Prison works?

jess prison was the "short sharp shock" for a nephew on my husband's side of the family who got into trouble with cocaine. He cleaned up in prison, did a business degree and is a reformed character. So it works for some people - just like anything else.

Individual examples prove nothing in general - it's the recidivism rates that are much better evidence

I didn't watch the documentary but I did hear the discussion and phone in on the radio yesterday morning

In the late 1970's, I worked on a project where we set up packages as an alternative for custody for so called recidivists. The prison population was much smaller, staff to prisoner ratio much higher and drug use in prisons nothing like it is now. It was the case then, as it remains, that prison where individuals are locked up 23 hours a day isn't effective. We imprison more people than other European countries, our recidivist rate is high.

We need to stop this austerity approach to justice, social care, education, health etc and invest in our people. Sorry to irritate some folks but we need to take more notice of 'experts' those who work in those areas, look at the research. None of those things support the continuing slash and burn approach to essential public services.

I know someone who does research about prisons, and is allowed to visit every prison in the UK to do that.

Her words are "a lot of the people shouldnt be in there".
They need help yes, but prison often isnt the answer.

Totally agree Iam64. I watched the documentary and it was quite frightening witnessing the working day of prison staff. One junior ( the undercover reporter) member of staff on a landing with 30 men. There was no way he could tell them to do anything and he admitted they were in charge. I do not believe in brutalism in the prison service, and could weep as Home Office Ministers, one after the other, come up with the next big project which is going to cure all ills. This prison last night was for low risk prisoners, so heaven only knows what it is like in high category prisons. The most important statistic last night i thought was that over 25% of the prisoners here ( and this was in low risk establishment) had a reading age of less than 11 years old. And the twitching legs of the Prison Officer on the floor, having some kind of seizure as a result of inhaling the vast amount of second hand smoke from the artificial cannabis that they were smoking on the wing. I am sick and tired of everything being slashed to beyond the bone in this country, be it schools, prisons, hospitals, social care etc., etc. Just how much further can it all be cut before we are all brutalised by the lack of care and protection? Experienced prison officers were made redundant and then replaced by minimum wage inexperienced sodexho employees, soon this whole bloody country will be run by over worked, underpaid, exploited staff working for either Sodesxho or Crapita or any of the other so called service providers.

We heard the You and Yours programme - an appalling situation. How they manage to get anyone to work there is beyond me. Unless the prisoners can work, or study, prison is an inhuman concept anyway.

We need to ask why people are sent to prison. There are four distinct reasons - punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation and protection of the public.

In my view the only good reason to keep someone in prison is to protect the public. All of the other three reasons could be dealt with by other means. Community service, fines and other more imaginative and appropriate sentences are generally more effective in preventing recidivism. We should learn from countries like The Netherlands which are closing prisons because they no longer need so many.

I agree varian, why has Sweden got such a low imprisonment rate ? Unfortunately it's like the NHS and Social Care the changes needed are massive and successive Governments are unwilling to tackle them.

Does anyone else think that Liz Truss just doesn't cut it?

The prison was originally a young offenders institute. The officers worked for the government and thought they were doing a good job.
When it got changed to an adult prison most of them were made redundant when Sodexo took over.

Sodexo said they'll learn from it and have employed an additional 37 staff at that prison. The government says they are investing an extra £100 million a year to boost frontline staff.

Why did they give Sodexo the contract, for 15 years, knowing that they would save £129 million a year by cutting jobs. That was the Sodexo contract. What did the government expect would happen?

That's just the Sodexo contract. They don't run all prisons.
So the government is still putting in less than Sodexo saves them. That doesn't solve the problem.

I know someone in his 60s who is in prison for a non violent offence. He pleaded guilty and has no previous convictions. He is no threat to the public, couldn't run for a bus, yet he has been kept in a high security prison as there wasn't room anywhere else, at a cost of £50k a year. He is locked up for 23 hours a day. He could easily work for a charity, help other offenders with literacy, or payback in some other way. There isn't any education, work, very little exercise even because of staff shortages. No surprise that younger offenders, many with mental health issues depend on drugs and drift back into crime. Why do we lock up more people than anywhere else in Europe? We haven't got more crime. Prison does not work and should never be run for profit by private companies.

