Prisons

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Tuesday 13th July 2010 Grand Committee

[Lord Dholakia]

My Lords, I declare my interest as president of the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders. I welcome this debate, particularly the contribution by the noble Lord, Lord Dubs. It qualifies him to join the coalition. At a time of swingeing cost reductions when every item of public expenditure is to be scrutinised carefully for cost-effectiveness, we must question the benefits of the prison expansion strategy, particularly as the annual cost of keeping someone in prison is now £45,000. This means asking some fundamental questions. Why do we need to build so many prisons? What is the purpose of prison and who should go there? When offenders are jailed, what should be done to rehabilitate them?

The prison system is seriously overcrowded. Seventy-eight out of 137 jails are holding more prisoners than they were built for, and 20,400 prisoners—a quarter of the prison population—are held in overcrowded cells. The results of all this are inhumane conditions and the risk of self-harm and suicide. It makes it harder to provide rehabilitation programmes, thereby increasing reoffending on release. Prisoners are moved part-way through education or rehabilitation courses, and many are held in prisons far away from their home areas, making it hard for relatives to visit and increasing the risk of family break-up.

So is it vital to end prison overcrowding? Is a strategy of prison expansion the right way to do this? If past experience is any guide, the strategy seems doomed to failure. The present process is like trying to run down an escalator which is moving ever more rapidly upwards, and the prison expansion strategy has absorbed ever-increasing resources which could otherwise be spent on prisoner resettlement, alternatives to custody, crime prevention and victim support, precisely what the coalition is asking for.

Most of the offenders jailed in this country receive short sentences. I shall give the noble Lord, Lord Mackenzie, an example. They spend no more than six months in custody. These short sentences are absolutely pointless because they make no point whatever. They are far too short for sustained rehabilitation programmes but are long enough for offenders to lose their homes and jobs, which makes them more likely to reoffend. Two-thirds of short-term prisoners are reconvicted within two years of release. We need a strategy to reduce the prison population to levels more comparable to our European neighbours. When we examine legislation, prisons should be removed as an option for low-level, non-violent crimes. Courts should be prohibited from using prison, except for dangerous offenders, unless they have first tried an intensive community supervision programme. Health authorities should be compelled to devote adequate resources to diverting mentally disordered offenders away from prisons. The number of people jailed for breach of licences should be reduced by a wider use of other penalties for breach before resorting to custody. Strong measures should be taken to tackle the disproportionate use of imprisonment for offenders from racial minorities.

The most commonly advanced purposes of sentencing are punishment, containment, deterrence and rehabilitation. Society has the right to punish offenders in order to protect the weak from victimisation, but punishment does not have to mean imprisonment. Many community supervision programmes are intensive and rigorous, make real demands on offenders and significantly restrict their liberty. Deterrence is, quite frankly, overrated. Those offenders who plan their offences plan not to get caught. They believe that they can avoid detection. Many other offenders commit their offences thoughtlessly or impulsively and, for them, rational considerations of deterrence hardly come into it.

Research has shown that the highest reoffending rates result from punitive approaches, such as the boot camps in America. The lowest reconviction rates result from regimes which work to change offenders' attitudes and behaviour. We should be aiming to provide practical help for prisoners: accommodation and drug rehabilitation programmes interact with each other because it is easier to hold down a job or sustain a drug rehabilitation attempt. We should regard the size of our prison population as a national disgrace. Instead of a prison expansion strategy, we need a strategy centred on reducing the unnecessary use of prison.