12.09.2024
Ethos of punishment
Overcrowding is at an all-time high, showing yet again that prison does not work. Eddie Ford argues that we should help damaged people recover, not damage them further
As extensively covered in the media, up to 1,750 prisoners were released early on September 10 under emergency plans to ease the chronic overcrowding crisis in jails. A total of about 5,500 will be released during the next two months, the lucky ones receiving the princely sum of £89 in discharge money. This is in addition to the roughly 1,000 people let out weekly as a matter of routine. If you are looking for a job, the ministry of justice is aiming to recruit 1,000 more probation officers by next spring to help manage the increasing number of ex-offenders in the community.
This is a crisis that has been coming for a long time, of course - prisons have been 99% full since the start of 2023. We need to remember that the latest action follows an early-release scheme that started last year in October and saw more than 10,000 prisoners released up to 70 days early. Therefore, any Daily Mail reader who stumbles across this article needs to pause before ranting about Labour being soft on crime, because the current scheme officials are now trying to enact what had already been drawn up by the Conservatives.
Last week prisons reached a record population of more than 88,500, meaning that almost all of them were full - a situation exacerbated by the racist pogroms we saw this summer in almost every part of Britain. Over a thousand were arrested. Where to put them? Under the emergency plans announced in July, offenders serving sentences of less than five years will be released on licence after having spent 40% of their term in jail, rather than the usual 50%. Then on October 22 the scheme will be expanded to include offenders serving fixed sentences of more than five years. They will be subject to restrictions for the rest of their sentence - that may include curfews or bans on entering areas connected to their offences or approaching victims. According to this latest scheme, each prisoner must meet their probation officer on the day of their release to ensure they understand the restrictions.
Addiction
But whether the so-called ‘justice system’ as a whole has the resources to make all this happen is an entirely different question, of course, as Britain has a longstanding addiction to jailing people for longer and longer periods, with the inevitable consequences we are now seeing. As pointed out by Yvonne Thomas, chief executive of The Clink, a charity that has a long history of training offenders for work, it was absolutely crucial that people leaving prison get a “safe and secure start” to minimise the risk of them reoffending. But what is the chance of that for a service that is criminally underfunded? Up to a fifth of the charity’s prisoner trainees could be released early under the scheme, meaning that they would leave jail without finishing industry-recognised qualifications crucial to landing their first job - yet the whole basis of rehabilitation is meant to be rooted in employability.
A key challenge for officials working on the scheme, logically enough, is ensuring that any homeless ex-offender has somewhere to go and there is an actual government scheme aiming to guarantee up to 84 nights’ accommodation for anyone in this situation. But, as we all know, in reality some offenders end up on the streets and the “knock-on effect”, as Thomas says, is that if resettlement is not properly planned - which is obviously the case - then recalls to prison will start going up. A vicious cycle, with a fragile, overcrowded system becoming even more stretched - leading to the increased prevalence of violence and drug use behind bars to escape the hellish environment. Indeed, around half of prisoners are addicted to drugs of some sort - the upshot being that, if you did not have a drug problem before you entered prison, you might develop one whilst banged up inside. Thanks a lot!
Alas, the prison population is expected to rise from around 89,000 to around 100,000 by March 2027 - a completely untenable situation. According to the Prison Officers Association, “mini-riots” are breaking out in prisons approximately once a week and there is the ever-present risk of large-scale disorder - which at some stage could possibly lead to major injuries, even fatalities, of prisoners or prison officers.
Hell hole
Showing the scale of the crisis, there is even talk of transferring prisoners to Estonia. This was an idea first mooted last year at the Conservative Party conference by Alex Chalk, the former justice secretary, with The Daily Telegraph reporting last week that Shabana Mahmood, the justice secretary, met with her Estonian counterpart to discuss the issue on the sidelines of a Council of Europe event in Vilnius, Lithuania.1
Well, Estonia, Rwanda - anywhere far away. Apparently, Estonia’s low crime rate has left its prisons half empty, so why not make use of them and in the process deliver a €30 million boost to the country’s public finances? However, an MoJ source is widely quoted as saying that, while “all options on capacity are on the table”, renting prison spaces from Estonia was “highly unlikely” due to the steep cost implications. If it were ever to happen, what would that mean in terms of visits by relatives? It is not as if the MoJ would charter special flights for them.
Back in reality, we had a recent useful report from the BBC about HMP Pentonville, basically saying it is a chaotic hell hole that is characterised by “violence, overcrowding, self-harm”.2 In terms of the violence, it is not just directed by prisoners upon prisoners, but also by prisoners upon prison officers, and by prisoner officers upon prisoners. As shown by the report, one prisoner on remand has a tiny cell that has a pungent smell of urine, faeces and rotten food, thanks to an unfixed leaking toilet, whilst another says it is hard to rehabilitate yourself when you have got gang violence, money wars, overstretched staff, and so on. A large proportion of prisoners cannot read or write properly and an equally large number of them come from obviously damaged backgrounds, so locking them up is the very last thing that you should do.
As for the drugs, they manage to flow in by all sorts of ingenious methods, particularly at visiting time. Here you should mention the role played by underpaid officers, who can top up their wages by thousands of pounds by slipping prisoners a parcel of drugs, not to mention the all-important phone - a crucial lifeline to the outside world.
Former home secretary Michael Howard infamously declared that “prison works” at the 1993 Tory Party conference to rapturous applause and unanimous approval from the rightwing press. But, when you look at the enormous reoffending rate and the damage it does to families and individuals, and to society at large, you can only conclude the exact opposite - that prison makes a bad situation far worse.
Norway
As an instructive exercise, look at the situation in Norway. The sentence of life imprisonment under Norwegian law is restricted entirely to the military penal code (ie, for aiding the enemy during a time of war). In other words, if in prison, you will be released. Furthermore, the system is considered to be transparent, and prisoners are represented by an ombudsman appointed to investigate individuals’ complaints against public authority. Imagine how the Daily Mail would rant about political correctness gone mad to the very idea of having such a system in Britain.
Prisoners in Norway also have the right to vote - something unthinkable in Britain. Indeed, when there was talk of amending the current legislation, David Cameron said the idea of prisoners voting made him feel “physically ill”.
In Norway, families also have generous visiting rights - we are not talking about a parched hour here or there. Rather, visits with real privacy, where you can talk to the children, and many prisons in the country allow visitors up to three times per week - they even permit some conjugal visits with spouses in double beds, as there is a strong emphasis placed on relationships, so that incarcerated individuals have a strong support system after their release.
Also, there is greater emphasis on training. In Britain, prison officers get 12 weeks training, but in Norway it is between two and three years. All this amounts to a completely different emphasis to the pepper sprays and truncheons … and the general culture of punitive punishment in Britain - where 40 years of sentence inflation has left prisons “not fit for purpose”, according to a paper published last week by senior former judges.
What are the results? In Norway, 63 out of 100,000 of their population is in prison - not the 150 it is in Britain, the highest in Europe. In addition, the reoffending rate in Norway is massively less. In Britain 50% start committing crimes again within one year, ending up back in prison. Yet in Norway it is just 25% returning after five years - one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world. When you contrast Norway and Britain, you certainly get a tale of two countries.
The reason why it is worth highlighting Norway is because if it is amongst the best that can be found under capitalism, think what could be achieved when the working class is influential and preparing to lead the way out of capitalism.