19.10.2005

Rehabilitation, not revenge

By any rational, humane and social standard, prison does not work. Self-evidently, the UK criminal justice system is itself criminal. Eddie Ford comments on the decision to give prisoners the right to vote

Communists welcome the recent decision of the Strasbourg human rights court in favour of giving British prisoners the right to vote. Therefore, the laws which stipulate who can and cannot participate in elections now have to be re-examined. The European Court came to this opinion after hearing the case of 54-year-old John Hirst, who in 1980 axed his landlady to death and subsequently pleaded guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility - to be eventually released in 2004. When Hirst's application to vote from prison in 2003 was turned down, he took his case first to the high court and then to Strasbourg. The seven-judge chamber backed Hirst and went on to declare that the disenfranchisement of Britain's prison population violated the European convention on human rights. Immediately, the British government appealed to the Strasbourg 'grand chamber', on the grounds that those who had committed serious offences like Hirst should be barred from voting whilst in prison. In response, Hirst's lawyers argued, quite logically, that blocking the right to vote was inconsistent with the formally stated rehabilitative intention of prison and said that there was no proven link between removal of the right to vote and the prevention or reduction of crime. On a majority ruling of 12 to five, the grand chamber confirmed the original decision and told the British government that, while the article in the human rights convention guaranteeing the "free expression of the opinion of the people in choosing a legislature" was "not absolute", it should surely be the case that the "presumption should be in favour of inclusion". Encouragingly, at least as far as communists are concerned, the Strasbourg court's ruling could see prisoners across all the states belonging to the Council of Europe having the right to vote. Currently, the UK is among 13 out of 46 signatories to the European convention on human rights that prohibit prisoners from voting - the only exceptions being those in jail for non-payment of debts, contempt of court or on remand. Amongst the other countries that ban prisoners voting are Armenia, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Luxembourg, Romania and Russia. A further 14 signatories limit prisoners' voting rights, while another 18 impose no restrictions at all. Unsurprisingly, the laws that govern prisoner voting rights within many states are full of anomalies and inconsistencies. For instance, though Ireland has no formal ban on voting, the government has no obligation to provide prisoners with physical access to a ballot box either by temporary release or postal vote - in other words, under Irish law at the moment there is no mechanism for prisoners to actually exercise the right to vote. Of course, the Tories and rightwing press are up in arms about the judges' edict. Shadow attorney general Dominic Grieve huffed and puffed about how giving convicted murderers and rapists the vote would "bring the law into disrepute" and warned that "many people will see it as making a mockery of justice". Just as predictably, the Blair government is now squirming around for all manner of legal loopholes and get-out clauses. Charles Falconer, the lord chancellor, informed the media that in the light of the ruling British laws would be "reviewed" and "some" categories of prisoner "might" be allowed to vote - before going on to dance like a lawyer on the head of a pin and tell us what the Strasbourg judges 'really' meant: "What the European Court is saying is, 'Well, is that right? Have you considered whether it should be different for more serious prisoners than less serious prisoners?'" He went on to "make it absolutely clear" that "not every convicted prisoner is in the future going to get the right to vote". In contrast, communists demand that all prisoners should enjoy full voting rights in every country - the United Kingdom most definitely included. In the words of John Hirst, "It doesn't matter how heinous the crime: everyone is entitled to have the basic human right to vote" - and, given the fact that the UK has a constituency-based electoral system, certain sitting and prospective MPs may find themselves in the not entirely comfortable position of having to court the votes of the inmates within their boundaries in order to further their careers. In turn, this opens up the possibility that prison conditions might even undergo some degree of improvement thanks to the Strasbourg decision - after all, now there would be votes in it. We in the CPGB have always supported prisoner rights. Hence, in the 'Immediate demands' section of our Draft programme, we state: "Prisoners should have the right to vote in parliamentary and other such elections and to stand for election. Votes from prisoners to count within the constituency they actually live, not where they happen to originate" (3.15 - 'Crime and prison'). Marx famously said you can judge how free or unfree a society is by examining the position of women - and the same could also be said of prisoners. Using this criterion, then, British society gets a spectacularly low score, given the undeniable fact that its prisons are overcrowded