Prisons: Rehabilitation

Lord Hussain Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hussain (LD)]

My Lords, I am grateful to be allowed to speak for a minute in the gap. Muslims are thought to represent between 4% and 5% of the UK population. In prisons, sadly, that proportion is between 14% and 15%, which is very alarming. The Muslim community—the parents, wives and children of offenders—are crying out for help to get their family members out of this vicious circle, as many of these prisoners are reoffenders.

I ask the Minister: what will the Government do to help those families reduce the number of people getting into prison in the first place and, even more importantly, to reduce the rate of reoffending in that community and bring the numbers down to something approaching the proportion of Muslims in the population, rather than being three or four times higher?