What a rising prison population says about Cameron’s Britain
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Version 0 of 1. Polly Toynbee is right (If Cameron really cared he would cut prison numbers, 9 February) that the probation service is in ruins. Once a viable alternative to prison, probation has been systematically destroyed by successive governments over the last 20 years. For the first 15 of those years, governments attempted to rebrand the probation service as the tough new community agency, there to protect the public. This was done by removing the requirement in a probation order to “advice, assist and befriend” offenders, abandoning the requirement that probation officers hold a social work qualification and removing the service from local accountability. This was bad enough, but the last five years have seen far worse. In what can only be seen as an ideological drive, government has split the probation service in two: 70% managed by private companies under 21 contracts; 30% centrally controlled by the Ministry of Justice. As well as incomprehensible reorganisation, budget cuts and job losses have drained the lifeblood from the service. There are staff left who continue to attempt to provide a decent service to courts, offenders and communities, in spite of overwhelming odds against them. But many are leaving, disillusioned and exhausted by what has been done. The probation service in England and Wales was once a world leader. Now it lies in ruins. To achieve the reduction in the prison population that Toynbee rightly advocates, there will need to be a viable community-based organisation, in which courts, victims, offenders and the public can have confidence. Sadly, there is no such organisation at the present time.Mike WorthingtonFormer chief probation officer, Northumbria Probation Service • David Cameron’s “initiative” (Editorial, 9 February) is at best shuffling deckchairs, at worst pure cynicism. There is a crisis in British prisons – and it has spiralled under his watch: between 2010 and 2016, there have been 1,316 deaths in prisons, 439 self-inflicted. That is a shameful record. A constant stream of Prison Inspectorate reports, inquest findings and inquiries from Corston to Harris have produced rigorous evidence-based recommendations to protect the health and safety of prisoners and staff in British jails. However, these have been systematically ignored. Given the government’s obsession with evidence-based research, why is this the case? Cameron’s plan to use league tables ignores the abject failure of this policy in health and education. It will also place additional pressures on already over-worked prison governors while failing to address the key issue of democratic accountability. The only workable focus must be a dramatic reduction in the numbers who go to prison, at an all-time high and set to increase. Is prison the place to keep young people or those with mental health problems? Does time spent in overcrowded, dehumanising, violent conditions produce “better” people? The answers to these questions are obvious, and must be the focus for sustained political action to prevent a spiral of further violence, self-harm and deaths inside.Deborah Coles Director, InquestProfessor Joe Sim Liverpool John Moores University, trustee of InquestProfessor Steve Tombs The Open University, trustee of Inquest • Polly Toynbee has a mistaken perception of prisons. Fewer law-breakers in prison equals more families traumatised by violent burglary, more grievous bodily harm, more fraud, more shoplifting, more stabbed teenagers, more raped women, more theft and more pensioners’ lives devastated by confidence tricksters. No prisons equals no penalty, equals no deterrence, equals more crime. It is a simple fact of human nature.Cedric RichmondNottingham • The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10 years old, yet in Germany and Italy it is 14, in all Scandinavian countries it is 15 and in Spain and Portugal it is 16. The result is that England and Wales have one of the highest rates of child imprisonment in western Europe. Every year an estimated 70,000 school-age children enter the youth justice system. The level of imprisonment for 14- to 17-year-olds is double that of the early 1990s, with the knock-on effect on the post-18-year-old figures, with England and Wales having the second highest adult prison population in Europe. From 1989 to 2009, the child custody population has increased by 795%, with a 41% increase in the number of children aged 10 to 14 locked up on remand. In 2010, the most common offence committed by a young person was theft and handling (nearly 20%) and this was usually from and against their peers. Yet the MoJ states that those under 18 “should only be held in custody as a last resort and for the protection of the public”. At present, England and Wales risk violating the European convention on human rights and the UN convention on the rights of the child, according to the European council for human rights. Since 1990, more than 30 children have died in custody. Children are brutalised and damaged by their experiences in custody and it often leads to an increased rate of reoffending with four out of five reoffending within two years of release. There is clearly not the political will for the age of criminal responsibility to be raised as a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said when this was last reviewed in 2010: “We do not intend to raise the age of criminal responsibility. It is not in the interests of justice, or victims of the young people themselves to prevent serious offending being challenged.”Ritchie FarrellShrewsbury, Shropshire • Birth Companions, a charity that has supported pregnant women and new mothers in prison for 20 years, welcomes the PM’s rethink of the treatment of this group of women. Exploring ways of supporting women in similar situations in the community instead would be a very positive step. We urge the government to invest sufficient resources in holistic support to enable vulnerable women to become successful parents. At the same time we are calling for comprehensive guidelines for the best support of the pregnant women, new mothers and their babies who will remain in prison.Naomi DelapDirector, Birth Companions • Polly Toynbee says the only thing that Cameron can do to reduce prison numbers is to change sentencing guidelines. She should refer Cameron to comprehensive long-term research undertaken into the US’s Head Start programme, equivalent to the Sure Start early years programme here. Launched in 1965, the research proved that compared with siblings who do not attend, Head Start graduates demonstrate improved educational attainment, much better adult health, higher men’s wages and decreased incarceration rates for black men, among many other social benefits. It’s interesting to read (Report, 9 February) that the PM’s mother is now criticising the closure of all children’s centres in Oxfordshire. It’s a pity her empathy can’t spread to a wider constituency; in much poorer regions of England, where cuts to children’s services, brought about by the government’s indiscriminate and unnecessary austerity agenda, are bringing about a new generation of latchkey kids. Due to a basic lack of care, many will become the next generation of prisoners, with all that implies for long-term costs to society as a whole.Mark DudekLondon • If the PM thinks that “we need a prison system that doesn’t see prisoners as simply liabilities to be managed, but instead as potential assets to be harnessed”, why is he so opposed to letting them vote and, as potential assets, giving them a stake in the future of the country?Neil FergusonPenrith, Cumbria • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |