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.
Last night’s BBC2 documentary, Requiem for Detroit, mentioned the Goodwill Deconstruction programme run by Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit. The programme offers unemployed people, including ex-prisoners, the chance of rehabilitation through gainful employment while learning new skills deconstructing derelict buildings to salvage or recycle the building materials.
You can see a short video about the programme below:
If this worthwhile programme piques your interest, why not check out some of Goodwill Industries of Greater Detroit’s other programmes on their website like their youth training programme in partnership with Ben & Jerry’s ice cream (http://www.goodwilldetroit.org/programs/ben-and-jerrys.aspx#).
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.
It was interesting to see fairly prominent coverage of the Conservative party’s latest proposals for criminal justice reform on page three of today’s Financial Times. The main goal of the proposals is to improve the cost-effectiveness of the criminal justice system. The article reports that the system today costs around 2.5% of gross domestic product each year (a higher per person level than the US or any EU country) and yet is so ineffective that nearly seven out of ten people are back in prison within two years of their release.
The Conservatives’ key proposal is for the private and voluntary sectors to take over the post-prison rehabilitation of released prisoners who don’t pose a significant threat to the public. One suggestion for this proposal is to pay for results by rewarding private and voluntary service providers who manage to keep an individual out of prison for longer than a given period of time, say two years.
It seems evident from the high rates of re-offending that many of the incentives of the current criminal justice system are failing. So, the Conservatives’ proposals to offer new incentives to the private and voluntary sectors to reduce re-offending are a timely step in the right direction.
Perhaps reform should go further though. For example, why not introduce similar incentives for the public sector as well, such as the National Probation Service and Her Majesty’s Prison Service? These public sector bodies could be paid for results by offering them a greater allocation of taxpayers’ money provided that re-offending rates are reduced.
Behavioural economists such as Professor Richard Thaler, who co-authored “Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness”
Indeed, while discussing incentives, how about extending the incentive programme to the prisoners too? Incentivising prisoners to reduce the rate of re-offending ought to have the added benefit of making prisoners feel that they have more of a stake in the outcome of their – and their fellow prisoners’ – prison sentences.
Join the debate – post a comment below now to let folks know what you think about incentives in the justice system.
There’s been much comment recently about the ineffectiveness of prison sentences – in particular short sentences of a year or less. The Howard League for Penal Reform reports that it costs about £40,000 per year to house the average prisoner in England and Wales but that nearly two thirds of prisoners re-offend within two years of release from prison. To put this figure into context, £40,000 is nearly twice the pre-tax salary that the average employee earned in the United Kingdom in 2008 according to the Office for National Statistics. As the Rt Hon John Redwood recently noted in his blog, a victim of a theft not only suffers loss of property but has this loss compounded by having to pay for the convicted thief to spend time in prison.
Although there’s a growing number of alternatives to prison sentences (such as community programmes), many people – including many sentencers – still think that non-custodial sentences are too much of a light touch.
If we want to reduce the waste of taxpayers’ money on ineffective prison sentences, we need to develop more alternatives which the public and sentencers will be happy with. With this in mind, another string to the sentencer’s bow could be the ability to deny a convict the right to receive state benefits in cash.
Any cash benefits to which the convict is entitled would be received for a given period of time by means of a card.
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 convict). It would be illegal for retailers to allow people to pay for products like alcohol and cigarettes using such a card, 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 are 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 depicted in television programmes like The Wire
Given that life in prison is often perceived to be more comfortable for prisoners than life on the outside, loss of liberty may not be seen as adequate recompense for many crimes. Accordingly, the ability to deny a convict the right to receive state benefits in cash for a period of time could be a further useful sanction for sentencers.
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 a convict. But is this any worse than the stigma 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. Again, compare this to prison where illegal drugs are often readily available.
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. 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.
