You might want to listen to the chilling radio play, “RIP Boy”, about the unprovoked fatal attack on Zahid Mubarek by his cellmate, Robert Stewart, at Feltham Young Offenders’ Institute in March 2000. It should be available for a few more days via this link.
If you miss the radio play, you can read more about this murder and why it could have been avoided by following this link to the Zahid Mubarek Trust’s website.
Mark Field, MP sent a prompt response dated 12 April 2010 to the e-mail quoted in the previous post on this blog.
According to his letter, another constituent contacted him in March 2010 regarding the Howard League’s excellent work in prisons. Mr. Field in the past has written to both the government and his own front bench to highlight projects within prisons to get prisoners involved in interesting and productive work and to foster relationships with business.
He also feels that an imbalance exists in our justice system which we must address if we are serious about breaking the cycle of crime. As such, should the Conservative Party win the upcoming election, it has pledged to introduce a range of measures including:
These all seem like pragmatic policies – in particular withdrawing benefits for those who fail to attend community sentences. It would be good if the next government would also consider re-aligning incentives in the justice system along the lines mentioned in an earlier post on this blog to encourage less re-offending.
What would be your top priority for reform of the justice system if you were in charge – let readers know by commenting below.
Dear Mr. Field,
Re: Finding better solutions for society than prison
As the local representative for Cities of London & Westminster, I hope
that in this election you will lend your broad support to the Howard
League for Penal Reform’s Take Action 2010 campaign.
As you know, the English and Welsh prison system is in crisis, with a
prison population that has more than doubled since the early 1990s. It
has become too easy to talk about being tough on crime and simply
increase the number of prison places but all the evidence tells us that
this does not work.
Around two thirds of those receiving short sentences go on to re-offend
within two years of release and this rises up to three quarters for
children leaving custody. Locking up children and vulnerable people
with mental health needs does not make our community much safer and
will not do much to cut crime.
Instead of simply accepting that each year the prison population will
hit record levels, it seems high time for a different vision.
I have a particular interest in the field of investment in the
community and feel that local justice problems should be tackled
locally. Bureaucratic targets dictated from Whitehall are all very well
but the best way to increase public confidence in the criminal justice
system is to bring it closer to the people. I think investing in
amenities for the community and schemes to protect local vulnerable
people – particularly addiction treatment programmes – would prevent a
lot of crime from happening in the first place.
It seems to me that a government priority should be ending the use of
short-term prison sentences. In 2008, around two thirds of those
sentenced received a jail term of less than 12 months. Such sentences
are a waste of taxpayers’ money and do very little to stop
re-offending. The re-offending rate of those leaving prison after
sentences of a year or less is 60% within two years of release,
compared to 38% for those completing community orders. There has to be
a better way to tackle petty crime than a short and inefficient spell
in prison.
As my local representative I would really like you to consider the
scandal of how we treat children in the criminal justice system. I
believe we are far too punitive on some of our youngest and most
vulnerable people. England and Wales jails more children than any other
region in Western Europe. 76% of these children re-offend within one
year of release. Since 1990, 30 children have died in custody. I think
such a deliberate policy of incarceration of children is morally
questionable and practically inefficient. I would really like to know
your views on how we can better support our vulnerable young people.
It would be interesting to hear your thoughts on the Howard League’s
radical new approach to providing real work in prison. The Howard
League for Penal Reform believes prisoners should be introduced to the
world of real work and its responsibilities. Real work requires an
employment relationship between an external employer and the prisoner,
in order to create a meaningful and realistic employee-employer
relationship. The work should be suitably meaningful to inspire pride
in the work done and should be fairly paid for the task undertaken to
create an incentive to work. I think this is exactly the sort of scheme
we need in English and Welsh prisons that could help turn people’s
lives around.
This election I hope you will make a priority the Howard League’s
campaign promise to fight for “less crime, safer communities, fewer
people in prison”. It is a promise not to take the soft option on
crime by simply increasing the number of prison places but to think
about how certain individuals might be better catered for in the
community and how the justice system can do more to tackle the
underlying causes of crime. It is a promise to make our community
safer and it is a promise to use taxpayers’ money wisely on a system
that can justify the expenditure with results.
