Michael Howard was not entirely right when he proclaimed “Prison Works!”.
If prison works, why does the UK have both the highest prison population and the highest re-offending rate in Western Europe? Prison can only be said to work when both these are reduced.
On the latest figures, two-thirds of prisoners re-offend within the first two years of release. Shockingly, three quarters of offenders aged 19 to 21 were reconvicted. And since 1997 the figures have worsened.
This is pretty unimpressive for a government that claimed re-offending was one of its “core priorities”.
Take for example, drug addiction. Research tells us that 60% of all UK prisoners have used hard drugs within 12 months prier to sentencing. This equates to some 48,000 prisoners. Yet only 4,700 in-prison drug rehabilitation placements are available, therefore increasing the likeliness of re-conviction.
Take for example, the literacy level of the prison population. Research suggests that 80% of prisoners have writing skills and 50% have reading skills equal to or below the level of an eleven year old, compared with a national figure of 13%. Yet access to educational facilities is highly limited.
Over half of prisoners are sentenced to terms of six months or less. In such cases the verdict delicately hangs in the balance between community service and a custodial sentence. However six months inside without access to correctional facilities is enough to ruin future prospects.
In such cases the prisons themselves have become a cause of crime.
And what is more, the public seem to be more liberal than they used to be. A recent poll by ICM showed that only 42% agree that prison works, and a slight majority thought that no more prisons should be built. Perhaps this is a grudging acceptance that we can’t just keep building more and more prisons. With the UK’s prison population exceeding 80,000 for the first time, attention might be re-focusing on rehabilitation and even alternative punishments.
One wonders what Sir Robert Peel would do. I’m sure the father of the Conservative Party would be irritated by the sparse and uneven coverage of educational and medical facilities in prisons. It irritated him in the 1820s. The number of people imprisoned for minor offences would irritate him too, as it did when he was Home Secretary. Instead he advocated secondary punishments like the whip.
I’m sure Peel would recommend his personal favourite the ‘Treadmill’, for all the populist, irresponsible, pathetic Home Secretaries who have put their own interests before those of the penal system.
David Cameron should be just as irritated.
18/09/2007 at 18:35 |
Prison works when it is made to work.
The level of offending is down to the consequences of overcrowding in our prison – namely the inevitable failure of rehabilitation efforts in this context. Failing to roll out successful initiatives is another reason that you can argue that this government is especially culpable.
You make an interesting point re drug use. Random testing of prisoners should occur as it does in other nations. Where drug use is shown to be more than negligible, governors should pay with their jobs. That would help focus minds.