Prisons and Probation

Rebecca Harris Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Rebecca Harris (Castle Point) (Con)]

I am delighted the Government have recognised the problems in our Prison Service that need to be addressed. In order to bring down crime rates, it is vital that we tackle reoffending rates in Britain, which we know are far too high. Those reoffending rates are no coincidence. Many prisoners who reoffend are habitual offenders who have been offered little or no rehabilitation during their time in prison. Often they have already been victims themselves. They have been failed by the inability of successive Governments, of all colours, to address problems such as drug addiction, mental health issues and poor education in wider society and the prison system.

That is why I believe it is vital to open up our prisons to many more outside organisations with new and fresh ideas. I want to mention the amazing work of my constituent, Jackie Hewitt-Main, of whom I am immensely proud, and the charity she founded, the Cascade Foundation, of which, I am proud to declare, I am a patron. The charity does amazing work. It has carried out a pilot at Chelmsford prison in Essex and is now working with the National Offender Management Service and Manchester college in Doncaster prison.

Cascade helps offenders at every stage in prison—from when they arrive, following through with education and then release and beyond, as it houses many prisoners when they leave. The primary focus is on assisting offenders who suffer from dyslexia or other learning difficulties and particularly head injuries, who have often long been overlooked and let down by their early experience in schools. We know that more than 70% of prisoners have low levels of literacy, and it is no wonder they are in prison. Many of them are not even able to take the theory part of the test for a driving licence, which would help them to get some legal work.

It is vital to approach such prisoners, but they have often not been well served by the prison education system. Many had a phobia about the classroom environment, and the novel multi-sensory techniques of the Cascade Foundation are superb for reaching those prisoners in a one-to-one way. Jackie and her team of trained ex-offenders and other prisoners use all kind of techniques, including the use of glitter, toothpaste, sand, even pastry cutters to try to engage these often illiterate prisoners, many of whom might be starting with pre-entry-level English.

By using these means, Jackie has achieved some extraordinary successes. The success stories speak for themselves and are inspirational. That is so much the case that Jackie’s work has been honoured by the TV programme “Surprise Surprise”, and she even became The Sun “wonder mum of the year” for 2015 in recognition of the work she has done with so many of these youngsters.

When Jackie was working on her programme in Chelmsford prison, she had incredible success rates in reducing reoffending. Indeed, the rates plummeted to less than 6% among the people she took on in her cohort. Six years later, the rate was massively below the national average. Three of those who had served more than 40 years in prison did not reoffend. I challenge anyone to discount looking at such an innovative idea that has brought such extraordinary success rates.

Jackie is getting amazing results in her current work in Doncaster, bringing people with pre-entry levels of English up to level 2 and beyond within a matter of months. Some make a whole year’s progress within a month, having utilised her extraordinary methods. Let me cite what John Biggin, the previous governor of Doncaster prison, said:

“The potential for sustained and often life-changing results for prisoners going through this programme cannot be underestimated…The potential for good that this programme can deliver is not only worth investing in, but embracing as part of the DNA of our prison.”

Another great success story from Doncaster prison is about an ex-prisoner called DL, who had spent virtually his entire adult life in prison for 22 years. He was deemed to be one of the most disruptive and disengaged men in the prison. He had had a troubled upbringing and successive school failures, giving him a fear of the classroom. With the use of small spaces and multi-sensory learning, he was taught to read and write the alphabet for the first time, and he subsequently made rapid progress—eight years’ progress in eight months! DL says:

“I’ve spent 22 years in prison. I’ve beaten up staff and everything. I’ve just had my 40th birthday and it’s the first one outside prison as an adult. Now I can attend job interviews and I’m planning to take the driving theory test which I’ve always feared to do before.”

I would recommend anyone not impressed by those results and the possible transformative effects that can be seen if we change our approach to rehabilitation in prison to visit the Cascade website.

I mentioned Jackie Hewitt-Main not just to draw attention to her amazing work—it is easy to tell that I am very proud of it—but to stress the transformative role that outside independently run agencies can achieve by bringing new ideas into the Prison Service. I also commend Doncaster prison because two ex-prisoners from the previous project at Chelmsford prison—Colin Nugent and Phil Aldis—have trained as teachers. These are the only ex-offenders ever to be able to teach within a prison setting. I commend the work of Doncaster prison, which is run by Serco. I say congratulations on adopting that innovative approach.

I believe that freezing funding for prisons and outside agencies to offer assistance to offenders will be an absolute disaster. We need to do more to open up to further new innovative ideas—supporting the work both of prison staff and prison governors. They should be able to innovate, to bring in new ideas and new organisations, and to experiment. We need to do something new, because much of what has been done for years has not worked. Anything that works to bring down rates of offending will also bring down the number of victims.