Pressing issues - (1) - Prisons and Probation

The prison population in England and Wales stood at 83,107 on 3 August 2018 against a "useable operational capacity" of 86,012 - MoJ Prison Population figures.  The terms used in the statistics are defined as:

A House of Commons Library Briefing Paper issued on 23 July 2018 explores data on the UK prison population, including the population size and change over time, the demographic profile of prisoners, safety in prisons, and the cost per prisoner.  There is a general underlying, increasing trend in the number of people held in prison.

[PDF]UK Prison Population Statistics - Parliament.uk

Para 5 of the Briefing Paper states that England and Wales has 146 prisoners per 100,000 head of population.  That is the 8th highest among EU countries and the highest among western European jurisdictions.

  

Reforms:

 

In a speech on 6 March 2018, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor (Mr David Gauke MP) spoke of Prison Reform and set out the government's aims to make prisons safer and to enable rehabilitation of prisoners to take place.  He noted that in 2017 there were 28,000 violent incidents in prisons: 20,246 attacks by prisoners against fellow prisoners and 7,828 assaults against prison officers by prisoners.  See also House of Commons Library 5 December 2017 - Safety in prisons in England and Wales.

 

He also pledged to tackle the high level of drugs in prisons - " ... the problem of drugs entering and circulating in our prison system has always been a challenge. But the nature of the challenge has changed over the past few years, with the emergence of cheap and highly addictive new psychoactive substances, like Spice, in our prisons….…. something exploited by criminal gangs who have capitalised on the control they can exert and the money they can bring in.  After all, what better place to target than a captive market made up of some of society’s most susceptible and vulnerable groups when it comes to drug use and addiction.  The economics mean that Spice can sell in prison for many times its street value – bringing in a healthy return for the criminals.  At the same time, it is relatively cheap to buy in prison compared to other drugs – so is financially attractive for prisoners."

 

The House of Commons Justice Committee is undertaking an Inquiry into Prison population 2022: Planning for the future which seeks to examine -

• Who is in prison and who is expected to be imprisoned over the next 5 years
• The reasons prisoners are there, why they stay there and why they return
• Whether the Ministry of Justice and prison services currently have a credible approach to accommodating the changes anticipated.

Short term imprisonment:

The use of short term prison sentences continues to be a concern.  In 2017 over 37,000 people entered prison to serve a sentence of less than a year, and latest figures show that nearly two-thirds will reoffend within a year of release.  Four in five people sent to prison on short sentences last year had committed a non-violent offence.  Rather than tackling the issues contributing to a person’s offending, short spells behind bars can often make them worse, as people lose accommodation, jobs and families, without the time to tackle the issues that got them into trouble in the first place.

The Prison Reform Trust (24 July 2018) has called for the government to follow Scotland’s lead and introduce a presumption against short prison sentences as part of their efforts to restore safety and stability to our struggling jails - Prison: the facts.    The briefing reveals the current scale of the challenge facing the government, with hundreds of people flowing in and out of the prison system on short sentences every week, placing pressure on an already overstretched and overcrowded prison system.  See also Howard League - Why the system is broken.

Scotland introduced a presumption against short term sentences in section 17 of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Act 2010 though it cannot be said that this idea is universally accepted -   Scottish Legal News 11 April 2018.   Mr Richard Burgon MP - the Shadow Justice Secretary - has suggested that - A presumption against “super short” jail sentences should be considered to reduce reoffending and the numbers of inmates in our prisons - see Byline 5 April 2018.  He wishes to see "tough community sentences as an alternative to super short sentences where people are in jails for just a number of weeks."

There is no doubt that there is excessive use of short term imprisonment and, to a point, it could be reduced by rigorous application of the criteria for imprisonment set out in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 section 152(2) - The court must not pass a custodial sentence unless it is of the opinion that the offence, or the combination of the offence and one or more offences associated with it, was so serious that neither a fine alone nor a community sentence can be justified for the offence. 

Prison Officer Numbers:

Although the government is now seeking to increase prison officer numbers it remains a fact that previous cuts in numbers resulted in loss to the Prison Service of a great deal of experience.  The Howard League commented on 31 August 2016  that prison officer numbers were cut by 30 per cent between 2010 and 2013.  While officer numbers fell between June 2013 and June 2016, the prison population across England and Wales rose from 83,796 to 85,130 – putting more pressure on a failing system.

Probation:

The obvious need is for an effective alternative to imprisonment.   Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRC) were created by a previous Secretary of State for Justice (Mr Chris Grayling) and these have proved to be unsatisfactory.  The government has announced that contracts with those companies will end in 2020 - Reuters 27 July.  There is no great satisfaction in being able to say "told you so" but the Grayling Reform was not welcomed at the time by practitioners - previous post 3 June 2014.

A report by the Justice Committee - Transforming Rehabilitation (22 June 2018) - has called on the government to - initiate a review into the long-term future and sustainability of delivering probation services under the models introduced by the TR reforms, including how performance under the TR system might compare to an alternative system for delivering probation. The Government should publish its review, in full, by 1 February 2019.

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Whilst there seems to be some impetus to bring about reforms of the system the pity is that we got here in the first place.  Government must carry most of the blame for this given its policy of cutting  crucial services combined with an ideological attachment to privatisation.  It is to be hoped that some good comes of the ideas now being put forward by the Secretary of State.  A crucial step appears to be to reduce the numbers of short term imprisonment but that requires a robust alternative.

Another problem is the frequency at which Secretaries of State change.  There have been SIX Conservative justice secretaries since 12 May 2010.  Perhaps some cross-party plan for prisons and probation needs to be developed and implemented over a sensible period but, given the current state of politics, that is probably far too much to hope for.