I only knew Sodexo as a catering company - never understood how they got to run our prisons

Same way that Virgin gets to run so much of our NHS, Riverwalk.
You put in the lowest bid, then if you get the work, try and work out how to do it. You employ people on lower wages, to save money and give shareholders profit out of prisons and the NHS.

suzied, you are so right to give the details of the man you know who is in prison of a non violent offences. So called 'white collar' offenders do seem to be heavily punished with custodial sentences when they pose no threat to the public. The fact they've been convicted of say a fraud offence makes it much more difficult for them to perpetuate. They're also likely to respond positively to community punishments like probation or community service.
The talk of building newer, bigger and better prisons is madness. We need to rebuild the good services that probation used to run, to have more prisons where inmates go out to work. A friend of mine was governor at one of the few prisons from which inmates went out to work. In three years there were hardly any men who didn't return after work and the success rate I'm told, was good in the longer term.
My work tended to mean I met many of those prisoners who were ex services, ex care, lower IQ and high levels of illiteracy, along with high levels of drug misuse, violent and chaotic offending patterns. It was always, and I mean always, a poignant first visit when the previously difficult, explosive man would present me with certificates from the various classes he'd been attending. So many women in prison pose no threat at all to society. I'm not saying the shop lifting or benefit fraud is victimless but I am saying the short sentences do nothing to help these woman, often lead to children going into care etc.
We need to be led by our European and Scandinavian neighbours, rather than by the US when seeking to improve the way we deal with offenders. We need effective interventions, not just locking people up, unless of course they pose a risk of violence to others.

And all Amber Rudd can say is that there are more people in prison now because the police are better at catching them.

The government has said they will provide an extra 2500 prison officers.
Since 2010 there have been 5000 fewer frontline prison officers.

fullfact.org/crime/prison-officer-numbers-have-fallen/

They still don't get it, do they?

Here is the latest policy document. Building more prisons? Why not cut the numbers instead and invest the money in staff?
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-37854358

When I had to attend (so-called) Work Programme courses, I met a woman who had been in prison for fraud. She was virtually unemployable. She seemed to be an intelligent woman who had made a big mistake. She had worked in admin/accounts and had defrauded her employer. Therefore, she couldn't get a similar job or anything involving money. She would have liked to work with children, but her conviction would have shown up on her DBS. She couldn't even do care work - again because she would have needed a DBS.

She was a single parent and her son had to go to foster carers when she was in prison.

Of course it was right that she was punished for what she did, but she'd paid the price. I sincerely hope that she did manage to find a job. Otherwise, she'll be on benefits for the rest of her life and/or possibly find an illegal way of making money.

Some years ago a close friend went to prison twice for fraud. On her second 'visit' to prison ( Holloway) she learnt how not to get caught.

And she told you? So who did you tell?

We can all see it, why can't 'they' !

We do need prisons; therefore we should ensure they are properly staffed. Then we could tackle the remaining needs of education and probation (which has never been given proper time and study).

As for drugs there must be a way to eliminate them. Then those who warrant a prisom sentence but are non violent should be placed in a prison with similar inmates. All the violent criminals should be detained in the securest facility under rigid discipline.

Privatising prisons is a nonsense and must be stopped.

I agree with Gill T57 about the alarming cuts, but what it does boil down to is how much are we all prepared to pay in taxes? We can have most things we want if we pay for them, but a recent poll had people saying that they wanted various improvements in the NHS, and then when asked if they were prepared to pay a higher NI contribution, a fair percentage said no. Where they think the money is coming from I don't know.
As for prisons, I recently read a book recommended to me called 'Inside' by John Hoskison. What an eye opener that was; he makes it clear that drugs are rife, and a blind eye is turned to drug taking. If this is the case - and I do believe what this man has said - what hope is there? Prison officers are frightened of certain thuggish inmates who appear to run prisons as their own domain, and who can blame them if they face extreme violence with not enough colleagues to help?

Up to 8 years ago I worked in a B category male prison which housed 700 prisoners. I was the prison librarian and therefore classed as a civilian and did not wear uniform. I wore keys on a belt to give me access to the prison but did not have the key to open cells. In all that time I felt safe in the company of prisoners and would have a library with perhaps 15 -20 prisoners in with an officer coming and going to bring/return them to the wings. I have kept in contact with an officer who tells me that prisons are not the same as then. The prison staff put this down to legal highs which have been smuggled into establishments. Yes there has always been drugs in prison ( mainly heroin and marijuana ) but never the level of violence seen today.