Prisons in crisis

HM Inspectorate of Prisons recently warned that “managers and staff” in prisons in England and Wales have “all but lost control”

How bad is the situation?
Very bad. Our jails have become “unacceptably violent and dangerous places” according to Peter Clarke, the Chief Inspector of Prisons. The latest Ministry of Justice figures show that
there were 17,782 prisoner-onprisoner assaults in the year to June 2016, up 32% on the previous year.
Assaults on prison officers rose by 43% to 5,954, with 697 serious injuries. Rates of self-harm among
prisoners hit an all-time high; and there have been 107 suicides and five apparent homicides. This month alone has seen a riot at HMP Bedford, a “mini-riot” at HMP Exeter, and a jailbreak at HMP Pentonville; while at HMP Isle of Wight, an inmate cut a guard’s throat with a razor. Last month, a prisoner was stabbed to death in Pentonville. Up to 10,000 prison officers held a wildcat strike last week in protest over safety concerns; the Government got an injunction ordering them back to work.

Why have conditions deteriorated?
According to HM Inspectorate of Prisons, “new psychoactive substances” have had “a dramatic and destabilising effect in many of our prisons”. These synthetic drugs, such as “Spice” and “Black Mamba” – once legal, now banned – are favoured because they don’t show up in drug tests. Their effects can be “unpredictable and extreme”. Large quantities are smuggled into jails, sometimes using drones to deliver them through cell windows, and sold by organised drug gangs. The dealers charge
high interest rates on loans, and administer beatings to those who don’t pay up, exacerbating existing problems of debt, bullying and violence. However, the drug problem is thought to be a symptom of two underlying issues: the number of inmates has soared, while the number of prison officers has dropped.

Why has the prison population grown?
The figures for October showed there were 85,108 people behind bars in England and Wales (95% of them male), compared with around 45,000 in 1993. The UK has one of the highest prison populations in Western Europe, at almost 150 inmates per 100,000 people, compared with 118 in France and 81 in Germany. This is largely due to successive governments imposing tougher justice policies: the courts have sent more criminals to prison and, crucially, have imposed longer sentences. Another factor is the high reoffending rate: almost half of adult inmates are reconvicted within a year of release – at an estimated cost to the nation of up to £15bn a year.

Why are there fewer staff?
Largely because of cuts implemented by former justice secretary Chris Grayling. The number of front-line officers fell by 28% between 2010 and 2016, from 25,000 to 18,000. The Prison Officers Association (POA), the union for rank-and-file staff, says long-term underinvestment has made it impossible to recruit and retain officers; the starting salary of £20,500 is too low, particularly in the
more expensive areas of the country.

And how are prisons affected?
More than half of the prisons visited by the inspectorate in 2015-16 had a “significant” overcrowding problem; at HMP Wandsworth, 1,564 men were held in cells designed for 963. The Prison Service is now running at 113% of its “certified normal accommodation” level – the basic standard to which it aspires. Staff shortages mean it’s often impossible to run a normal daily timetable. The POA says that 12 jails are classified as “red sites”, where they cannot operate a standard regime; so activities such as education, work, or visits to the gym or the library – as well as regular cell searches – are cancelled. The inspectorate reports that 20% of prisoners spend 22 hours of the day or more locked up. In these conditions, particularly when many prisons are dirty and dilapidated, many problems are exacerbated, from self-harm and riots to the flagrant drinking and drug-taking in HMP Guys Marsh, Dorset, exposed in last week’s Daily Mail.

What does the Government propose to do?
In this month’s Prison Safety and Reform white paper, Justice Secretary Liz Truss proposed to hire an extra 2,500 prison officers, including high-achieving graduates and former armed forces personnel; and to invest in new measures to keep drugs and mobile phones out of prison – including imposing “no-fly zones” for drones. She has also promised to push on with reforms announced during her predecessor Michael Gove’s brief tenure. New prisons will be built to replace Victorian jails, providing 10,000 new adult places. Prison governors will be given greater autonomy, and jails’ performance will be ranked in league tables.

Could these reforms turn the tide?
The £1.3bn of investment in new prison buildings was welcomed, along with plans to hire more officers. But critics say this is too little, too late – and besides, staff numbers will still remain below
2010 levels. And Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust decried “the complete silence in the white paper on the sentencing and administrative changes” needed to reduce the jail population to “responsible proportions”.

Should prison numbers be cut?
The question of whether “prison works” in principle – or whether community sentences (see box) are
preferable – is an age-old one which won’t be settled any time soon. There is evidence on either side: since Michael Howard began to increase prison numbers in the early 1990s, crime has fallen greatly. Yet the correlation is unclear: many European regimes achieve vastly better outcomes while incarcerating many fewer people. One thing is clear: at present, the prison system in England and Wales is not working at all. As things stand, says Dawson, it can’t even “reliably provide toilet paper for a prisoner to wipe his backside”. “If we do decide as a society that we want so many people in jail,” noted The Spectator, “then the costs must be met head-on.”

The “soft” option
If the aim of prison is to stop people committing crimes, it does a very poor job: 46% of adults and 69% of under-18s released last year have been reconvicted (and that’s before unsolved crimes are included). Prison reformers point to the fundamental problems faced by the prison population. Around a quarter of prisoners were in care as children; 15% were homeless before entering prison; one in three has a mental or physical disability; half have the literacy levels of an 11-year-old; and drug use is rife.

Statistically, it would seem that the simplest way to improve rehabilitation rates would be to put fewer people in prison. Community sentences have consistently been shown to be more effective than
short prison sentences at reducing reoffending, and they are far cheaper (custodial sentences cost £33,000 per person per year). Arguably, a jail term often isn’t even necessary (more than half of prisoners have not committed violent offences). Yet politically, there is always resistance to “soft” penal policies; in recent years the only major change in rehabilitation policy has involved outsourcing parts of the probation service to private firms. An MPs’ report found that this reform was costly, complex and, as yet, entirely unproven.