Breakthrough Britain Locked Up Potential A strategy for reforming prisons and rehabilitating prisoners A Policy Report by the Prison Reform Working Group Chaired by Jonathan Aitken March 2009 About the Centre for Social Justice The Centre for Social Justice aims to put social justice at the heart of British politics. Our policy development is rooted in the wisdom of those working to tackle Britain’s deepest social problems and the experience of those whose lives have been affected by poverty. Our working groups are non-partisan, comprising prominent academics, practitioners and policy makers who have expertise in the relevant fields. We consult nationally and internationally, especially with charities and social enterprises, who are the the champions of the welfare society. In addition to policy development, the CSJ has built an alliance of poverty fighting organisations that reverse social breakdown and transform communities. We believe that the surest way the Government can reverse social breakdown and poverty is to enable such individuals, communities and voluntary groups to help themselves. The CSJ was founded by Iain Duncan Smith in 2004, as the fulfilment of a promise made to Janice Dobbie, whose son had recently died from a drug overdose just after he was released from prison. Chairman: Rt Hon Iain Duncan Smith MP Executive Director: Philippa Stroud Breakthrough Britain: Locked Up Potential © The Centre for Social Justice, 2009 Published by the Centre for Social Justice, 9 Westminster Palace Gardens, Artillery Row, SW1P 1RL www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk ISBN: 978-0-9556999-8-6 Designed by SoapBox, www.soapboxcommunications.co.uk Our thanks to The Nehemiah Project for the photographs on pages 21,70,103,140,164,180,191,202, and Warwick Sweeney for the photographs on pages 22 and 151. This report represents the views of the working group as a whole and does not reflect at every point the individual opinion of each and every working group member. 2 Contents Preface by Iain Duncan Smith 7 Chairman’s Foreword 9 Members of the Prison Reform Working Group 15 Summary of Policy Proposals 20 Chapter 1: Introduction 29 1.1 What is the purpose of prison? 29 1.2 Picking up the pieces of social breakdown 31 1.3 The prison estate and current trends 33 1.4 The cost of re-offending 39 1.5 The policy-making context 40 1.6 More of the same is not an option 44 Chapter 2: Restructuring our prisons 45 2.1 Administrative caution and political paralysis 45 2.2 The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) 45 2.3 Her Majesty’s Prison Service (HMPS) 49 2.4 National Probation Service (NPS) 54 2.5 The private sector 56 2.6 The voluntary and community sector (VCS) 59 2.7 Executive Release from prison 60 2.8 Policy recommendations 62 Chapter 3: Easing the overcrowding crisis 88 3.1 The scale of overcrowding 88 3.2 The causes of overcrowding 90 3.3 The effects of overcrowding 94 3.4 Emergency measures 95 3.5 Population projections 96 3.6 Prison estate expansion 96 3.7 Policy recommendations 101 Chapter 4: Mental health and substance abuse 105 4.1 Mental health 105 4.1.7 Policy recommendations 113 3 4.2 Drugs in prison 116 4.2.6 Policy recommendations 129 4.3 Alcohol in prison 137 4.3.4 Policy recommendations 141 Chapter 5: Supporting families 143 5.1 The family 143 5.2 Overlooked and ignored 144 5.3 Supporting families to reduce re-offending 145 5.4 A child’s perspective 145 5.5 Existing support for families of prisoners 146 5.6 Prison facilities 147 5.7 The impact of prison overcrowding on family relationships 148 5.8 Voluntary and Community Sector support 149 5.9 Policy recommendations 151 Chapter 6: Personal development through education, training, work and other opportunities in prison 155 6.1 Prison education and training 156 6.1.5 Policy recommendations 171 6.2 Prisoner development through the Arts 176 6.2.2 Policy recommendations 179 6.3 Prison work 180 6.3.3 Policy recommendations 186 Chapter 7: Prisoners and their victims 191 7.1 Prisoners and their victims 191 7.2 Making prisoners aware of their victims 191 7.3 Victim Impact Classes (VICs) 192 7.4 Compulsory financial reparations for victims 192 7.5 Restorative Justice (RJ) conferences 193 7.5.5 Policy recommendations 197 Chapter 8: Leaving prison 199 8.1 Preparing to re-enter society 199 8.2 An immediate barrier: the prisoner finance gap 200 8.3 Pre- and post-release mentoring schemes 202 8.4 Finding accommodation 207 8.5 Finding employment 214 8.6 Policy recommendations 221 4 Chapter 9: A new programme for government 242 9.1 Setting the agenda 242 9.2 Explaining the new strategy to the public 243 9.3 Passing the essential parliamentary legislation 244 9.4 Co-operating with the Treasury 