Prisons and Courts Bill 4

In a roundup of prison reform news, here is Grace Wyld of the New Philanthropy Capital complaining in the Guardian that, just like probation, the third sector is being sidelined by the MoJ:-  

Privatising prisons won't stop reoffending. Charities will

Last Monday, the prison and courts bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons. Under the proposed reforms, prisons will have a statutory duty to rehabilitate offenders. You might be surprised this isn’t already the case; it is a reform long overdue.

But the justice secretary Liz Truss will struggle to realise this ambition to put rehabilitation at the heart of prisons without better involving the voluntary sector.

Truss told the House of Commons: “I am determined that we will do what we can to protect innovative schemes such as Storybook Dads, a charity that works to maintain ties between prisoners and their children.” Storybook Dads do fantastic work helping parents in prison to make bedtime story CDs and DVDs for their kids, but Truss’s statement raises two concerns.

Firstly, this is a prime example of paying lip service to the sector. The words “charity”, “voluntary sector” and “third sector” appear not once in the 65-page white paper, published last November, which forms the basis of the Prison and Courts bill. This is curious, since Truss opens the report by quoting the nineteenth-century reformer and philanthropist Elizabeth Fry. It is another friendly, nostalgic and frankly dismissive wave to the sector. It’s all too easy to signal good intentions by referring to historical figures, rather than actually acknowledging how much charities do to sustain the prison service today.

The sector has learned from experience that supportive statements from politicians don’t lead to any actual support on the ground. In 2014 the probation system was overhauled and restructured into “transforming rehabilitation” contracts. These contracts essentially outsource probation to the private and voluntary sectors in huge contracts which could last up to 10 years, with payment by results. Although the then justice secretary, Chris Grayling, encouraged charities to bid for these contracts, their time and money was largely wasted: not a single charity who bid to lead a contract was successful. One charity that was named in nine of the 11 winning bids was never actually approached to do a day’s work. They were clearly “bid candy” to strengthen a private sector company’s bid.

“I’m not sure if this is the Titanic or the iceberg, but it is one of the two,” one national charity that has been working to rehabilitate prisoners for almost 30 years told us. Many grassroots organisations are being exploited by contract winners for their local knowledge without being paid. Meanwhile, some independent funders are withdrawing funding from criminal justice entirely, concerned that they might be subsidising state and private sector profits.

My second frustration with Truss’s passing comment is that “innovation” has become something of a fetish. Government and funders constantly want the new and shiny, even though it is well evidenced that some traditional approaches — like peer support — just work. Innovation for innovation’s sake can be harmful.

At New Philanthropy Capital (NPC), we have been researching the role of charities in criminal justice, and our report, published today, demonstrates how charities are fundamental to the effective functioning of our justice system. Charities are able to form a distinct relationship with people involved in crime, one built on trust and made possible in part because of their independence from the state or corporate interests. And they stick around for as long as it takes; charities are not driven by profits or meeting short-term targets.

As part of NPC’s research I visited a prison with one such charity, User Voice, to see their prison council elections in action. It is a simple programme, designed to help prisoners feel they have a voice and increase their involvement in the prison community. I spoke to prisoners campaigning for parties they had themselves shaped, on issues such as safety, time spent in cells, education and even the state of the toilets. And they were encouraging prison officers – who would later be turning the key on their cells – to vote too.

You could feel the environment becoming a more conducive one for reform and rehabilitation. These elections were designed in the first instance by the charity, but the organisation and ownership of the scheme was quickly passed down to the residents, staff and volunteers who made it happen. Prisoners were empowered and trusted to take responsibility for their community. As far as I know, initiatives like this are unique to the charity sector.

Later in the afternoon a town crier announced the results while residents listened from their cells. Many reacted with thunderous applause by banging on the heavy metal doors: over 70% of the prison population had cast a vote.

One of the greatest assets of a charity working on the frontline is their service users: experts by experience, they should be front and centre of rehabilitation programmes. In fact, the majority of employees at User Voice are ex-offenders themselves. Shutting charities out of contracts designed to reduce reoffending is an enormous missed opportunity.

Certainly, charities must try to evaluate their impact, not least by using the Justice Data Lab to learn more about their effect on reoffending. And commissioners should choose services based on evidence of impact rather than the lowest possible cost. But government must also provide more data on the charitable activity that is actually happening on the ground in prisons and in communities across the country. They have been asked repeatedly for more transparency on this.

It is not often that a government bill offers such a clear opportunity for the charity sector. Now Truss must back up her rhetoric with action. If she does not, it cannot be taken for granted that charities will always be there to pick up the slack.

Grace Wyld is a researcher at New Philanthropy Capital, whose new report on voluntary sector organisations in criminal justice can be read here.

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Again in the Guardian, we learn that plans for 'reform' prisons are not going smoothly:-

HMP Wandsworth governor leaves after failure of idea to give duties to prisoners

The governor of Britain’s biggest prison has left his job after the failure of radical plans to allocate some officers’ duties to prisoners, the Guardian has learned.

Ian Bickers had been the governor of Wandsworth prison, one of six to be selected by then justice secretary Michael Gove last summer for “reform prison” status. Three months ago Bickers told MPs about his plans to allow prisoners to be trained to deal with low-level administration work, leaving officers free for more important functions.

However, prison sources say that most of the “peer advisors” have been kept locked in their cells, and trainers from the charity St Giles Trust have been left sitting in empty classrooms as a result.

