This page was last updated

The elephant in the room  There are some policy areas that are so complicated that the public prefer to ignore them and politicians feel reluctant to address them.  I want to tackle some of these "elephants in the room" in this "Too Difficult" series.  I have a little list which starts with planning, pensions, social care and local government finance but I suspect there will be others.

I am not clever enough to create a reply function on this web site but, if you would like to e-mail a response to me on anything below, here is my  e-mail address and I will consider uploading it to this site.  If I do upload it, I will do so without alteration and with the author's name. 

Prison policy:  I am straying well away from my local government background to talk about UK prison policy but the consequences of the riots we have seen in our major cities and the subsequent police efforts to bring the culprits to account has necessarily raised the profile of crime and punishment and we are hearing that our prisons are filling up fast; and some prison officers are expressing concerns about security because of the speed at which rioters are entering the prison system and the difficult of separating gang members as they arrive.

I believe these issues raise some fundamental questions which I put as follows:

Questions for Rt Hon Ken Clarke QC  MP: 

x There has been considerable controversy around your proposals to reduce the number of prison places and we are now seeing every chance of an increase in the prison population  resulting from the conviction of rioters after the recent disgraceful breakdown of civil order in England.  There seem to be variations in the estimates of holding a prisoner in a UK prison [Note 1] and I am gong to settle on £35,000 pa which seems to sit somewhere in the middle of the numbers bandied about.  We currently have 86,000 prisoners and rising so call it 90,000 before very long.  Cost times volume tells me we are spending more than £3 billion pa on warehousing criminals in relative comfort and in almost complete idleness.  Is this value for money?

x It seems to me that sending mainly young people with minimal educational attainment, poor inter-personal skills,  low self esteem and a lack of ambition into the company of established criminals is likely to have a self-fulfilling outcome which is unlikely to add to community wellbeing or security. In March 2010, the National Audit Office took a view on the costs to the economy of re-offending by prisoners serving short-term sentences [Note 2]. This should not be read as any opposition on my part to locking up young thugs who have participated in riot and public affray.  I simply question the environment into which they will be committed.  We are imprisoning an underclass side-by-side with established criminals with fairly predictable results.  Do you disagree?

x I can think of no better way of meeting all three objectives than by ensuring that prisoners are subject to a firm regime of work from 8:00 am to 6:00 pm with a productive and profitable output that can pay towards their food and lodging while in prison and I see little problem with prisoners' release being tied to repayment of their costs of board, lodging and security.  The institute of Economic Affairs bewailed the financial and social cost of warehousing prisoners back in April 2006 [ Note 3] but we seem to have made little progress since then.     Why can't prisons promote the work ethic?

x After a modest supper, I would expect them to attend classes in the three Rs from 7:30 pm to 9:00 pm and then to bed.  Where educated rioters are part of the intake, they can take on the teaching.  We have not been without teachers taking part in the riots.  No telly; no drugs; no fags.  Prison should not be somewhere as comfortable or more comfortable than an offender's home.  Why can't prisons make up for the failure of many of these young people by our schools system?

x Your White Paper of December 2010 [Note 4] speaks of "payment-by-results for some prison providers" and of "making prisons places of work and industry".   I cannot imagine a more urgent time to implement these ideas but progress seems to be terribly slow.  What is taking so much time?

Notes:

  1  The Commons Public Accounts Committee issued a critical report on Ministry of Justice financial management in January 2011.

  2  A National Audit Office report in March 2010 estimated the cost to the economy of re-offending by prisoners serving a short-term sentence as £10 billion pa.

  3  In April 2006, an Institute of Economic Affairs paper by John Blundell made the point that "working prisons could save cash and souls".

  4  Ken Clarke's White Paper of December 2010 and entitled "Breaking the Cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation and Sentencing of Offenders".