Why Prison Can Work
Michael Howard once famously said "prison works". It seems he has found an ally in Nadine Dorries, who thinks youth offenders must serve their sentences in full if rehabilitation is to be given a chance.
4 Jul 2011, 19:18
Opening up the market in these crucial areas of policy will cut the binding chains of both the unions and the state. Undoubtedly, by the time 2015 arrives, the general public will have developed a taste for a high service level, patient focused NHS and love the free schools they send their children to. However, it is important that reforms don’t stop there and that we continue at the same pace over the next four years just as fast as we are moving today. Even if it means having to occasionally apply the brakes, slip into reverse and reposition before we move on.
Last week the sentencing and crime bill enjoyed its second reading on the floor of the House of Commons. It was a debate of fierce passion and intense policy in equal measure.
The Lord Chancellor has an objective to save £1.9 billion per year as his department’s contribution to paying off the massive debt Labour left behind.
I hope he liked my helpful suggestion, which was that if the running costs of private prisons are 40% less than state run prisons, why aren’t we exploring why that is and maybe considering outsourcing the running of all our prisons to the private sector? I ask this question not out of a facetious desire to see the state reduced as much as possible, but because I think, unlike the Lord Chancellor, that prison can work well.
Having spent the best part of a year in and out of prison when working for Oliver Letwin during his time as Shadow Home Secretary, I witnessed at first hand the type of young men who fill our Youth Offending Institutions. Almost always on drugs (in Styal women’s prison that figure was 100%) they almost all have learning difficulties of some sort and/ or mental health problems as a result of drug use. They can’t read or write, don’t understand order or routine and hardly ever attended school, because from an early age no one took them. They rarely had a father figure present in their life, or conversely, too many in rapid succession. Many were raised in chaotic backgrounds with no understanding of what a cooked meal was, no social skills, no hope, no aspiration, no ability, no discipline, no love, no order, and no affection for almost all of their lives.
A Youth Offender Institution can change a lot of that. One of the biggest problems is that education in a YOI is only available for those serving a sentence of twelve months or longer. This needs to change. If these young men serve out their full sentence, they can access effective abstinence drug rehab programmes. They can learn life skills and apprentiships, such as bricklaying, plastering, catering, and gardening. I saw the positive results of that type of skill focus at Thornley Wood YOI in Warrington, amongst others.
They learn order, discipline, and the benefit of three meals a day. They have exercise, routine, develop social skills, learn to wait, share, be polite and have a key worker officer who for the first time for many, shows an interest in their life chances.
This all falls down however when, at discharge, instead of being able to find housing and a job they often end up back in the chaotic lifestyle they knew before and quickly slip back in through the revolving door.
This is where schemes like Peterborough’s Social Impact Bond steps in and helps with accommodation and jobs. The organisation is only being ‘paid by results’ in terms of keeping the re-offending numbers down.
I was once very moved when I met a young man in his cell in Northallerton. Everything he owned was neatly folded. His shoes gleamed and winked out at me from underneath his bunk. His toiletries were tidy and ordered and on his blanket, his finished homework sat finished and neatly proud.
His life story was agonising and as we talked about his future he offered me his advice, which was that there would be far less recidivism if sentences were served in full and inmates had a chance of a house and a job when they left. I am not saying that every YO feels like the young man in Northallerton, but almost every member on each and every YOI team voiced the same concerns.
A contentious position with many asking ‘why should he have a house and a job’? What about the victim? A fair and relevant point. However, why should he have been born into the life he was is the bigger question. Especially for a politician, because the fact that he was is our failing.
If someone breaks the law, they have to be punished. This is a non-negotiable rule of life, unless you are on planet Ken. However, what we should do is focus all our efforts into the institution of prison in order to ensure that we do our very best to turn those young lives around and by doing so, protect citizens. The broken society is the real problem we need to address and when we do that is where the real savings will be made.
We need to tackle the causes of crime. Sound familiar?
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