Prisons in England and Wales. An inside look [7th March 2008]

[7th March 2008]

This is a report written by Robert Yates, intern to Lord Taylor, on a committee meeting regarding the Annual Report on prisons.

Penal Affairs
Speaker: Anne Owers CBE,
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England & Wales

The committee was held on Tuesday 5th of February 2008. The meeting was based on the annual report of HM Chief Inspector of Prisons which was published on 30th January.

Cheryl and I arrived 5 minutes after the meeting has started. To begin with the committee was not particularly positive with a lot of negative discussions. Such as:
• The high numbers of 18-21 males who re-offend
• Prison resources going towards additional rooms and space
• Friday recreational time for prisoners being cut
• Prisons sucking up money in comparison with very little money towards crime prevention
• Mental health nurses have recently highlighted a significant problem inside prisons

Further topics included self harm, bullying and the introduction of titans (large super prisons). I found the part concerning mentoring prisoners very interesting. This is a program where someone mentors a prisoner and helps them deal with ‘the most difficult part for prisoners’. Which is leaving prison.

The conversation turned to under 18 year old women. Anne Owers CBE saying that prison is not the place you want to be when under 18. But as it is sometimes necessary, then the best options are small units for young women, committed staff, which reduce levels of self harm. There are currently four mother and baby units in the prison system. Anne Owers CBE commented that you have to think about the interest of the child. I understood this to meant that, babies are not designed to be brought up in Prisons, and if there is any way that they can be brought up somewhere else, then this would be beneficial.

There seemed to be some bad news with regards to the increase in self harm figures. Some progress has been made in regards to risk assessment for first night prisoners. This has led to a dramatic drop in suicide amongst prisoners in their early days.

Questions were then put committee members to Anne Owers CBE.

I have heard good things about prisoners who have gardens to look after. Is it possible to have gardens for higher security prisoners?
Indeed they are very good for self esteem, not all prisons unfortunately have the luxury of these gardens, but more at trying to be introduced. Prisons need to show a fair but tough stance. Prison is not meant to be easy. The media portrayal betrays this view. Prisons encourage irresponsibility and not responsibility. They need to be decent and safe, but do not need to be nicer places.

What is happening with the increasing figures for lifers? (those who have to serve a life sentence)
Lifers are being kept in prison due to overprotective parole boards. With the chance that MPs and parole boards are getting too close. With 10,500 lifers and indeterminate, this is an issue which needs closer attention. Especially as this number is the highest in Europe and suicide amongst lifers has increased.

The issue of Titans was discussed.
Anne Owers CBE, made it clear she was not a fan of large prisons. Small prisons by and large work better. She mentioned an example of a very large prison opened in Paris in the 1980’s, France has never tried this again. An issue with large prisons is that it begins to go down the American route of human containers. Small prisons seem to work better by good relationships and work well even with limited resources.

Friday Lunchtime lockup was discussed
No organised activities. The latest in cost cutting measures. Prisoners already spend most of Saturday and Sunday in their cells. Not good news.

Is recruiting staff a problem?
Recruiting staff is not such a large problem as it used to be. There are small problems in London and South East due to the large cost of living.

The problem of drugs in prisons.
Drugs in prisons we are told is less of a problem than it used to be. But Anne Owers surprised me saying that we can never remove them completely. This may be simply realistic, but surely it should be her dream and aim to see that they are removed completely. Alcohol was mentioned as it is a large contributor to violent crimes. And an issue which needs to be addressed.

Other issues
The youth justice board deals with youths and crime prevention. 74% of their money is being spent IN prisons. This allows only 26% of the money going towards crime prevention. This should be the focus. There is a thought across parties that prison by itself doesn’t work. Rehabilitation needs to be increased and crime prevention increased.

Conclusion from the meeting.
20 years ago the prison population could fit inside the House of Lords. Now, with near to 100,000, the prison population would nearly fill up the Twickenham sports stadium. I left with the feeling that this situation was urgent. The priority being acting on crime prevention, dealing with titan prisons and helping prisoners with mental health issues.