245 9.5 Involving local communities and voluntary sector organisations 248 9.6 Conclusion 248 Chapter 10: Appendix one: Community Prison Rehabilitation Trusts (CPRTs) 251 10.1 A CPRT for Wales 251 10.2 A CPRT for Devon and Cornwall 252 10.3 A CPRT for Avon and Somerset 253 10.4 A CPRT for Teeside 254 Chapter 11: Appendix two: Prison Design – The Mitson Academy Model 256 Chapter 12: Appendix three: The Intermediate Training Centre (ITC) 261 Bibliography 262 Glossary 268 Special Thanks 270 5 Preface Iain Duncan Smith I established The Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) to find policy solutions for entrenched social breakdown in Britain. The CSJ champions the cause of people trapped in our disadvantaged communities, often forgotten by politicians. In our reports Breakdown Britain and Breakthrough Britain we identified five key pathways to poverty – family breakdown; economic dependency and worklessness; educational failure; addiction; and personal indebtedness. Our 190 recommendations to reverse this strangling cycle of dependency are based on the life-changing work of voluntary sector groups in our most broken communities. I commissioned this Prison Reform Review because the criminal justice system, particularly our overflowing prison system, picks up the pieces of this breakdown on a daily basis. Each of the five pathways to poverty has fuelled an unprecedented prison population increase in the last decade: most of the 83,000 people in prison have a reading and writing ability of an eleven year old child; almost 70 per cent were workless prior to imprisonment; the majority are drug and alcohol abusers; a third have been in care; the vast majority have mental health problems and three-quarters of all young offenders are from lone parent families. Curing the social ills that start so many of our young on a path to criminality is the purpose of the CSJ and should be the purpose of the government. Even when someone is sent to prison, the government fails in its mission to reduce crime because of the spectacular failure of prisons to rehabilitate offenders – work that should be the heartbeat of the system. That over two thirds of prisoners leave prison and return to a life of crime, only to find themselves back behind bars within two years, is unacceptable. Any business model with this Return on Investment would quickly find itself in liquidation. This expensive failure costs society at least £12 billion a year and leaves our streets in too many communities, no go areas. Operationally our prison system is a familiar case of mass public investment devoid of a coherent strategy. The government’s National Offender Management Service (NOMS), one of whose primary tasks was to cut the re- offending rate, has spent more than £18 billion since 2004, to little or no effect. The reoffending rate is still high at up to 75 per cent of young offenders returning to prison within two years. 7 Locked Up Potential The Government’s response to this failure is to build a number of prisons, so large that they have called them Titans. There is no evidence that such massive prisons do anything but feed the problem of re-offending: the £1.3 billion earmarked for these will be wasted money, as all involved in the reform of the prison system say they are illogical. While I am angered by government’s mismanagement of our prisons, I am encouraged by the number of life-changing voluntary and community groups giving offenders a chance to change. These groups, led by passionate social entrepreneurs, are the flickering hope of many. I think of Beyond the Gate, freeing prisoners of alcohol addiction in South West England; Prison Advice and Care Trust, keeping families together during a sentence; and Toe by Toe, teaching other prisoners to read. It is working with these voluntary sector organisations that has enabled the Prison Reform working group to make more than 70 recommendations for reform across almost every area of prison policy. These vital proposals stem not from pre-conceived ideology but from wide-ranging consultation with prison and rehabilitation experts, based on facts, and led by a working group brimming with experience. We held more than 60 hours of public hearings; received more than 50 written submissions; made numerous prison, project and conference visits; and undertook two international trips. My thanks to Jonathan Aitken and all the members of the team for all their hard and vital work. The implementation of this strategy to reform our prisons and rehabilitate our prisoners becomes more important during a recession, not less. The cost of inaction, at least £12 billion a year, is grave. I call on the Government to listen, learn and act. There is no time to waste.