Prison Capacities

Baroness Fox of Buckley Excerpts

Thursday 12th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Fox of Buckley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, in two minutes I will speak about two films.

I recently saw the film “Sing Sing”, based on the wonderful Rehabilitation through the Arts programme at Sing Sing maximum security prison in New York. One key figure, Divine G, a former prisoner who plays his younger self in the film, is an inspiring reminder that, yes, prison is there to punish and prisoners need to acknowledge they have been anti-social and were a threat to their fellow citizens, but that prison can find ways to help prisoners to become the best version of themselves.

However, we also know that prisons can be unsafe hell-holes that breed criminality, cynicism, addiction and despair. This sadly brings me to the second film. I was proud to speak at the premiere of “Britain’s Forgotten Prisoners” at the Sheffield documentary festival in the summer. The director, Martin Read, does an excellent job of following the stories of individuals on IPP sentences, trapped in

“a Kafka-esque world of labyrinthine bureaucracy that has seen them swallowed up by a system”.

I cried at both films, one at the humane hope of rehabilitation and one at the frustration and cruelty of inhumane and unjust prison policy.

For prisoners to stand a chance of rehabilitation, they need to believe that, however firm the system is, it is at least relatively fair. Recent events suggest there is no fairness for IPP prisoners. Never mind two-tier policing; we have a two-tier prison policy. Imagine you have done the crime, you have done your time—years earlier, in fact—yet now, way beyond your release date, you are still locked up indefinitely. The excuse is that IPP prisoners are too risky and could present a threat to public safety, with no evidence ever given. Now fellow prisoners, who have committed far worse crimes and have not done their time, are being released early for pragmatic political reasons. Will the Minister promise to at least look at releasing a batch of IPP prisoners via the early release scheme as a gesture of good faith that could restore much-needed hope to the IPP prison community?