28.03.2002

Labour prison crisis

Public anxiety about a perceived 'explosion of crime' seems to have been a factor in the Blair government's fall in the opinion polls. An ICM survey, published in The Guardian on March 21, showed reduced support for Labour, with 55% of respondents saying crime has got worse since Blair came to power. Blair reacted by holding a Downing Street summit on street crime, attended by key ministers and also law and order agencies which he wanted to ensure were 'on message'. Labour's policy of being "tough on crime" involved sending more people to prison for longer. This was a continuation of the Tory 'prison works' policy, which was begun by Michael Howard and which New Labour successfully appropriated in order to present itself to the electorate as the anti-crime party. However, in the words of the Socialist Alliance election manifesto, People before profit, this policy "clearly does nothing to make communities safe or to rehabilitate criminals "¦ Prisons, far from deterring crime, serve to brutalise and dehumanise young offenders. They also act as training centres, turning petty thieves into skilled professional criminals." In contrast to previous Labour home secretaries, David Blunkett now appears to agree with the Socialist Alliance. He admits: "Locking up more and more criminals just isn't working. An expansion of 75% in prison numbers over seven years has not protected us from the epidemic of street crime that we are now being asked to address. For short-term prisoners, jails are colleges of crime where they quickly pick up the tricks of the trade, make more criminal contacts and emerge from their apprenticeship as experts in law-breaking" (The Times March 24). What prompted this apparent change of heart was the fact that, quite simply, Britain's prisons are now full to bursting. The population has risen from 66,075 at the beginning of January to 69,572 a month ago and 70,183 last week. Overcrowding - two or even three in a cell intended for one person - increases tensions and reduces the already limited opportunities for education and training. Up to 150 prisoners a night are held in police cells because no prison places can be found for them, and frequent transfers around the country to wherever a cell becomes available has become routine. This results in appalling difficulties for families, who are obliged to travel long distances for short visits. In England and Wales there are now 125 people in prison per 100,000 population, compared with 95 in Germany and Italy, 80 in Greece, France and Ireland, and only 60 in Denmark. In the EU only Portugal has a higher proportion of prisoners - 130 per 100,000 population - although in the United States the figure is an astronomical 700. In fact, despite his comments concerning the failure of prisons, Blunkett would like to build more. On March 17 he stated in a TV interview with David Frost: "There is a feeling that it is unsafe in some parts of our urban areas to walk on the street". This was widely seen as an attempt to 'bounce' chancellor Gordon Brown into giving him more money in the current spending review, which will determine the funding available to different government departments over the next three years. Blunkett has already asked for emergency funding to erect prefabricated blocks housing 3,000 new cells in the grounds of category C and D prisons. But with health, education and transport departments also clamouring for an increased share of Brown's tax revenue, not to mention the cost of the supporting George Bush's 'war against terrorism' in Afghanistan and possibly Iraq, Brown is unlikely to put aside much money for a building programme to add to Britain's existing 137 jails. So Blunkett needs a cheap alternative, and a way to reduce the prison population. He knows that, as overcrowding worsens, the danger of a major riot increases. Despite the risk to the government of seeming to be soft on criminals, for months Lord Chief Justice Woolf and others have urged magistrates to use more non-custodial sentences for non-violent petty offenders, but this has not slowed the increase in prisoner numbers. Executive orders from the government for the release of prisoners before the end of their sentence are also seized upon by the Tories as evidence that only they can be trusted to protect the public. Blunkett needs to keep up the "tough on crime" image, even as expediency forces him to reduce the numbers sent to prison and the time they spend there. His solution to this dilemma is twofold. First, the revival of the scheme for fixed penalty fines, to be issued by the police to people committing minor offences such as being drunk and disorderly. This idea was first put forward by Blair a few days before his own son was detained by the police after being found lying drunk on the street. Secondly, Blunkett has announced an increase in the use of electronic tags. Until now prison governors have been responsible for determining whether to let an offender out early on condition they are tagged until the end of their term. As the prison authorities were liable to criticism if the person re-offended, they were naturally cautious. Now Blunkett insists that governors should automatically release short-term, non-violent offenders early, unless they can show compelling reasons why they should not do so. Under these home detention curfew orders, people imprisoned for between 12 months and four years for non-violent crimes will be released two months before their normal parole date, and fitted with the tags, which act as tracking devices and automatically alert the authorities if the wearer moves outside a permitted area. Blunkett claims, rather desperately, that this will reduce reoffending, since only two percent of those tagged commit a crime while being monitored in this way. That percentage would be cut to zero if they were kept inside, retort the Tories. This argument misses the point. Both sides regard offenders as people apart from society who simply need to be controlled. What about preparing inmates for life outside? Released prisoners need the stability of a job, a place to live and adequate social support. At present pre-release courses often amount to little more than a lesson in how to sign on and a list of private landlords willing to take on housing benefit tenants. Post-release 'support' consists of a weekly meeting with an often hostile parole officer. People before profits states: "The Socialist Alliance aims to reduce the prison population to the bare minimum and to ensure that those remaining in prison are rehabilitated for useful jobs and life outside. This means provision of appropriate mental and other health services. Prisoners must be allowed the opportunity to develop themselves as human beings, and to enjoy full democratic rights and safeguards. People should only be imprisoned a short distance from their homes, and there should be only one prisoner per self-contained cell, daily visiting hours and weekly 24-hour conjugal visits and worthwhile prison work at trade union rates. Prisoners should have the right to vote and seek election, and their votes should be counted in the constituency where they actually live, not where they originate." In other words, we demand human conditions in prisons. Mary Godwin