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| If Cameron really cared he would cut prisoner numbers | If Cameron really cared he would cut prisoner numbers |
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| Here’s one cut that would do nothing but good: a cut in the rising prison population. Prisons are damaging places that make unstable people worse – dragging them from families or tenancies – and almost bound to reoffend. Only the dangerous should be there. | Here’s one cut that would do nothing but good: a cut in the rising prison population. Prisons are damaging places that make unstable people worse – dragging them from families or tenancies – and almost bound to reoffend. Only the dangerous should be there. |
| Related: The Guardian view on David Cameron’s prisons speech: it won’t work without sentencing reform | Editorial | Related: The Guardian view on David Cameron’s prisons speech: it won’t work without sentencing reform | Editorial |
| Prison reform, said David Cameron today, is “one of the great progressive causes”. He has a gift for verbal empathy on social issues, better at describing problems than solving them. But even fleeting prime ministerial attention is very welcome for this unseen, secretive world of fear and despair. Prisoners do urgently need good education, training, work and drug and mental health treatment. But once again, what Cameron says only bears a passing relation to the policies he has overseen. | Prison reform, said David Cameron today, is “one of the great progressive causes”. He has a gift for verbal empathy on social issues, better at describing problems than solving them. But even fleeting prime ministerial attention is very welcome for this unseen, secretive world of fear and despair. Prisoners do urgently need good education, training, work and drug and mental health treatment. But once again, what Cameron says only bears a passing relation to the policies he has overseen. |
| Related: What a rising prison population says about Cameron’s Britain | Letters | |
| The 30% cuts to prison staff since 2011 mean many more prisoners are locked up most of the time in overcrowded jails. They have no escorts to take them to education, training, exercise or counselling: classes are often half-empty, drug treatment sessions unattended. Prison suicides and instances of self-harming are rising; so is violence for lack of supervision. | The 30% cuts to prison staff since 2011 mean many more prisoners are locked up most of the time in overcrowded jails. They have no escorts to take them to education, training, exercise or counselling: classes are often half-empty, drug treatment sessions unattended. Prison suicides and instances of self-harming are rising; so is violence for lack of supervision. |
| Cameron announced league tables for prisons, pay incentives for success and pilots giving governors more freedom to escape the 456,000 pages of centrally imposed regulations – all good, according to the Prison Reform Trust. But would there be more money for hiring staff? No, money was not the issue. | Cameron announced league tables for prisons, pay incentives for success and pilots giving governors more freedom to escape the 456,000 pages of centrally imposed regulations – all good, according to the Prison Reform Trust. But would there be more money for hiring staff? No, money was not the issue. |
| He spoke movingly of the mothers and babies: 100 imprisoned at some point in 2015 who could have been better cared for elsewhere. Women are more likely to be jailed for non-violent offences than men. He spoke of the high number of prisoners who come from a childhood in care, after the “pain of abandonment”. Yes, prisons should and could be better places. | He spoke movingly of the mothers and babies: 100 imprisoned at some point in 2015 who could have been better cared for elsewhere. Women are more likely to be jailed for non-violent offences than men. He spoke of the high number of prisoners who come from a childhood in care, after the “pain of abandonment”. Yes, prisons should and could be better places. |
| But he shied away from what really could transform prisons and reoffending – sentencing policy. Ever-rising punitive tariffs have caused prisons to fill with people kept there far too long, so Britain locks up more offenders for longer than any other western European nation. Over the years, sentencing tariffs have got steeper, while indeterminate sentences have added hugely to the population. Mandatory life sentences now mean an average 17 years in jail, up from 13 in 2001. More than half of those on remand never get a custodial sentence and should never have been imprisoned at all – they make up 14% of the total number behind bars. | But he shied away from what really could transform prisons and reoffending – sentencing policy. Ever-rising punitive tariffs have caused prisons to fill with people kept there far too long, so Britain locks up more offenders for longer than any other western European nation. Over the years, sentencing tariffs have got steeper, while indeterminate sentences have added hugely to the population. Mandatory life sentences now mean an average 17 years in jail, up from 13 in 2001. More than half of those on remand never get a custodial sentence and should never have been imprisoned at all – they make up 14% of the total number behind bars. |
| Related: Sarah Reed was a tragic victim of how the prison system treats women | Frances Crook | Related: Sarah Reed was a tragic victim of how the prison system treats women | Frances Crook |
| When a prime minister speaks, judges and magistrates tend to listen. The tone struck by ministers over the years has had a strong effect on sentencing. Michael Howard’s thundering “prison works”, when he was home secretary in 1993, sent sentences soaring. Might a call from Cameron for less prison stay their hand? But he didn’t say it – indeed, when asked he denied any softening of sentencing. Besides, these days judges have far less discretion. | When a prime minister speaks, judges and magistrates tend to listen. The tone struck by ministers over the years has had a strong effect on sentencing. Michael Howard’s thundering “prison works”, when he was home secretary in 1993, sent sentences soaring. Might a call from Cameron for less prison stay their hand? But he didn’t say it – indeed, when asked he denied any softening of sentencing. Besides, these days judges have far less discretion. |
