Criminal Justice: Transgender People

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 4th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

Does the Minister agree that, while all the issues he has put forward are very practical and implementable, the problem is that the prison system is bursting at the seams? We have more than 86,000 prisoners and staff numbers have been cut year on year. How will officers prevent the homophobic attacks that have been occurring a lot in prisons, and how will they support the systems the Minister has put forward to help?

[Lord Faulks]

Our prison officers face a great many challenges and they perform their duties with admirable resolve and skill in often challenging circumstances. They have duties to all prisoners but particular duties to those who may be undergoing gender recognition. They are particularly aware of those challenges and will treat those prisoners with appropriate sensitivity.

Criminal Justice and Courts Bill

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Monday 14th July 2014 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

19: Clause 14, page 15, line 24, at end insert—
“(4) Before this section comes into force, the Secretary of State shall lay before Parliament a report describing his plans to ensure that safe and supervised places are provided in which prisoners can take medication which has been prescribed to them.”

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, in moving Amendment 19 I shall speak also to Amendment 20. Amendment 19 should have been tabled in my name, but unfortunately due to an administrative error my name was not added to sit alongside those of my noble friends Lord Beecham and Lord Kennedy.

Clause 14 enables the Secretary of State to specify in prison rules and rules for other places of detention non-controlled drugs which can be tested for under the existing mandatory drug-testing programme. I generally support the intention behind Clause 14, but I would like to see greater clarity on two aspects: first, on what plans are being made to ensure that suitable provision is in place for people in prison to be able to take prescription drugs safely and so limit the scope for abuse; and secondly, on the incidence of drugs in prison and in particular the effectiveness of drug testing.

In tabling both of these amendments I should declare an interest as the former chair of the independent cross-ministerial committee on the review of drug treatment in prisons which resulted in the publication some years ago of The Patel Report. At the time we were very much focused on the development of the integrated drug treatment system in prisons which commenced in 2006. It has had a considerable and positive impact on reducing the use of heroin and illegal drugs in prison. However, we know that since that time, the demand for prescription and over-the-counter medication in prisons has been increasing, and we have also seen an increase in the use of psychoactive substances, the so-called “legal highs”. We need to consider the use of legal highs alongside the problems around prescription drugs in our attempts to deal adequately with these issues. For that reason, I intend to address both issues together.

Amendment 19 requires the Secretary of State to lay a report before Parliament,

“describing his plans to ensure that safe and supervised places are provided in which prisoners can take medication which has been prescribed to them”.

Amendment 20 requires the Secretary of State:

“Within 12 months of section 14 coming into force … report to Parliament on the incidence of drugs in prisons and the effectiveness of drugs testing of prisoners in prisons”.

Let me first explain why these two amendments are important. Although accurate prescribing data for analgesics are unavailable, a report entitled Managing Persistent Pain in Secure Settings, published by Public Health England last year, gives some startling figures on the scale of analgesic prescribing. A snapshot of just two institutions with populations of 751 and 859 respectively suggested that between 55,000 and more than 350,000 analgesic tablets, excluding paracetamol and ibuprofen, were prescribed in just one month. The Chief Inspector of Prisons highlighted in his annual report last year that the diversion of prescription drugs, such as Tramadol, Gabapentin and Pregabalin was taking place in high security and vulnerable prisoner populations. I know from my own work with NHS England on conducting health needs assessments in a wide range of prisons just how serious an issue this is, and that the growing demand for and diversion of prescription drugs is viewed by both prison staff and the prisoners themselves as a major problem.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Mancroft (Con)]

My Lords, I listened with great care to the noble Lord, Lord Patel of Bradford, in moving his amendment, and he laid out very accurately for your Lordships the perceived problem of misadministration of various sorts of drugs, particularly prescription drugs, in prison, and the manner in which they are prescribed and taken. The problem that the noble Lord describes to the House is probably entirely right. However, it may not have come over that it is merely an extension of the problem of prescription drugs outside prison. Often in your Lordships’ House we discuss drugs and drug-related crime, but we rarely get around to talking about the fact that, however many people may be taking illegal drugs, many more are addicted to prescription drugs, which causes immense problems for them and their families, as well as for society as a whole. Whether or not that addiction to prescription drugs is causing crime or is related to crime in some way, it is an enormous problem. All those drugs are prescription drugs, which means that they have already been prescribed by a doctor—and probably, as a consequence, misprescribed, or they would not be resulting in addiction and all the problems that stem from it.

