It was a pleasure attending a reception this week celebrating the Prison Reform Trust’s 40th anniversary. For those who don’t know about this organisation, it was set up in 1981 to inform and influence public debate on prison conditions and the treatment of prisoners, amidst concerns about a projected prison population of 48,000 by 1984.
A cause worth supporting
It was apparently only meant to be a temporary enterprise to stop the growth in prison numbers and improve prison conditions. Incredibly, with the prison population in England and Wales now exceeding 82,000 and projected to rise to 86,400 by 2023, the charity remains as important to civic society today as it was then.
It has three clear objectives:
- reducing unnecessary imprisonment and promoting community solutions to crime;
- improving treatment and conditions for prisoners and their families;
- and promoting equality and human rights in the justice system.
There are no votes in prisons and most of the public underestimate the severity of sentencing practices. We have the highest imprisonment rate in Europe and yet there is no link between the prison population and levels of crime according to the National Audit Office. Sentences of over 10 years have increased by 250% since 2008. Over 28,000 people alone are held in custody before a trial.
Other statistics are also depressing; over 60% of offenders are sent to prison at great cost for non-violent offences, 40% for less than 6 months despite the fact that such sentences (rather than community sentences) are particularly ineffective for persistent offenders and people with mental health problems. This touches on who we jail. Three in ten offenders have learning disabilities, one in three have serious drug addiction issues. 52% of people surveyed by inspectors in 2020/21 reported mental health problems but only 22% said it was easy to see a mental health worker.
Finally, the state of prisons; 29% of prisons were rated of concern or serious concern by HM Prisons and Probation Service. Two-thirds of prisons are over-crowded and there are 10% fewer prison staff than there were in 2010. More than 20% of prison deaths were due to self-inflicted injuries, six times higher than in the general population. There were 55,000 reported incidents of self-harm in 2020 alone.
Interestingly, the Prison Reform Trust is not only supported by so-called liberals but also by many moderate Tories such as Douglas Hurd, Edward Garnier and David Gauke. And its Chair is James Timpson, brother of a Tory MP, Edward Timpson, who employs many ex-offenders across his family-owned retail chain of 1500 shops. He has rightly earned his OBE!
It is an invaluable organisation, shining a light on an area of society easy to ignore. Our civilisation should be partly judged by how we treat offenders for this reason alone. And it is common sense to focus on solutions to crime which are cost effective both in terms of avoiding incarceration in the first place and reducing re-offending.
Public discourse on our justice system needs to improve because the system is in a mess. Fat chance with populism in vogue in so many aspects of public life. That is why it is so easy to support this charity which shines a light on hidden areas of concern such as the state and use of our prisons.
Inside Right Politics 