Tony Hatfield's Retired Ramblings

Good Start Charles!

I wouldn’t mind collecting a pound each time, when addressing magistrates, I mentioned the futility of sending a young lad into custody for a short period. Leaving aside the cost of “warehousing”, magistrates seemed quite unable to grasp that during a period of incarceration under two years the prison service would be unable, in accordance with their mission statement to “help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after release”. The offender was 99% certain to join the group of 50% - 75% if he was under 17- who would be returning into custody within a couple of years. They seemed to be oblivious of the cost. During a rather more bold mitigation, I even invited the bench to consider whether, if they were using their own money, they would fritter it away in such a cavalier manner!

In 1992, there was a leader in the Guardian containing this: -

“While in prison, one third lose their home, two thirds lose their job, over a fifth face increased financial problems and two fifths lose contact with their families. Is it any wonder that they turn to further crimes? David Waddington, a former hardline Conservative home secretary, concluded in office that prison was an expensive way of making bad people worse. In fact, it is more complicated than that. One problem is poor basic skills. Some 50% of prisoners have a lower level of reading skills than an 11-year-old, 65% lower numeracy skills, and 80% lower writing skills. Their mental health is a further problem with 70% suffering from at least two disorders. A similar proportion suffer from drug misuse of whom 80% have never had any contact with drug treatment services. These deep-rooted problems are not just a challenge to the Home Office but to education, housing and health too. In his forward to the report, the prime minister emphasises the need to "redouble efforts to rehabilitate prisoners back into society". Part of this rehabilitation will require a change in the political climate. It means reinforcing the importance of community programmes, as earlier home secretaries sought to do. Under the proposed custody-plus sentence, offenders on short-term (under 12 months) sentence would spend up to three months in prison and the rest under supervision in community programmes. Used properly, this would allow prisons and probation to tackle fundamental problems and even more crucially improve the rehabilitation rate.”

The leader writer was commenting on a report “Reducing Offending by Ex Prisoners” from the Prime Minister’s Social Exclusion Unit which I mentioned in December 2004

In fact, Tony Blair got it right in his forward to the paper:

“People who have been in prison account for one in five of all crimes. Nearly three in five prisoners are re-convicted within two years of leaving prison. Offending by ex-prisoners costs society at least £11 billion a year. This all tells us we are failing to capitalise on the opportunity prison provides to stop people offending for good.”

Those who read this blog see that much criticism has been heaped on Charles Clarke. But in Clarke we have a Home Secretary who just may be prepared to face down the tabloid press. He perhaps realises-there’s enough research in the Home Office-that the present penal system is not only too expensive it simply just does not work. So what’s new?

When he spoke yesterday to the Prison Reform Trust he said:

“As we consider the practical steps intended to equip offenders with the means to avoid reoffending we also need to remember the vital role of family, friends and community. I believe that we sometimes fail to give enough emphasis to the powerful impact of supportive relationships to prisoners – to realise that offenders often care deeply about letting down those closest to them, and want to show that they can change, but somehow just never get there. An offender is much less likely to re-offend if he feels part of a family and community, from which he receives support as well as owes obligations. For that reason, I think that we need to do our very best to ensure that offenders retain ties with family and friends, particularly whilst in prison. I feel that it should be a priority, where possible, for families to visit prisoners and that we should do more to proactively encourage the maintenance of family and friend ties in our prisons and as part of our probation support.”

It’s a good start Charles.

posted by Tony @ Tuesday, September 20, 2005