We are not dealing with that problem outside prison, with the ordinary population—we are dealing with it incredibly badly. The Department of Health is wrestling with it in a rather inadequate way, and it is bouncing backwards and forwards between the Home Office and the Department of Health, as it has been for many years. I am not entirely sure why, if we cannot deal with it outside prison, we should dump that problem into prison and say to the prison authorities that we cannot deal with it when prisoners are ordinary citizens living in our society, but now that they have been convicted of a crime and are going to go to prison we expect the prison authorities to deal with a problem that we cannot deal with outside.

The noble Lord has accurately identified a problem, but I have some concern over whether Amendments 19 and 20 contain the solution. Perhaps it is the start of a solution—but if we cannot deal with it outside, asking the Secretary of State to lay a report, the results of which we can all guess, even if we do not know the details, does not seem even to get to the start of resolving this problem. I look forward to what my noble friend says in response, and perhaps the noble Lord, Lord Patel, would like to respond before then. However, although I accept the problem, I cannot see that this even remotely touches on a solution.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

I completely agree with the noble Lord, Lord Mancroft, about the issue of prescription drugs out in the community, given the ludicrous figure of literally 50 million prescriptions—I think—having been issued last year. However, there is a clear distinction between that situation and the situation in prisons. Mandatory drug testing was introduced to test prisoners for heroin in particular. However, following the introduction of mandatory drug testing, many prisoners who had been using cannabis, which stayed in the system for longer, started to use heroin, which stayed in the system for a shorter time. We got over that problem through introducing into the prison estate a very good integrated drug system, which has worked exceptionally well.

However, the drug abuse problem has shifted to prescription drugs. In prison after prison, prescription drugs are used as a commodity. People are being bullied on account of these drugs and violence is associated with them. We do not have the measure of this problem or know the extent of prescription drug abuse. Indeed, we have no idea about the problem of the so-called legal highs, which is clearly a problem in prisons, because the mandatory drug testing simply does not pick up those drugs. Merely to say that we will conduct mandatory drug testing for all drugs will not solve the problem. We need to analyse further how prisoners can safely take the prescription medicines they are prescribed and what policies need to be put in place to provide safe places for them to do so. We need data on prisoners’ prescription medicines and on the incidence of abuse to enable us to move forward on this issue. The intention behind the amendment is to obtain that data and for the Secretary of State to present them to Parliament in a report. That would give us the opportunity to improve the situation.

[Lord Beecham]

I should like to add a further thought and thank my noble friend for putting the case for these amendments so capably. The responsibility for providing medical services in prisons belongs ultimately to NHS England as the commissioners. Therefore, it is not a matter solely for the Ministry of Justice. It seems to me that some interdepartmental discussions on this issue would be timely, if they have not already taken place. There is the sheer cost, of course, of providing prescription drugs for prisoners as, indeed, for anyone else, which, obviously, will be a factor in the mind of NHS England. As regards the general health problems of prisoners, particularly mental health problems, it seems to me that the involvement of the Department of Health and NHS England in looking at the aspects to which our amendments refer would be very helpful. I am not asking for any response on that tonight except perhaps for a nod in the direction that some discussions will be held with NHS England and the department to see whether a more holistic approach can be adopted across the relevant agencies. It would be helpful if such an indication could be given.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Patel, for tabling these amendments. I must admit I was somewhat surprised that he was confused that the name of the noble Lord, Lord Beecham, was added to the amendments rather than his. Perhaps it would have been more palatable had he said he had been confused by my good self but, accents aside, there may be more similarities there. The noble Lord raised some very pertinent issues, as did my noble friend Lord Mancroft, in talking about drug issues more generally in society. I have often spoken about this issue at the Dispatch Box in responding to Questions. We also heard briefly about legal highs.

