Books

Lord Dholakia Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Grand Committee

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I add my thanks to those offered to my noble friend Lady Miller for securing this debate. Let me consider one issue and one issue alone: prisons and books.

The process of rehabilitation requires a number of initiatives and fundamental to this principle is ensuring that inmates are better prepared to face the outside world upon their release. The most disturbing aspect of the recent developments is the prison policy which bans friends and relatives sending books into prisons for prisoners to read. This change was made last year as part of the Government’s revision of the incentives and earned privileges scheme in prisons. The change means that friends and relatives in the outside world can no longer send small items to prisons, and this includes books. As a result, prisoners can access books only if they borrow them from prison libraries or if they buy them from their prison earnings. Both these options have serious restrictions and limitations. The Chief Inspector of Prisons drew attention to the restrictions on times at which prisoners can gain access to libraries. In addition, prison libraries are run and financed by local authorities. My noble friend made a substantial point that many of the libraries are now closing down, and there is less and less expenditure on books.

It is very difficult for most prisoners to buy books out of their prison earnings. The earnings amount to about £8 or £10 per week, out of which they have to buy their toiletries, stationery, stamps, phone cards to ring home and other items. Do we genuinely expect the prisoner to spend £8 out of £10 to buy a book to read?

There are a number of powerful reasons for reversing this unfortunate ban. First is the damaging effect on the literacy and education of prisoners. The poor rate of literacy among prisoners is well known, as is the research showing that poor reading ability is strongly correlated with difficulty in obtaining jobs on release, and with reoffending. The experience of literacy tutors shows that prisoners are more likely to be motivated to practise and develop their reading ability if they are able to read material on subjects in which they have particular interests. This is where reading material sent in by relatives can play a very important role.

The facts are just as unfortunate for better educated prisoners who want to pursue vocationally linked courses of study which can provide them with a positive alternative to their continuing life of crime. In a recent survey of the incentives and earned privileges scheme published by the Prison Reform Trust, one prisoner said:

“I am about to start a distance learning course. A friend of mine has done all these courses and is fully qualified and was going to send me all his books but we can’t have books sent in anymore”.

The rationale behind preventing prisoners from receiving books which can help them with educational courses is almost baffling, but the rationale behind preventing prisoners receiving books for leisure reading is also doubtful. I shall explain. In many prisons, inmates can spend around 16 hours a day in their cells, and it can be as much as 20 hours a day. Limiting the opportunity for prisoners to read in these circumstances is unreasonably punitive. Moreover, there is a real risk that it will have an adverse effect on prisoners’ mental health and emotional well-being. At a time when the number of suicides in prison last year reached an all-time high, this is a very disturbing development.

The Government have rightly received strong criticism from many quarters for this policy. In the face of this criticism, the Government have belatedly started to advance an argument which says that parcels containing books could be used as a way of smuggling drugs into prisons. This was not part of the original reasoning which the Government put forward when they established that change. It is true that many prisons have a drug problem and most drugs are brought into prisons—and I speak from experience, having been on a board of visitors in my younger days—by visitors, by prisoners returning from temporary release and by a minority of offending prison staff. It is noteworthy that the Prison Officers’ Association—a tough body which is as concerned as anyone about drugs in prisons—has said that attempts to smuggle drugs in parcels are rare and that the systems for security checks on parcels were working well before the ban was introduced. The Government’s argument therefore does not stand.

I hope that the Government will think again and acknowledge that they have made a mistake in prohibiting prisoners from receiving books from their families and friends. It is not too late to reverse this change, which is likely to worsen behaviour in prisons and increase reoffending rates.