 at 13:56 |
Clearly there needs to be a mixture of policy initiatives to reduce crime rates in this country, and in turn the prison populations of present. Rehabilitation has a significant role to play in this respect. Michael Howard too, however, in proclaiming that ‘prison works!’ i think had a point. Prison can work if it is used as a good enough deterrent. If a potential criminal knows that the consequence of his repeat action will be, without exception, a hefty prison sentence, and one that he can’t just dismiss as immaterial, then I believe prison can play a greater deterring role.
25/05/2007 at 13:58 |
*Apologies. A criminal can of course be male OR female!
26/05/2007 at 10:04 |
Theo is right in that the crisis point that we have been at for some time is wholly the government’s fault.
A major factor related to high levels of incarceration is reoffending. Reoffending rates are at all time highs. As well as being a punishment/deterrent prisons should be preparing its inmates to go on the straight and narrow. Dan is right that rehabilitation is key.
Unfortunately the overcrowding and churn of prisoners in most UK prisons means rehabilitation is next to impossible.
Several tables need to be turned to change this.
1. More prison places
2. Smaller prisons (e.g. I believe Felton is the only young offenders prison for the whole of London – it is a university of crime).
3. Rolling out of voluntary organisations that help place former criminals into jobs upon relaease (I met a chap who ran an organisation like this whose charges were not reoffending, but he could not get the government funding to extend his operation despite its success and the obvious benefits to society at large)
4. Make prisons more spartan (no recereational drugs, TV, PS2 etc etc). Criminals should wish to avoid prison. Many don’t.
Just to show how long this issue has festered it was considered in my first ever post.
28/10/2007 at 12:00 |
Is Thiis Bout Felton Prison?