Amendments 19 and 20 both relate to the use of drugs in prisons, although from two different perspectives. I know that the noble Lord, Lord Patel, has laid Amendment 19 in good faith to support the well-being and security of prisoners. However, in all prisons where prisoners are being supplied medicines for the management of either long-term conditions or for the treatment of acute clinical conditions, the safe use of medicines is taken extremely seriously. The noble Lord, Lord Beecham, rightly talked about the role of the NHS. Clinical governance of this process in England and Wales is undertaken by qualified pharmacists commissioned by the National Health Service not the National Offender Management Service or Her Majesty’s Prison Service. I assure all noble Lords that dispensing complies to national guidelines and is risk assessed by pharmacists on a case-by-case basis to ensure that medicines are dispensed in a manner that is safe and appropriate to a custodial environment, including the risks of the diversion of medicines and decisions over whether appropriate medicines can be “held in possession”. These processes are subject to routine audit and assurance in line with guidelines for the management of medicines in the wider community.

Moreover, prison staff are very much aware of prisoners attempting to take medication without swallowing in order to sell or pass on that medication to other prisoners. This is sometimes done in reaction to bullying from other prisoners. Every effort is made to prevent this. The noble Lord, Lord Patel, gave several examples of good practice. I give him the assurance that I will share that with my honourable friend the Prisons Minister and perhaps we can arrange a meeting to explore how this issue can best be addressed across the board. The Government have always held the opinion that where good practice can be shared across the prison estate it should be taken on board. I hope that, given that reassurance, the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw Amendment 19.

Amendment 20 would require the Secretary of State to report to Parliament on the incidence of drugs in prison and the effectiveness of drug taking. I assure noble Lords that the Government take the issue of drugs in prison extremely seriously. Therefore, Clause 14 represents an immediate step to address the challenges facing the Prison Service with the different types of drugs that are being abused by prisoners. I totally take on board the fact that legislation alone, either drafting it or applying it, will not deal with the issue, as the noble Lord, Lord Patel, said, but it is the way forward.

In regard to the incidence of drugs in prisons and the effectiveness of drug testing of prisoners, it is assumed that the question refers to the number of positives for drug abuse found by the mandatory drug testing programme across the prison estate. The effectiveness of the MDT programme is kept under constant internal review, including the range of drugs tested, which will be extended as appropriate. The number of prisoners being tested under the MDT programme and the percentage found to be positive are already published in the NOMS management information addendum. All this information is available on the government website.

As noble Lords are aware, the Ministry of Justice is ultimately accountable to Parliament for the discharge of its responsibilities, including those on the prison estate. Bearing in mind that the information is publicly available, and that noble Lords and honourable Members in the other place can hold the Government and the Ministry of Justice to account, we do not believe that the addition of further reporting requirements is necessary. Given the assurances and the explanations I have provided and the offer of a discussion on how we can introduce best practice, I hope that the noble Lord will be minded to withdraw the amendment.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

I thank the noble Lord for his response. I agree that he and I are slightly more similar than I am to my noble friend Lord Beecham as we both have hair.

[Noble Lords]

Oh!

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

I assume that was what the noble Lord meant. There was a reason why I grouped together Amendments 19 and 20. One has to have a safe place where prescription drugs can be taken. I accept that there is no problem with qualified pharmacists or GPs giving out the medication; I do not question that at all. What I question is the number of safe places that exist across the prison estate in which that medication can be given out. I still think that there is a major issue with prisoners being able to take prescription drugs safely without facing intimidation and the prospect of being bullied to pass them to others as a commodity.

I understand that the provision on mandatory drug testing was taken from a Private Member’s Bill and, therefore, no impact assessment was undertaken. It would be really helpful, now or at a later stage, to hear whether the impact assessment will take place, especially in relation to MDT. We do not know whether the testing is driving people to use other drugs, and it would therefore be important to have some kind of impact assessment on the use of MDT.