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson confirmed Bickers’s departure from the prison but said he was being appointed to a “more senior position” within HM Prison and Probation Service and congratulated him on his new role. The spokesperson denied that his departure was to do with the fate of the planned changes.

Of the 50 prisoners recruited to be peer advisors – nicknamed “the purple army” after their purple tops – just 15 have been partially trained since September. Wandsworth staff say the problem is due to staff shortages in an overcrowded jail. St Giles Trust acknowledged that so far it had encountered difficulties in gaining access to trainees. Chief executive Malcolm Walker described the situation as “challenging, with the focus on those prisoners we can access”.

Prison sources say the prisoners could not be brought for training because they were mostly located on the five main wings at Wandsworth, which are on virtual lockdown for most of the day. Dave Todd, a member of the Prison Officers’ Association national executive committee for London and Kent, said staff were sometimes forced to curtail prisoner activities but only do so for safety reasons. He said Wandsworth was particularly affected by staff shortages and unavailability of existing staff through sickness.

“We need increased recruitment and retention of staff before we can properly deliver the service the prison system and the public deserve,” he said.

The staffing situation at Wandsworth has wider consequences for prisoners there. Documents seen by the Guardian show that the numbers of new prisoners at Wandsworth completing basic induction processes – including tests for basic maths and English – are falling dramatically, with the proportion completing the process dropping from 49% to 21% between last June and November, and further falls expected.

The prisoner-on-prisoner listener scheme, facilitated by Samaritans, is also affected, with many of the trained listeners located on the main wings where movement is strictly curtailed.

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Finally, Guardian readers vent their feelings:-

Justice secretary shows contempt for prison experts

Yet again, we have a justice secretary demonstrating contempt for both experts and any other commentators who know what they are talking about over prisons and prison policy (Truss to announce four new supersized jails, 22 March). Titan prisons, first so dubbed by then justice secretary Jack Straw (no party political point, this), are the very reverse of the way forward.

Alan Travis rightly cites Lord Woolf in his seminal 1990 report and Peter Dawson of the Prison Reform Trust. This time even the Labour opposition has it right: shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon identified the blindingly obvious truth that larger prisons alone merely demonstrate an ever-greater capacity to shrug off the crying need for a drastic reduction in prison numbers. Locking up ever more of our on the whole non-violent, inadequate, disturbed and disadvantaged population is a non-policy of “out of sight, out of mind”. The damage to the very fabric of our society stares us practitioners in the face every single day.

The sole beneficiaries of this further overdosing on the wrong medicine would be the profit-hungry mega-companies to which the construction, containment and other services entailed would assuredly be outsourced should this justice secretary get her way. Over this issue if no other, come back, ex-justice secretary Michael Gove: all is forgiven.

Malcolm Fowler Solicitor and former chair of the Law Society’s criminal law committee
Tipton, West Midlands

The government also claims that the four new mega-prisons – ostensibly justified as a way to modernise the penal estate and reduce prison over-crowding – will generate financial investment and increase security for the surrounding communities. There is little evidence for this latter claim, but plenty indicating that a new prison is likely to be harmful to local people.

Prisons are warehouses for people with mental health problems. Problematic drug usage is reportedly at epidemic levels in prisons. A new prison increases demands on the NHS, so inevitably leads to a deterioration in existing health services for local people. A new prison also results in more children left without fathers or mothers, more elders left without carers, and other members of the family, such as partners, suffering financial hardships. And, rather than reducing fear of crime locally, prisons increase the public’s sense of insecurity.

Given the historic failings of prison to meet its rehabilitation goals, the current tightening of government budgets, and the fact that England and Wales now have the highest imprisonment rate in western Europe, the most rational solution to overcrowded prisons is to radically reduce the prison population.

Instead of building new mega-prisons, the government should be aiming to deliver social security by ensuring that all people in our society have access to decent healthcare, housing, education and jobs.

Dr David Scott, Bury, Greater Manchester

The news that this government plans to create 5,000 new prison places should bury any pretence that Elizabeth Truss is concerned to introduce positive prison reforms. The prisons and courts bill abandons the commitment in the Prison Act 1952 and Prison Rules 1999 that the aim of prison is to “encourage and assist” prisoners to “lead a good and useful life”, and replaces it with a duty to “prepare prisoners for a life outside prison”.

It is not to imply that prisons ever succeeded in this to suggest that the function is considerably reduced rather than expanded in the wording of the bill. Prisoners will be “skilled” to work in a low-wage, zero-hours and zero-rights economy and governers, given control over their budgets, will be audited on their success. Out will go any pretence of arts or education as an end in itself for prisoners. What governor would be brave enough to replicate the arts programme of the special unit of HMP Barlinnie in the 1970s, when their success will be measured, as Liz Truss states, on developing “education and training to match the skills and qualifications prisoners need in the local labour market”?

It’s easy enough to see what would actually be required to help most of the people doing jail time to turn their lives around – decent jobs, decent housing and decent rehab facilities would help most of the people doing jail time to turn their lives around. That they are not available is a product of coherent design, not unhappy accident. Our jails are full because the most vulnerable have been left as flotsam on the tide that’s carried the rich to new highs. All the proposed “reforms” offer is greater numbers banged up, with a McJob as a measure of their rehabilitation.

Nick Moss, London