The Howard League for Penal Reform’s “Community Programmes Handbook” is a useful reference book about award-winning community programmes in the United Kingdom. The Howard League for Penal Reform (the Howard League) published the book in 2008 to bring together the lessons from the first two years of its Community Programmes Awards. Barbed, a social enterprise staffed by prisoners and run by the Howard League inside Her Majesty’s Prison Coldingley (until bureaucracy sadly killed the project), designed the book including its striking cover.
Following the foreword by Frances Crook OBE, Director of the Howard League, the book opens with different perspectives from members of the judging panel of the Community Programmes Awards, including representatives from the International Centre for Prison Studies, the National Offender Management Service, the probation service and the judiciary. One of the key messages these opening pages convey is that there is still some work required to convince the public – and sentencers – of the merits of community programmes compared to other sanctions.
The remainder of the book should help to convince its readers that community programmes are often a better solution than, for example, short custodial sentences of under a year. It describes some of the successes achieved by award-winning community programmes in the following categories: early interventions with young people; dealing with factors that contribute to offending; restorative justice and mediation; young people; education, training, employment and mentoring; unpaid work and training; high-risk offenders; and resettlement.
The descriptions of the community programmes generally start with a real life example of how the community programme helped a participant to take responsibility and make amends for what s/he did and return to living a law-abiding life in the community. These stories are followed by details about, among other things: the origins of the community programme, what it aims to achieve, how it is funded, who it is targeted at, how effective it is, who it is staffed by, how many participants it serves, and the benefits it provides.
These details make the “Community Programmes Handbook” a useful reference book, especially for organisers of community programmes and for sentencers. Contact details are also provided regarding each of the award-winning programmes for anyone requiring further information. Why not follow the link below for your own copy now.
One of the most memorable parts of Gregory Roberts’ enthralling novel “Shantaram
In front of the crowd of neighbours that had assembled around the scene of the fight, he orders the two men to work for the rest of the day cleaning the slum latrines. He then binds the two men together at the ankle using his scarf around one’s right and the other’s left leg “to remind you that you are friends and brothers, while cleaning the latrine will fill your noses with the stink of what you have done to each other today.” That evening, having convened a council of Hindu and Muslim friends and neighbours, he requires each man to learn one complete prayer from the religious observances of the other as their punishment for fighting about religion.
“In this way justice is done, because justice is a judgement that is both fair and forgiving. Justice is not done until everyone is satisfied, even those who offend us and must be punished by us. You can see, by what we have done with these two boys, that justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong. It is also the way we try to save them.”
Qasim Ali Hussein’s wise solution seems to meet the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003: punishment (cleaning the latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (cleaning the latrines in public and tied together); reform and rehabilitation (learning a prayer from each other’s religion); protection of the public (via the deterrence and reform mentioned above); and reparation (cleaning the latrines for the community’s benefit).
Why not compare this with a prison sentence under the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006?
Punishment (prison – arguably more comfortable than cleaning latrines); reduction of crime and deterrence (sadly there are some people for whom prison is not a deterrent, whereas there are very few people for whom cleaning the latrines in a Mumbai slum would not be a deterrent); reform and rehabilitation (prison – yet approximately 65% of all prisoners released were reconvicted within two years according to a 2007 Home Office study); protection of the public (prison); and reparation (prison – at a cost to the taxpayers in the community of approximately £39,000 per prisoner per year).
Some of you may say, “Ah, but Qasim Ali Hussein only has to serve justice to a tiny city of around twenty-five thousand people compared to tens of millions of people in, say, England. No wonder he can tailor his solutions so well.”
Yet he didn’t have policemen or courts to assist.
Don’t you think that we could spend £39,000 per prisoner per year on something which addresses more effectively the five purposes of sentencing described in the Criminal Justice Act 2003?
A good start might be to channel more resources to community programmes such as those highlighted by the Howard League for Penal Reform’s Community Programmes Awards. Why not read more about the awards – and nominate for the 2010 awards right now – at http://bit.ly/9Cnybn.