I welcome the meeting with the Prisons Minister to share a number of examples of good practice across the country, but I also ask whether the noble Lord will speak to his colleagues in the Department of Health, as my noble friend Lord Beecham said. This is a major health issue because the doctors and nurses are constantly saying that it is they who have to put up with bullying and are unable to prescribe effectively.

It would therefore be helpful if we could take this to the next level. The wording of these amendments may be improved and demands may be high, but there is some scope for looking further at the level and impact of mandatory drug testing. With that in mind, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 19 withdrawn.

Queen’s Speech

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Monday 9th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, it gives me the greatest pleasure to speak after the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Glendonbrook—and I pronounce his name very carefully. The noble Lord was born Michael Bishop in the village of Bowdon, near Manchester. He sought permission from the Australian Government to call himself Lord Glendonbrook, Glendonbrook being, I believe, a Hunter Valley hamlet in Australia. He first visited it in 1965 as a young child, and his father, Clive, worked as a farmer there. I am sure that his decision was a wise one. I quote him:

“I knew that I would get a lot of correspondence that was not meant for me. It would be very confusing as I would be invited to say grace or give sermons or something. I would be constantly saying, ‘I am not the bishop of Bowdon’. So I thought it would be rather nice if I took an Australian title”.

The noble Lord spoke with great humour, passion and conviction, and I am sure that his comments and views on the atrocities of war and the abhorrence of human trafficking and modern slavery have the support of all of us in the House. His paraphrasing of WS Gilbert’s lyric for Sir Joseph Porter sums up very clearly and succinctly his own illustrious career in the aviation industry. He started at the front-line check-in counter and, by the tender age of 27, was chief executive of British Midland Airways. In fact, he was knighted in 1991 for his services to aviation. His talents extend much further and I could not do justice to them today. He can be described in a multitude of ways: aviation boss, advocate for gay rights, patron of the arts and Knight of the Empire. In addition, he has been chairman of Channel 4 television and is a great philanthropist. The noble Lord will undoubtedly bring an array of views and experiences to the House, and I, for one, look forward to his further contributions to our debates.

I am pleased to have the opportunity to raise an issue not contained in the gracious Speech but it is one which I believe is long-standing and urgent and on which I believe the Government could act now through a simple amendment to either the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill or the Serious Crime Bill. I hope that the Minister will give this careful consideration. I am focusing on the need to do more to protect the rights and welfare of children and vulnerable adults detained or interviewed by the police. I declare an interest as the president of the National Appropriate Adult Network, a charity and membership organisation which supports the development of effective appropriate adult policy and practice. I particularly thank its chief executive, Chris Bath, for his expert advice and briefing on this issue.

By way of background, under the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 codes of practice, when detaining or interviewing a child or mentally disordered or mentally vulnerable adult, the police must secure an appropriate adult to protect their rights and welfare. The term “mentally vulnerable” includes, but is not limited to, people with mental ill-health, a learning disability or autistic spectrum disorder. If the police have any doubts at all about the mental state or capacity of a detainee, they may not continue with procedures such as fingerprinting, DNA swabs, intimate searches or interviews without an appropriate adult being present.

The appropriate adult role, conducted effectively, is complex and demanding. It includes a multitude of tasks but is absolutely crucial. Where parents or carers are unavailable, unsuitable or unwilling, a statutory duty requires youth offending teams to ensure the provision of appropriate adults for children, whether through paid or voluntary staff, but there is no such statutory duty to ensure the provision of appropriate adults for mentally vulnerable adults, and this is a key point that I will return to in a short while.

However, my first area of concern is in relation to children. In 2012, Joe Lawton, a 17 year-old boy, took his own life. His father found him dead and a police charge sheet at his feet. Two days earlier, he was held in a police cell overnight on suspicion of drunk-driving. In 2011, 17 year-old Edward Thornber was caught with 50p-worth of cannabis. Distraught at the thought of life with a criminal record, he hanged himself. These children were treated as adults in police custody and were not entitled to an appropriate adult. The case of Hughes Cousins-Chang, another 17 year-old, led to a judicial review. The Home Secretary, rightly, amended the PACE codes of practice without appeal, extending provision to 17 year-olds and rectifying a long-standing anomaly.