If you feel you can support this campaign, then please sign up at
www.howardleague.org/takeaction.
Thank you for taking the time to consider backing this campaign.
Yours sincerely,
Justin Atkinson.
PS This email has been published on my blog, Just & Reasonable™, which
you may be interested to read at www.justinatkinson.com/blog/.
Quiet Storm is an engaging short film (about 5 minutes long) which provides an insight into how little is done to prepare many US prisoners for their return to society on release from prison. Why not check it out by following the link above or clicking below:
Anyone have any experience of how prisoners are prepared for release in the UK? Please let readers know by posting a comment below.
Yesterday’s Independent reported that the Rt Hon Jack Straw intends to increase the prison capacity in England and Wales to 96,000 from its current level of about 86,600. What a criminal waste of taxpayers’ money!
Each new prison place costs around £170,000 excluding running costs according to the Prison Reform Trust. The average burden to the taxpayer of keeping someone in prison is around a further £40,000 each year according to the Howard League for Penal Reform. Based on these estimates, the 9,400 new prison places would cost around £1.6 billion to build and a further £376 million per year to run.
Given that there’s little benefit to the taxpayer of imprisoning someone who doesn’t pose a threat to public safety (including many of the existing prison population), it seems outrageous to build more prison capacity at such colossal expense.
Do you think we need more prison capacity when around 7 out of 10 prisoners are back in prison again within two years of their release? Or should we make more use of alternative sanctions to prison, including community payback programmes and addiction treatment? Have your say by posting a comment below today.
The delay which many ex-prisoners face before receiving welfare benefits on release from prison is one of the many areas for improvement in the prison system identified by Sir David Ramsbotham’s riveting “Prisongate: The Shocking State of Britain’s Prisons and the Need for Visionary Change
Sir David discovered that many prisoners can only apply for benefits after release from prison. Many ex-prisoners therefore face delays before receiving their benefits at a time when they’re already facing the challenge of re-acclimatising to life outside prison.
The government could address this problem by issuing a benefit card to prisoners on their release from prison. The ex-prisoner would receive welfare benefits for a given period of time via the card. Importantly, the card would be ready immediately on the prisoner’s release.
As mentioned in the Just & Reasonable™ blog post on February 3rd, 2010, it would not be possible to withdraw cash from the card or go overdrawn and the card would be non-transferable (i.e. it could only be used by the ex-prisoner). It would be illegal for retailers to allow users of the card to pay for products like alcohol and cigarettes – in much the same way that it’s illegal for retailers to sell alcohol to children. In this way, users of the card would be encouraged to spend state benefits on the things for which they’re intended.
The card would also make it much harder to spend state benefits on illegal drugs because few street drug dealers are set up to accept plastic. In this way, the card would help to reduce the current outrageous redistribution of wealth from hard-working taxpayers to illegal drug dealers via the benefits system.
Those of a more liberal persuasion may say that it’s bad for someone’s self-esteem to have to use a card which identifies them as an ex-prisoner. But is this any worse than any stigma already attached to a prison sentence or a community sentence?
On the contrary, the card might help to improve self-esteem by discouraging spending on addictive substances like alcohol, cigarettes and illegal drugs. Indeed, the card could be a helpful reinforcement to addiction treatment programmes on release from prison.
In small ways, the card could also help to improve financial literacy. For example, managing the account and calculating how much money remains available on the card. Improved financial literacy could also help to build self-esteem.
One day we might consider extending this use of card technology to the whole cash benefits system. In the same way that chip and pin cards helped to reduce the level of credit card crime, this card system could help to reduce benefit fraud, for example by a combination of chip and pin technology and having a photograph of the holder on the card.
If you think any of this sounds like a good idea, please let me know by posting a comment (just click on the blue comments below). Any improvements on the idea will also be gratefully received. If there’s enough of a positive response, I’ll be encouraged to write to the Ministry of Justice about the idea.