hell-holes. Indeed, institutions like Holloway Prison are just four walls and madness - almost as if it had been consciously designed that way by some evil genius of an architect. Under the UK penal regime, any idea of rehabilitation is a sick joke - as is education, the opportunities for which are few and far between. Nor is there any paid, socially-useful work to speak of. More likely than not, in prison the only 'training' you are likely to receive is from fellow inmates on how to become a professional criminal (as opposed to the bungling amateur you went in as) and possibly a long list of useful 'contacts' to make when you are eventually released back into the not-so welcoming bosom of society - moneyless, jobless, homeless and ... angry. Locked-up for up to 23 hours a day in a cramped cell with at least one other inmates: no wonder that one of the few consolations, or balms, is illegally but inventively produced home-brew and - best of all if you are in for a really long stretch - drugs. Not usually 'soft' drugs like cannabis, of course, as they remain in your system for relatively long periods and hence leave you vulnerable to the aggressive drugs-testing regime. 'Hard' drugs like heroin or cocaine, on the other hand, conveniently whizz through your system with 24 hours or so, and thus are extremely difficult to detect. If you were not addicted to drugs before you came into prison, there is a strong chance you will be when they boot you out. So, what do you do to feed your newly acquired, and expensive, HMP-blessed habit? Why, commit crime of course and find yourself back in the slammer, staring at the same old four walls. Now there's a logical, 'cost-efficient' penal system for you. Michael Howard once said that "prison works". Well, by any rational, humane and social standard, prison does not work. Self-evidently, the UK criminal justice system is itself criminal. But, for all that, the prison numbers are rising inexorably - just keep whacking the buggers in. Last week it was announced - either boastfully or mournfully - that the jail population had reached 77,622, just 527 places short of capacity, or 99.3% towards the 'house full' limit (this does not take into account the fact that many prisoners are forced to share cells that were originally designed for one person). Inevitably, this produced a flurry of excited newspaper headlines and a political row about the best way to be 'tough on crime'. So government ministers hurriedly decided to accelerate the introduction of 500 extra places in the next few weeks as an emergency stop-gap measure. But, with the prison population growing at 250 a week, more has to be done. By all accounts, Charles Clarke, the home secretary, is pressing for the early release scheme to be extended so that prisoners can leave jail six months early rather than the current four and half months - by this method, the population could be cut by 1,000. Other options include bringing back mothballed prison wings into use and a further extension of community service orders. About 3,000 prisoners at any one time serve the last four and half months of their sentence on an electronic tag at home and under curfew. Additionally, two new prisons as part of a £100 million programme are to be built. But they will not be available until at least next June, when the capacity will be raised to 79,100 - and then to 80,400 by 2007. Patently, the numbers sent to prison in the UK are obscene. As The Guardian pointed out, "The end result is that we now have more prisoners per head of population than some of the most repressive foreign regimes, such as Burma, China and Saudi Arabia" (October 14). Having said that though, the UK and these other similarly 'enlightened' countries still have a long way to go if they want to catch up with the United States, which has a staggering, and terrifying, prison population of 2.1 million - and disproportionately black. For communists, crime can only be understood in relationship to the given society. In a class society, crime is a product of alienation, want or resistance. By extension, the criminal system under capitalism is an anti-working class, anti-popular system. The penal regimes in the UK and USA have a lot in common with the old Victorian workhouse system, or Stalin's USSR - to terrorise the population into subservience. Against all this filth and horror communists say that the aim of prison must be rehabilitation, not punishment - and certainly not revenge. We demand: * Prisoners must be allowed the maximum opportunity to develop themselves as human beings - there should be a wide range of cultural facilities. Prisoners must be allowed access to books, newspapers, periodicals of their choice and the internet. * There must be worthwhile prison work, paid at full trade union rates and limited to seven hours a day. * Cells must be self-contained and for one person alone. * People should only be imprisoned within a short distance of their own locality - if not, families must be given full cost of travel for visits. * There must be daily visiting hours and provision for weekly 24-hour conjugal visits. * Medical treatment must be via the general health service. * Incoming and outgoing letters should only be checked for contraband: they must not be read or censored. * Prisoners must have the right to vote and to stand for election. * Prisons must be run under the supervision of organisations of the working class.