Prisoners on TV

Having just returned home I was encouraged to tune in to the BBC i-player and watch Tuesday nights edition of 'newsnight' recorded at HMP High Down. I would recommend it to anyone interested in the subject of prison and rehabilitation generally, not least just for the chance to hear contributions from inmates for a change, even though sadly virtually all were somewhat befuddled by the effects of methodone.

For me the programme very graphically illustrated what all probation officers have known for ages and that is that as a society we simply do not have an intelligent way of dealing with illegal drugs. The subject was mentioned either directly or indirectly all the way through and it once more serves to remind me that politicians must get the public to accept that our present policies simply don't work and we must therefore change our response to the whole drug problem. I repeat what I have said before, namely that methadone is not the answer. It's being used in prison as a sort of chemical cosh to keep prisoners calm and obtained by them automatically by dispensing machines. If you deal with the drug issue more intelligently, re-offending will reduce and the prison population will go down. It is the key to the whole problem.

The programme was also interesting in serving to highlight just how complicated a subject this is with Ken Clarke confirming that there are no quick fixes. In fact he had an air of resignation about him, even backtracking on his earlier stated aim of reducing the prison population by 3,000. I think Tim Brain the former Chief Constable ably demonstrated his limited contribution to a serious debate and there were similar underwhelming contributions from the Magistrates Association and Peter Hitchins of the Daily Mail. The CEO of St Giles Trust simply stated the blindingly obvious and the policy wonk from Policy Exchange seemed a little inexperienced to me, but where was probation?

Our absence from a major discussion on prison and rehabilitation, our field of expertise after all, is extremely worrying. It's noticeable that we didn't get a mention at all until right at the end. Ken did allude to probations philosophical objection to Payment by Results though and wondered why anyone could object to getting a return on investment if it delivered a reduction in re-offending. I say again, we need a more sophisticated response to this.

Anyway, a programme worth catching before it disappears off i-player, but before I sign off, was I the only one to do a double-take at the prisoner who had a charge of aggravated burglary reduced to fraud? It makes you think doesn't it?!