The UK prison service is in crisis. Nearly 40% of young adult inmates spend less than ten hours a day out of their cells. Fewer than half of prisons provide adequate 'purposeful activity'. Boredom increases drug use. Self-harm and suicides in prison are increasing.
Current sentencing is based on symbolic severity of the offense committed; sentencing guidelines are arbitrary and often exessive. Politicians believe in deterrence, so increase maximum sentences rather than increasing the probability of being caught. Punishment for its own sake makes people think of themselves, not their victims.
Offenders already have problems. Up to 75% are illiterate, innumerate or without qualifications. Many have spent their childhoods in care, experienced abuse or seen violence in the home. Many also have mental health problems, which can be made worse by imprisonment. Women are more affected than men. [See also my post on new findings on criminality and brain development: Age of Criminal Responsibility.)
Larger prisons are more difficult to run. Inevitably they are further from the homes of many prisoners, despite the fact that family contact is important to rehabilitation; prisoners who receive no family visits are 21% more likely to reoffend.
Some 200,000 children in England and Wales have a parent in prison. Locking up too many people for too long wastes money and wastes lives.
Money saved by recent prison closures have not been transferred to the
probation service to provide education and training in the community
without the damaging effects of imprisonment.
The remedies
# Priority should be 'to do no harm'. As few people as possible should be uprooted from their family, if they have one. As few children as possible should be left fatherless or motherless due to imprisonment.
# Take precautions to prevent crime. Schools should teach children about restorative principles: the reason for not harming another person or community is that it would hurt them - not that you might face punishment if caught.
# Prisons need to be places to provide remedial educational and PSHE (personal, social and health education). Currently this is not possible in overcrowded and understaffed institutions.
# Savings from prison closures should be earmarked for non-custodial programmes (including those for mental health programmes).
# Many victims want not mere 'toughness' but action to make others less likely to be victims. This might include 'restorative justice' where a victim (or surrogate) expresses feelings and asks questions. This can lead to offenders to feel empathy, and motivate them to co-operate with reparation and rehabilitation.
# Ideally we would move to a system that reserved prisons for those with a high risk of reoffending, absconding or non-cooperation with community-based measures.
Source: Martin Wright 'How to tackle the prisons crisis' in the Church Times, 24 Feb. 2017. Martin Wright is a former director of the Howard League and co-editor of Civilising Criminal Justice (Waterside Press, 2013). Figures are taken mainly from the Prison Reform Trust's Prison Factfile, autumn 2016.
