Support for Prisoners’ Families

Guy Opperman Excerpts

Friday 12th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mel Stride (Central Devon) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to have the opportunity to raise the important issue of prisoners’ families. I thank my hon. Friend the prisons Minister for agreeing to answer on behalf of the Government and for his help and the time he has given me on this issue over a long period, including meeting my constituent, Mary Stephenson, and the String of Pearls project some weeks ago.

There are around 3.7 million recorded crimes in this country every year. For each of those crimes there is at least one direct victim, and in many cases many direct victims. However, that should not mean that we overlook what many refer to as the hidden victims: prisoners’ families. Approximately 160,000 children in this country currently have one or both parents inside prison. That is approximately twice the number of children in care and more than the number who suffer as a consequence of the divorce of their parents in any one year. Those children are three times as likely to suffer from mental health problems as other children in society. More than 60% of young boys who have one parent incarcerated are likely to go on to offend and go into prison later in their lives as a consequence.

Families on the outside often suffer the social stigma of the communities in which they live. It is often assumed that families have brought these problems on themselves. Children at school might suffer bullying and many of these families might find more solace in the local criminal fraternity than they do among their neighbours and the communities in which they live. Many families suffer emotional problems, stresses and financial problems, particularly where the individual in prison has previously been the breadwinner. Families also suffer problems in visiting their loved ones in prisons, especially when many of the prisons are a long way from home. The Minister may be able to provide some more recent information in a few moments, but I know that in 2003 some 11,000 prisoners were incarcerated at a distance greater than 100 miles from where their family lived.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

I draw the House’s attention to my book, which covers some of the issues on this subject, and I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing the debate. Does he recall that in 2007 a large number of charities, led by the Prison Reform Trust, reported to the inter-ministerial group on reducing reoffending, and that the findings were that

“prisoners who received visits from their family were twice as likely to gain employment on release and three times as likely to have accommodation arranged as those who did not receive any visits”?

Is not the heart of the point that it underlines the lack of reoffending, which is what we also seek?

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for his intervention and congratulate him on the deep and detailed research he carried out for the production of his book. I very much take his point: it is essential that families are connected to prisoners for, among other reasons, the reason he has just elaborated. It is not just the ability of families to connect with their loved ones in prisons that matters, as the quality of the experience when they do is also important, as I shall explain in a few moments.

The issue is not just about the suffering of families, because it is the value of the families in the rehabilitation process that really matters. It is a fact that where a prisoner comes out of prison into a family environment—gaining the support identified by my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman)—they are 40% less likely to reoffend than if there were no family there to support them. The economic costs to our criminal justice system of reoffending are, of course, absolutely immense, running in excess of £10 billion a year. The beneficial effects are felt not only by those being released but by their children, and we can see demonstrable reductions in inter-generational crime resulting from the presence of families and their support for prisoners on release.

The support from families comes while the prisoners are inside prison, and I think one of the most important aspects of prison visits and connections between families and prisoners is that they are there to remind those inside what is happening outside so that when prisoners leave they will have very real personal responsibilities and it will be for them to tackle them. It is also known that where family visits and contacts with prisoners are facilitated, the likelihood of self-harming among prisoners is reduced, as indeed is the likelihood of suicide.

Outside prison, family contact helps, as my hon. Friend indicated, in the provision of jobs and appropriate housing. It also leads to what some describe as prisoners having “a stake in conformity”, meaning that they have social pressure from the family network to ensure that they do not reoffend, that they go straight and avoid lapsing back into drug use or the misuse of alcohol.

I am very heartened by the direction of travel that Ministers have mapped out for us on the criminal justice side. I believe that payment by results, when it comes to involving voluntary or private organisations, is a good way to help ensure rehabilitation, leading to an unleashing of innovation, of entrepreneurial spirit, of creativity and to solutions being suggested that are appropriate to local circumstances. I also believe it is important that the Government have announced 70 resettlement prisons. Prisoners in the final three months of their sentence will be closer to their families than would otherwise be the case, with all the benefits I have identified.

As a general point, it is extremely important that we ensure that the level of contact I am describing exists throughout the criminal justice process, from as close as possible to the point of arrest and charge and certainly right the way through to prison and post-release. The nature of that contact should be weighted towards mentoring for families by individuals who have gone through the difficulties associated with having a loved one in prison and who can therefore share their experience, compassion and insight.

I have a series of points and questions for the Minister, on which I ask for his comments. The first question is how he and his colleagues see the Government encouraging organisations that are involved in the rehabilitation process, particularly the smaller and perhaps more innovative ones. I think particularly of String of Pearls, the project that Mary Stephenson and her colleagues have been operating in HMP Channings Wood. We need to ensure that such projects are not crowded out by the likes of G4S and Serco, about which we have heard less than flattering news recently.

[Guy Opperman]

I pay tribute to the organisations that my hon. Friend cites in support of his argument. Does he agree that there is potential in the years to come for one of those organisations, or a group of them together, to take over a resettlement prison, so that instead of having a state-run or privately run prison, we have a community or charity-run prison that will work for the benefit of the community?