| What a missed opportunity. He knows locking up fewer non-violent people for shorter terms could be a win-win, saving on the prison budget and diverting money towards programmes that do stop offending. Each prisoner costs £36,000 a year and most will reoffend. Far less spent on good community sentences and, better still, on the services to stop people offending in the first place, would waste less. | What a missed opportunity. He knows locking up fewer non-violent people for shorter terms could be a win-win, saving on the prison budget and diverting money towards programmes that do stop offending. Each prisoner costs £36,000 a year and most will reoffend. Far less spent on good community sentences and, better still, on the services to stop people offending in the first place, would waste less. |
| Take one example: those mothers Cameron spoke of so movingly. There are some 50 women’s centres, many set up in the wake of the 2007 Corston report on women’s prisons. The idea was for courts to require women to attend as part of community sentences, and so they did. Alana House in Reading is a well-respected centre that offers mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, domestic violence counselling and support with housing and benefits for women needing help with chaotic lives. But like many other centres, it has just lost half its funding. The probation service funded it, but the new privatised probation company ended that support. | Take one example: those mothers Cameron spoke of so movingly. There are some 50 women’s centres, many set up in the wake of the 2007 Corston report on women’s prisons. The idea was for courts to require women to attend as part of community sentences, and so they did. Alana House in Reading is a well-respected centre that offers mental health, drug and alcohol treatment, domestic violence counselling and support with housing and benefits for women needing help with chaotic lives. But like many other centres, it has just lost half its funding. The probation service funded it, but the new privatised probation company ended that support. |
| It’s the same story with other community services that might keep people out of jail: public health was devolved to cash-starved local authorities and then George Osborne cut the allocation. Community addiction services were cut by 19% last year, says the charity Revolving Doors – since when drug deaths and ambulance call-outs for overdoses have risen. Mental health services lost over 8%, yet mental illness is the root cause of much offending, and prisons are the dumping ground for over-stretched services. | It’s the same story with other community services that might keep people out of jail: public health was devolved to cash-starved local authorities and then George Osborne cut the allocation. Community addiction services were cut by 19% last year, says the charity Revolving Doors – since when drug deaths and ambulance call-outs for overdoses have risen. Mental health services lost over 8%, yet mental illness is the root cause of much offending, and prisons are the dumping ground for over-stretched services. |
| On the Nixon-in-China principle, ending our addiction to imprisonment is one great social progressive change a Conservative government could achieve. That’s not politically easy, with the Daily Mail and the rest ready to pounce: the Mail front page today warned, “Soft justice fears as Cameron plans to free offenders from Monday to Friday.” | On the Nixon-in-China principle, ending our addiction to imprisonment is one great social progressive change a Conservative government could achieve. That’s not politically easy, with the Daily Mail and the rest ready to pounce: the Mail front page today warned, “Soft justice fears as Cameron plans to free offenders from Monday to Friday.” |
| Given that barrage, Cameron dares not do the only thing that will make a difference – change the sentencing guidelines to cut the ever-lengthening prison terms. Timid plans for more tagging and weekend sentencing will only cut a few. Twice as many are locked up now as under Douglas Hurd’s liberal regime in the 1980s, when crime was far higher on every measure. | Given that barrage, Cameron dares not do the only thing that will make a difference – change the sentencing guidelines to cut the ever-lengthening prison terms. Timid plans for more tagging and weekend sentencing will only cut a few. Twice as many are locked up now as under Douglas Hurd’s liberal regime in the 1980s, when crime was far higher on every measure. |
| Successive home secretaries strove to outdo one another in populist punitive measures, with Howard followed by Labour’s draconian Jack Straw, David Blunkett and John Reid. Up and up went the overcrowded prison population. | Successive home secretaries strove to outdo one another in populist punitive measures, with Howard followed by Labour’s draconian Jack Straw, David Blunkett and John Reid. Up and up went the overcrowded prison population. |
| Briefly in 2010, it seemed Cameron wanted to follow in Hurd’s footsteps: appointing Kenneth Clarke as justice secretary was a good omen. But he was soon replaced with Chris Grayling. He will be remembered for banning books for prisoners, but worse were his legal aid cuts – and most destructive was a 30% cut to probation funding, and then privatising the service, now in ruins. | Briefly in 2010, it seemed Cameron wanted to follow in Hurd’s footsteps: appointing Kenneth Clarke as justice secretary was a good omen. But he was soon replaced with Chris Grayling. He will be remembered for banning books for prisoners, but worse were his legal aid cuts – and most destructive was a 30% cut to probation funding, and then privatising the service, now in ruins. |
| Every Monday Cameron makes a controversial social speech. Posing in an appropriate backdrop he has inveighed against Oxbridge elitism, told Muslim women to learn English, and offered vouchers for parenting classes – all distractions from banging on about Europe. | |
| Downing Street proclaimed this was the first prime minister’s speech on prisons in 20 years. He plainly forgot he made a similar one himself in 2012. Will this “rehabilitation revolution” be as easily forgotten or will he genuinely cut the prison population? Last week, there were 173 more people locked up than the previous week. | Downing Street proclaimed this was the first prime minister’s speech on prisons in 20 years. He plainly forgot he made a similar one himself in 2012. Will this “rehabilitation revolution” be as easily forgotten or will he genuinely cut the prison population? Last week, there were 173 more people locked up than the previous week. |