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You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/nov/22/jailing-people-life-risks-prison-revolution
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| Jailing more people for life risks a prison revolution | Jailing more people for life risks a prison revolution |
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| Few members of the public and even fewer MPs would argue with the appeal court ruling on whole life tariffs. Keeping in prison, for the rest of their lives, the very few prisoners who have committed the most heinous of acts seems reasonable at first glance. It may however, spark another spat between parliament and the European court of human rights when its grand chamber rules on an appeal from Jeremy Bamber on the very same issue. | Few members of the public and even fewer MPs would argue with the appeal court ruling on whole life tariffs. Keeping in prison, for the rest of their lives, the very few prisoners who have committed the most heinous of acts seems reasonable at first glance. It may however, spark another spat between parliament and the European court of human rights when its grand chamber rules on an appeal from Jeremy Bamber on the very same issue. |
| As ever with such spats, the rhetoric will subsume the truth. All the European court has ever said regarding prisoners is that they should not all be treated the same and that "never say never" is a perfectly fair doctrine in a humane democracy. Such rulings do not set free dangerous people or attack parliamentary democracies, they simply seek reasonableness. The ruling does, however, create a potential problem for the prison system. People on whole life tariffs, albeit fewer than 50, have little if anything to lose and their management demands a lot from a system under ever-increasing political, public and financial pressure. | |
| Unfortunately this group is not alone. The Kafkaesque indeterminate sentences for the protection of the public has helped swell the number of prisoners on various forms of life sentence to around 12,000. Many of those will get out eventually even after decades inside but some are now going beyond their tariff (the minimum they must serve as the deterrence and retribution part of their sentence). Some will stay inside because they are rightly considered as still too much of a risk to the public to be released. Others will simply not have been successful in persuading the parole board that they are an acceptable risk for release. Large numbers have simply not had access to the offending behaviour programmes the Parole Board requires successful completion of, as evidence of acceptability. Many others with speech and language problems, learning difficulties and/or generally poor and deteriorating mental health issues are likely to languish in the system for years. The absence of friends, family and advocacy makes matters worse. | Unfortunately this group is not alone. The Kafkaesque indeterminate sentences for the protection of the public has helped swell the number of prisoners on various forms of life sentence to around 12,000. Many of those will get out eventually even after decades inside but some are now going beyond their tariff (the minimum they must serve as the deterrence and retribution part of their sentence). Some will stay inside because they are rightly considered as still too much of a risk to the public to be released. Others will simply not have been successful in persuading the parole board that they are an acceptable risk for release. Large numbers have simply not had access to the offending behaviour programmes the Parole Board requires successful completion of, as evidence of acceptability. Many others with speech and language problems, learning difficulties and/or generally poor and deteriorating mental health issues are likely to languish in the system for years. The absence of friends, family and advocacy makes matters worse. |
| So the numbers with little or nothing to lose is many more than 50. To date the prison service has managed the situation reasonably well. Other jurisdictions, notably the US, have resorted to solitary confinement for such individuals. There are in excess of 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in the US (added to by a few extraditions from the UK). The US has not been troubled by the European convention on human rights, and in some states has only rowed back from the policy because of its huge cost, not by its inhumanity. The UK, to its credit, has not gone down this route. There are issues with de facto solitary confinement, especially with children and women, that still need to be addressed, but the American model has thankfully been eschewed. | So the numbers with little or nothing to lose is many more than 50. To date the prison service has managed the situation reasonably well. Other jurisdictions, notably the US, have resorted to solitary confinement for such individuals. There are in excess of 80,000 prisoners in solitary confinement in the US (added to by a few extraditions from the UK). The US has not been troubled by the European convention on human rights, and in some states has only rowed back from the policy because of its huge cost, not by its inhumanity. The UK, to its credit, has not gone down this route. There are issues with de facto solitary confinement, especially with children and women, that still need to be addressed, but the American model has thankfully been eschewed. |
| Prisons do not run by coercion. If we put aside humanity and dignity, the human cost is just too high. There are not and never will be, enough prison officers for a coercive system. Whether we like it or not we run prisons by co-operation. Physical security helps but without the working together of a committed and capable workforce and a prisoner community that is supported through work, training and education, the system will become very precarious. | Prisons do not run by coercion. If we put aside humanity and dignity, the human cost is just too high. There are not and never will be, enough prison officers for a coercive system. Whether we like it or not we run prisons by co-operation. Physical security helps but without the working together of a committed and capable workforce and a prisoner community that is supported through work, training and education, the system will become very precarious. |
| We have been playing a game akin to Kerplunk with the prison system for too many years now. We are not just pulling out the straws at the bottom but rapidly adding to the balls at the top. The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has said that he will challenge prisons not to provide luxuries, such as televisions, if they are not warranted. There is an incentives and earned privileges scheme, which should do what it says on the tin. Unfortunately it can be misused, overused and abused. It is a tool for prison staff. The phrase used to be "The governor giveth, the governor taketh away". Trite I know, but you get the point. As cuts bite ever deeper (especially as Grayling has now demanded savings across the entire service using public sector competitive bids against the private sector as the benchmark), then there is a real danger that governors will run out of incentives, have no privileges on offer and no work for prisoners to generate earnings. | We have been playing a game akin to Kerplunk with the prison system for too many years now. We are not just pulling out the straws at the bottom but rapidly adding to the balls at the top. The justice secretary, Chris Grayling, has said that he will challenge prisons not to provide luxuries, such as televisions, if they are not warranted. There is an incentives and earned privileges scheme, which should do what it says on the tin. Unfortunately it can be misused, overused and abused. It is a tool for prison staff. The phrase used to be "The governor giveth, the governor taketh away". Trite I know, but you get the point. As cuts bite ever deeper (especially as Grayling has now demanded savings across the entire service using public sector competitive bids against the private sector as the benchmark), then there is a real danger that governors will run out of incentives, have no privileges on offer and no work for prisoners to generate earnings. |
| Add to the mix of an economic climate that gives prisoners not only nothing on the inside but nothing on the outside and we risk a revolution, but not of the rehabilitative kind. | Add to the mix of an economic climate that gives prisoners not only nothing on the inside but nothing on the outside and we risk a revolution, but not of the rehabilitative kind. |