The Home Secretary’s action is welcome. However, if we are to avoid such tragedies in the future, there are three key issues which still need urgent action. First, with more 17 year-olds arrested than all 10 to 16 year-olds combined, funding is desperately needed. Seven months after the change to PACE Code C, no additional funding has been given to local government.

Secondly, the PACE Act must be amended to remove anomalies where 17 year-old boys and girls continue to be treated as adults in several critical respects, including a lack of parental consent around intimate body cavity searches and no requirement to transfer them to local authority accommodation post charge. The Criminal Justice and Courts Bill will ensure that 17 year-olds have an appropriate adult for the purposes of youth cautions and youth custodial cautions. I welcome the fact that the Ministry of Justice has moved so quickly to address this issue. It would make eminent sense for the Home Secretary and the Home Office to follow suit.

Thirdly, children across the country are too often contained in cells, contrary to Section 38(6) of PACE, which places a statutory duty on the police to effect the transfer of children unless it is impracticable for certain defined reasons. Local authorities must accommodate them under the Children Act 1989. This can cause unnecessary damage to children, puts unnecessary pressure on custody suites and increases the risk of costly remands. There are, of course, odd exceptions, but the system seems to have broken down nationwide and there appears to be no accountability. This is a cross-departmental issue, but one on which I would expect the Home Office to take the lead.

I turn to the matter of mentally vulnerable adults—and here I fear that we are heading towards a crisis which needs urgent action now by the Government. At any given time one in six British adults, or 8 million people, are experiencing at least one diagnosable mental health problem. Almost 40% of people in contact with the probation service have a current mental health condition—a number which is even higher in prisons. Up to 30% of people who offend have learning disabilities or difficulties that interfere with their ability to cope within the criminal justice system; yet as my noble friend Lord Bradley’s landmark report in 2009 noted, an analysis of 21,000 police custody records found that an appropriate adult had been used in only 38 cases. He had expected up to at least 3,000 cases. The lack of any statutory provision for vulnerable adults means that trained appropriate adults for this group are often unavailable or that provision is limited. In many areas, services are non-existent.

The Government must be congratulated on investing an extra £25 million this year into services to identify mentally vulnerable people in police stations and to ensure appropriate referrals. This will be a great support for custody sergeants, and I welcome the commitment to extend these liaison and diversion services to every custody suite in England by 2017. It is already the case that where there is no organised service, the search for an appropriate adult can make significant demands on police time. At busy times, police can be impelled not to identify an individual’s vulnerability at all. If the police are discouraged from identifying vulnerability due to poor provision of appropriate adults, it may present an unwelcome barrier to their referring to liaison and diversion. As things stand, the problem is actually set to worsen dramatically.

The non-statutory nature of appropriate adult services for vulnerable adults means that those areas with a service are defenceless in the face of budget cuts. In the short term, immediate action is needed to prevent the loss of existing services, many of which are delivered by committed volunteers. However, this cannot be at the expense of the proper solution—placing appropriate adult provision for mentally vulnerable adults on a statutory footing. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively to my concerns. We need to see a clear commitment by the Government to take action within this parliamentary Session to tackle these important issues. I fear that without such action, we are heading towards crisis and placing some of the most vulnerable people in our communities at serious risk.

Prisons: Education and Training

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 3rd April 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

Many steps are being taken. Work is progressing on introducing a new mandatory assessment for all newly received prisoners by OLASS, the Offender Learning and Skills Service providers. This will ensure that all offenders receive a learning assessment focused on English and maths, rather than those who simply go on to learning. NOMS and its partners are working towards implementing better data about sharing arrangements. I should say that intensive maths and English courses are being piloted in prisons, based on a model adopted in the Army, particularly to address prisoners serving short sentences.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords—

[Lord Howarth of Newport (Lab)]

My Lords—

Prisons: Deaths of Young People

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, the review will start as soon as resources are in place, and we are anxious that it should report back by the spring of 2015. That does not mean that lessons are not continuously learnt from all the other sources that provide information. The review will focus on key themes, including vulnerability information sharing and the safety of young people.

