Prisons: Young People

Lord Beecham Excerpts

Thursday 29th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Beecham (Lab)]

My Lords, 400 years ago John Donne proclaimed:

“No man is an island … any man’s death diminishes me”.

How much more are we and our justice system diminished by the deaths in custody of the four children and 83 young adults for whom the bell tolled between April 2007 and December 2013?

We are indebted to my noble friend Lord Harris and his team for their careful investigation into the circumstances which led to these untimely deaths; the way they have identified the failings of the policies and institutions within which they occurred; and the recommendations they propose to improve upon an unacceptable toll of young lives. It would be churlish not to pay tribute to Ministers for establishing the review and for reaching across the political divide and appointing my noble friend to chair it.

I regret I must qualify that tribute somewhat in the light of the Government’s reaction to the recent Supreme Court judgment which outlawed the segregation of prisoners—that is, placing them in solitary confinement for more than 72 hours—including young offenders. The Government have laid an order to amend the prison rules to extend this to 42 days and have embarked upon a consultation process as part of a review of the policy, which will conclude in the new year. That will be a matter of concern for Members of your Lordships’ House.

The background to the problems identified by the report lies in the way our criminal justice system involves a low level of the age of criminal responsibility and a high level of incarceration, with the prison population virtually doubling in the past 20 years, as the noble and learned Lord, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers, pointed out. We have, or are close to having, the highest prison population relative to population of any advanced country, with commensurately high costs, both direct and indirect. It is clear that conditions in too many of our prisons and young offender institutions are unsatisfactory, with overcrowding and staff shortages, and that in turn these systemic failings are reflected in unacceptably high and costly levels of reoffending.

I must again pay tribute to the Government for recognising that rehabilitation is the key to improvement in this area, with the additional bonus of reducing costs, although arguably the policies of the previous Lord Chancellor conflicted with the aspirations he voiced. There are welcome signs that Mr Gove may take a more rounded view.

An important strand running through the report and the submissions of bodies such as the Howard League and the Prison Reform Trust is the need to recognise that sentencing policy and custodial practice should reflect the reality that 18 to 21 year-olds are not all of a piece in terms of their developmental maturity, a point made by several Members of your Lordships’ House in this debate. To adopt an old-fashioned phrase, sentencing needs to be tailor-made, not merely handed down from the judicial shelf, and the same approach is required in respect of what is provided by way of healthcare, education and all that is needed to promote rehabilitation. Particular attention is needed in respect of issues such as literacy and numeracy, and facilitating and encouraging family contact, physically and remotely by telephone or Skype, where this is appropriate. That was one of the main issues which persuaded many of us—and perhaps, in the event, Mr Gove—that the secure college concept for young offenders aged between 12 and 17 was ill advised.

It is clear that the system is struggling, with poor outcomes whether young adults are housed in separate establishments or mixed with adult offenders. The inspectorate found that local mixed prisons are finding it difficult to cope, although paradoxically it also found that young adults felt less safe in prisons without adults. Nevertheless, the Prison Reform Trust supports separate provision. There is clearly a debate to be had on this difficult issue and perhaps the Minister could indicate how the matter might be carried forward and eventually resolved.

The report alludes to staffing numbers and the current pressure on staff, which no doubt contributed to the tragic loss of young lives which triggered its commissioning. But there are also questions about the level of skills and the training required to secure the capacity to detect and deal with emerging symptoms that can lead to self-harm and worse. The training of prison staff, the report states, lasts eight weeks in England—the shortest period in Europe. In Norway, it is two years. Is there the potential to devise specific qualifications for employees in this sensitive area, especially for the newly proposed post of care and rehabilitation officers? I join other noble Lords in commending that recommendation of the report. Would it not also be right to pay special consideration to the health needs of staff who are working in what are clearly highly stressful conditions?

There is also a need to review what is happening to these young people before they begin their journey through the justice and custodial system. The report points out that the unhappy 87 young people whose cases it examined had exhibited problems from an early age and, as my noble friend Lord Harris reminded us, asks reasonably, “Why did so many of them end up in custody?”. Programmes such as the Government’s troubled families programme may help in this context but there is surely a need for a more holistic approach involving health, children’s and education services working collaboratively at local level to identify, and seek to tackle, early signs of behavioural and mental health problems. However, I fear that another large cut in resources for those already overstretched services will follow the comprehensive spending review and the local government finance settlement in December. The Ministry of Justice has an interest in these matters; I hope the Minister can assure us that he is discussing the issue with the Department for Communities and Local Government and the Treasury. The deeper the cuts in these services, the greater the eventual cost to the Ministry of Justice’s budget and to society as a whole.

The report makes some interesting suggestions about how overall management and evaluation of the service could be conducted. I am uncertain about the proposal to vest the responsibility in the Justice Committee but, in any event, I would argue for peer review—by which I do not mean another report from my noble friend—within the service, including experts and scrutiny by local authorities, for example by the combined authorities involved in the devolution process now under way. In the north-east, we undertook such an exercise in respect of the mental health of offenders some time ago. The present system of independent local oversight does not appear to be effective.

The report contains a host of recommendations, many of which have been raised in this debate. Time and the patience of the House do not permit me to refer to more of them, nor can the Minister be expected to cover today every issue that the report raises or each proposal it makes. We look forward to the Government’s detailed response to the report and hope, as my noble friend Lord Harris intimated, that it will not be long delayed—and that we can find a way to discuss it in detail, ideally in conjunction with the Justice Select Committee. I hope that in their response, the Government will look at what seems to be the best practice in other jurisdictions. In that context I invite the Minister, as I invited his predecessor, the noble Lord, Lord McNally, to look at the experience of Finland. In the mean time I reiterate my thanks, and I believe the thanks of the whole House, to my noble friend Lord Harris and thank all Members who have contributed to this important debate.