[Mel Stride]

I thank my hon. Friend for that interesting idea. That is the exciting part of the Government’s direction of travel—all sorts of innovation, partnership arrangements and possibilities may occur in the future, because we are not being too prescriptive from the centre. We are allowing best practice to thrive in a pluralistic market, allowing competition to drive up standards and so on.

Might the Minister consider additional funding for some small providers, such as String of Pearls, so that they are not crowded out by the bigger players and so that, further down the line, we can have a more pluralistic marketplace of providers and encourage the innovation and nimble-footedness that we associate with smaller organisations in particular?

I also ask the Minister how we can ensure that prisoners’ families are a major focus of rehabilitation organisations. I wonder whether the fee mechanism might be a way of achieving that. I know that there are three strands to the way in which providers will be paid. There is payment by results, but there is also the fee-for-service strand, which I understand is for providers meeting certain set criteria. I wonder whether we may have a sharp focus in those criteria on the involvement of families, so that organisations that are strong in that respect are rewarded for it. As I understand it, the third strand of the payment structure will be penalties for failure. I would like providers who ignore the importance of families to be penalised in some form.

The other thought I would like to share with the Minister is that the justice data lab, which we have set up to allow rehabilitation providers to benchmark their performance against other providers and against the norm, is also there to share best practice. I would like to see a strong focus on family involvement as an element of best practice in that data lab.

I wish to ask the Minister about prison visits. As I suggested, I think they are extremely important, and my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham shares that view. How can we increase the frequency of visits? At present only about 50% of prisoners receive their full statutory entitlement of visits, and I would like us to consider how we might increase that.

[Guy Opperman]

The evidence overwhelmingly supports my hon. Friend’s argument that prisons are at their most peaceful shortly before visits. That is because the anticipation of those visits serves to calm the whole prison down.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Jeremy Wright)]

May I first congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon (Mel Stride) on securing this debate, and also return the compliment to him by thanking him for the considerable interest he takes in this subject? He has highlighted one of several important issues covered by the Government’s plans to transform the criminal justice system. He is right to say that we must consider such matters in the context of falling crime figures, which is good news, but reoffending remains a serious challenge, and the ways to achieve further reductions in crime and reoffending include taking bold and effective steps to rehabilitate offenders by assisting, encouraging and guiding them away from crime into new, worthwhile and productive ways of life. The evidence shows that support for prisoners’ families is an important part of that, for two reasons. First, supporting offenders’ family relationships can help to reduce reoffending. Secondly, supporting offenders’ families can help to reduce the likelihood of intergenerational offending. Both those things are important.

As my hon. Friend pointed out, we announced on 4 July that a total of 70 resettlement prisons have been identified for the adult male prisoner estate, with more to be identified for the female and young adult estates. Resettlement prisons are one strand of a comprehensive strategy of reform that is seeking to tackle the problem of reoffending in all its aspects. That should provide both better opportunities to support contact with families, and links with local partners and providers of support services. Providers will offer a resettlement service for all offenders in custody before their release, which may well include family support, where it is needed.

I agree with my hon. Friend that positive family relationships can be an important protective factor in helping offenders desist from future offending. We understand that we can help to break the cycle of offending by working to strengthen family ties, to improve family and other relationships, to improve parenting behaviour and to increase acceptance into communities and social networks. He was right—my hon. Friend the Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) made this point, too—to say that research has shown that ensuring a prisoner keeps in contact with his or her family while in prison can help in reducing the likelihood of reoffending. We know, too, that most prisoners regard their families as important to them and want them to be involved in their lives, and that they believe that support from their family and seeing their children would be important in stopping them reoffending in the future. It is therefore important that we support and allow contact, and the involvement of families in prisoners’ sentences.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon asked, in particular, about phone contact. He will know that there are private prisons that currently allow phone use in cells. Rochester prison, in the publicly run estate, is also trialling the use of phones in cells. It is important that we look at what the evidence is showing us about that. He makes a fair point that if a prisoner is to be encouraged to make more phone calls home and to speak to the children more often, they are more likely to do that if the phone is located in the cell than if it is located on the landing. However, he will recognise that we cannot allow unrestricted access to telephones, and whatever we do there will still be a restricted list of numbers that prisoners are able to call.

[Guy Opperman]

We all know that at least 8,000 mobile phones are confiscated by the Prison Service every year, so by supposition another 8,000 that are not confiscated are probably in the system. It must be accepted that mobile phones are already in the system. Due deference must be paid to security, but does the Minister accept the broad principle that a greater degree of communication, whether by phone, e-mail or computer, in whatever shape or form, must be the way ahead if we are to have this family relationship encouraged, as we would like?

[Jeremy Wright]

My hon. Friend rightly says that, sadly, mobile phones find their way into prison, but that is an offence and we do not tolerate it. It cannot be wise to allow for unrestricted access to communications, be that telephone contact or e-mail contact. What is sensible is that we consider ways in which, within the restrictions of a limited amount of approved phone numbers or approved contacts that a prisoner can have, we look at the best way of ensuring that that contact can happen, for the reasons we have been discussing.