The noble Lord referred to the secure colleges which are shortly to be established, the announcement of which is contained in the Criminal Justice and Courts Bill. The secure colleges will put education at the heart of youth custody and are intended to provide an innovative and holistic approach to the education and rehabilitation of young offenders so that fewer go on to reoffend.

Those aged under 18 are currently held in secure children’s homes, secure training centres and young offender institutions. No under-18s are mixed with over-18s. As to 18 to 20 year-olds, they are currently in young offender institutions, and the Government consultation on whether this age group should be in prisons with older adults closed in December. We are putting on hold the Government response to the consultation pending the result of this particular review.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, what inquiries are the Government making and, better still, what action are they taking with respect to what appears to be the disproportionate number of young black men dying in a range of custodial settings?

[Lord Faulks]

My Lords, every single death in custody is investigated by means of an inquest by the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman and all lessons are shared. One of the purposes of the review is to go beyond the focus on individual circumstances, important though they are, to see whether lessons can be learnt from putting together all the individual facts which are derived from those investigations. I accept what the noble Lord says and, if there are specific aspects deriving from ethnic origins, I am sure that those will be taken into consideration.

Ian Brady

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

My Lords, I asked that question during the briefing. It is an almost unique case. I think that there have been only two such cases in recent times. I am speaking off brief at the moment, but it seems unfair that a single health authority should take such a disproportionate hit on something that is really a national matter. However, the rules as they now apply are that the Ministry of Justice takes the state costs through the Legal Aid Agency and the health authority concerned takes the hit with regard to costs. The noble Lord makes a valid point and I will take it back to a probably not overenthusiastic Health Minister.

[Lord Patel of Bradford (Lab)]

My Lords, will the Minister take another suggestion back with him as well? We have three special health authorities of which Ashworth in Merseyside is just one; we also have Rampton and Broadmoor. The potential for high-profile cases in any one of those hospitals to impact on local health trusts is enormous. It would be really helpful if there were a way for a special allocation of funding to be made that did not impact on those mental health patients who do need care and attention.

[Lord McNally]

That is the value of this exchange. I will take that suggestion back. This is not a responsibility of the Ministry of Justice—as I say, the Legal Aid Agency is responsible for the legal costs on that side—but, as it now stands, those three health trusts are liable. I will report back to the Health Secretary and see whether this could be looked at. I hope that this will remain an almost unique case but, as the noble Lord indicates, there is a possibility that another such case will arise so we should look at this.

Prisons: Child Suicides

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Monday 29th July 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

Every inclination I have is in that direction. Carrying on the policy of the previous Administration, we have tried to make sure that order and discipline in young people’s institutions of various kinds are maintained with the minimum of physical intervention and with the maximum attention on trying to manage difficult situations. A lot of the training addresses how the staff themselves are able to manage down situations before they become violent. However, we also have a duty of care to our staff and a duty of care to other inmates in these institutions, who may become victims of uncontrolled violence.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, what mental health and therapeutic services are available not only to assess but to support young children and others at risk of suicide and self-harm?

Prisons: New Prisons

Lord Patel of Bradford Excerpts

Wednesday 20th March 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord McNally]

If we can get a secure, stable estate and a prison population that is not overcrowded, certainly. A lot of attention is given by prison management to locating prisoners close to families. As my noble friend will appreciate, there are other matters that have to be taken into consideration in ensuring that each prison is stable and well managed.

[Lord Patel of Bradford]

My Lords, with an ever increasing prison population—there are more than 84,500 men, women and young people in our estate—and with 46% of adult prisoners having 15 previous convictions or cautions, it is clear that prison is not working. Rather than building new prisons, what action are the Government taking to divert people from the prison estate in the first place?

[Lord McNally]

Indeed. I have drawn attention before to the very high number of people in prison. While we are building new prisons, we are also closing old prisons. Our older prisons are ill equipped for rehabilitation. I hope that the proposals that we will be bringing forward on the rehabilitation and management of offenders will address some of those issues. I could not agree more that there are better ways of spending taxpayers’ money than on circulating repeat offenders through our prison system.