This debate is also important because of the effect that parental imprisonment has on children. It is estimated that in any given year approximately 200,000 children are affected by a parent being in or going to prison. Most children who experience parental imprisonment are likely to experience it more than once. My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon referred to the figures, and we know that children with parents in prison are more vulnerable than other children. They are more likely to become offenders themselves and to develop behavioural problems and poor psychological health than children who have not had a parent in prison, and they may lose contact with their imprisoned mother or father. So we do understand that by supporting offenders’ families and children we can help to reduce the likelihood of intergenerational crime.

We take that responsibility within the Prison Service very seriously. Prison Service instructions on rehabilitation services outline expectations on prisons to: help staff in recognising the impact of imprisonment on prisoners’ families and to understand their role in the maintenance of family relationships and supporting offenders’ families; to provide advice, support, signposting and to refer prisoners to services; and to reflect the involvement of families in the offender management process.

Prison rules require prisons to encourage prisoners to maintain outside contacts and meaningful family ties. Prison governors have duties under the Children Act 2004, many of which are associated with either the child’s right to contact with parents who are held in custody or the safeguarding and well-being of children with whom they have contact. There are also minimum standards relating to how prisons support family visitors, including having visiting times that maximise opportunities for prisoners and families to meet and ensuring opportunities for reasonable physical contact. That goes to the point my hon. Friend made about the presence of glass screens and the like. He will appreciate that there is always a balance to be struck between the security of the prison and ensuring that contraband cannot be passed, and the need to ensure that relationships with family members are maintained with as much normality as can be managed in a custodial environment.

My hon. Friend was right to make the point early on in his remarks that in many ways the families of prisoners are victims of what that prisoner has done, too. In many ways, the prisoner’s family also undergoes a sentence. There is a period of separation that cannot be helpful to domestic life and that certainly is not helpful to the relationship a prisoner might have with his or her children. When we can maintain physical contact and where it is compatible with security to do so, my hon. Friend is right that we should seek to do that. We can take practical measures too, such as providing facilities for children to play while visiting and providing decent, indoor facilities with toilets and baby changing facilities. The National Offender Management Service also encourages additional activities such as enhanced children’s play facilities, family support worker services, family days, child-centred visits and the like.

My hon. Friend asked about what will happen in the future. As he knows, by opening up probation to a wider range of providers, we can bring additional skills and ideas into play, while the national probation service will continue to have a key role in managing risk, including the direct management of higher-risk offenders.

My hon. Friend also asked about smaller organisations and I understand his concern. We, too, are concerned that we should ensure that those smaller organisations, particularly those in the voluntary sector, can play their full part in the new landscape. We need to do that in a number of ways. Let me give him two of the most important. We must ensure that in the bid assessment process we take full account of what the sustainability is likely to be of the relationships between larger and smaller organisations. We anticipate that many of the bids we will receive will come from a group of organisations, some large, some small. It is important that the smaller organisations are looked after in those arrangements and we assess bids with that in mind. We will also need to ensure that over the duration of the contract period we have robust processes of contract management in place to ensure that the sustainable relationship between larger and smaller organisations is maintained.

[Guy Opperman]

Does the Minister accept that there is a genuine problem with the bid assessment process in that the smaller providers—charities, community groups—are effectively being frozen out of the process? We need to be very certain that there is a flexible system rather than a one-size-fits-all system to accommodate those small providers.

[Jeremy Wright]

I can understand my hon. Friend’s concern, but I think that many of the small organisations about which he, I and my hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon are concerned will be involved in the bid process. The trick is to ensure that they are still involved on a sustainable basis throughout the period of the contract. I can see the attraction of those smaller organisations and we are all familiar with excellent voluntary sector organisations that offer something special in a particular aspect of rehabilitation. I am confident that they will be involved; we must ensure that they stay involved and that they can remain in a sustainable relationship as time goes on.

My hon. Friend the Member for Central Devon asked about funding. He will understand that the central premise of the system we are looking to establish is that what works should receive support. I think, as he does, that the evidence is good that involvement with families demonstrates effectiveness and I am confident that providers of rehabilitation services will look to provide that. Similarly, on his point about the justice data lab, it is important that we consider ways in which we can display information about what works in the most effective way, and I will consider his specific point about that.

My hon. Friend will understand that the delivery of services to the children and families of offenders must be considered in the context of the Government’s wider approach to supporting families. Tackling troubled families is a priority for this Government and supporting offenders’ families is an important aspect of that work. That involves a partnership approach, which is embedded elsewhere with other Departments and is part of a legacy of earlier cross-government work.

No one imagines that changing entrenched patterns of reoffending is a simple matter, but the Government firmly believe that the measures we are putting in place will help to achieve a fundamental transformation. Supporting offenders’ families has an important part to play in that.

Question put and agreed to.