Back to the old gaff

Last week I returned to my old gaff – Holloway prison. I was with fellow commissioners for the Howard League Commission on English Prisons Today and we were given a good tour of the place.

We went first to reception, where prisoners enter and leave the establishment. I remembered being on the other side of the two-way mirrors, in the holding room where women had smuggled out drugs and drug-taking paraphernalia (lighter, silver paper) despite the thorough strip searches. They had a toot in the toilets. Feeling infuriated with being locked up, I felt a kind of satisfaction they’d got one over the establishment.

Then we went onto the wings, initially to the First Night Centre. My jaw dropped: carpet on the floors, unheard of in my time. I remembered being thrown into a cell and having to learn the ropes from other, more experienced prisoners. Had things really got that much better?

On the main wings, the palace had clearly had a good lick of paint since I was there. The prisoners’ lockers looked pretty much intact, and relatively clean. Most people were still in four or six bed cells but joy of joys, there was a small TV in each one. Never had it so good!

It was when we actually went into a four-bed cell I realised that the changes, while admirable, were largely superficial. Just one woman was out, on an activity. The rest were banged up and in bed, despite it being the middle of the day, because there wasn’t enough staff to make use of all the prison facilities. These prisoners were bored, fed up, and deeply depressed.

“Haven’t you got anything to do apart from watching TV?” asked a fellow commissioner. Yes, and they proudly showed us knitting and handiwork kits, but it was obvious they couldn’t get up the motivation to actually do any of it.

At healthcare we met a team of keen NHS professionals who were clearly doing some fantastic work. “Do you have enough to meet the needs?” I asked them. There was a resounding ‘No’ from the head of counselling, and echoed by the others. The main message they gave us was that the work they were doing would be far more effective if it was being done in the community, rather than in the prison environment. Sending women to prison, for mainly short sentences, was counter-productive.

The majority of women prisoners are banged up for non-violent crimes and 66% of them have dependent children aged under 18. Of these children only 5% stay in their own home while mother is in prison. Most women prisoners are vulnerable and have mental health problems.

But those blessed politicians continue their love-affair ……… with prison!

A fair chance?

We all know that life isn’t fair but what everybody wants is a fair chance at life. While visiting a couple of prisons as a commissioner for the Howard League Commission on English Prisons Today, I was struck that the prisoners I spoke to all asked for just that: a fair chance.

They desperately wanted training and education that would give them a chance of getting work when they came out, so that they could steer clear of crime. At one large London prison, inmates spoke about their frustration in the prison as well as their worries on release.

They said they had to wait months to get on courses offering education and training, and that all too often they were moved to another prison before completing them. And then they were back to square one.

The Governor was also frustrated that the prison had so little to offer and had drawn up plans for extra capacity in that direction. A slight problem was that these plans also involved building capacity for an extra 600 prisoners. It’ll be needed if we fail to help prisoners re-train.

If we are not going to make proper provision for people whose lives more often than not have been blighted by failed family and schooling, we are setting ourselves up for ever high crime levels. The government seem happy to take that route: they are cutting 3% of the budget for prisons and generating new plans to build three monstrous ‘titan’ prisons to house the fall-out. How short-sighted and, at root, how inhumane.

Lack of resources for proper rehabilitation in prisons has been shown up by the High Court, in its recent ruling on indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPPs). Prisoners on IPPS must demonstrate to the Parole Board that they are fit for release but not enough money has been made available for proper rehabilitation courses.

The Appeal Court called this “an unhappy state of affairs” and judged that: “There has been a systemic failure on the part of the Secretary of State (Jack Straw) to put in place the resources necessary to implement the scheme of rehabilitation necessary.”

Will the Justice Department do anything in response? Fat chance.

Prison inquiries

There seems to be a sudden rush to set up inquiries into prisons. First at the post was the Howard League, which has set up a Commission on English Prisons Today.

I happen to be one of the Commissioners, sitting with Oscar who also has experience of being a prisoner, amidst a gaggle of academics, including six Professors at the last count. Plus a Dame, a Baroness, a few media people and a businessman.

Perhaps the task for Oscar and I is to keep the humanity in focus amidst the academic debate. After all, this is about real people, like you and me, whatever their offence against society. People whose behaviour all too frequently results from being offended against by people they should have been able to trust.

We just get going and up pops Jonathan Aitken, another ex-con but in a slightly different league (millionaire, former cabinet minister) who found God in prison. He’s leading an inquiry for the Centre for Social Justice, run by former Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith, and he seems to think things can be done with no extra resources. The focus is on how volunteers could support prison literacy programmes and post-release mentoring. Coming from a Tory, one could suggest there’s nothing much new there.

Not to be outdone, the Conservatives announce the launch of their own separate official inquiry into the failing prison system which will examine overcrowding, and how more of the mentally ill and drug abusers can be kept out of prison. Sorry, but it can only be done if mental health and drug abuse issues and needs are properly resourced in the community.

No inquiry from Labour, the political carpet having been resolutely whisked from under them. But perhaps there should be an inquiry into their double-speak. Recently, the Minister for Justice, Jack Straw, said: “We recognise that prison is not a mere repository for those with mental health, educational, social, behavioural or drug problems, where no real attempt is made to rehabilitate or reintegrate offenders back into society.”

Jack, my condolences go to you this time: as it stands prison in this country is largely just that.

Alan Johnson’s trials are not over yet

Freed BBC reporter Alan Johnson says no-one can really understand what it’s like to be released unless they have experienced incarceration themselves. As an ex-prisoner myself, I know that to be very true.  

The day after he got his freedom back, after 114 days in captivity in Gaza, Alan said being free was fantastic: “You want to do everything at the same time, to read books and newspapers, go to the movies, go to the beach and sit in the sun, and eat and talk.” 

What he doesn’t yet know is that the elation is, typically, quickly replaced by depression, whatever the ex-prisoner’s circumstances. That’s one reason why the risk of suicide is exceptionally great for a recently released prisoner. And it makes the reintegration process particularly tough for those facing problems like homelessness, joblessness, social exclusion and extreme poverty, a situation faced daily by prisoners on release in the UK.  

It’s easy to empathise with someone like Alan Johnson: a charming and dedicated man whose delightful, loving parents have graced our TV screens throughout their son’s ordeal. But empathy comes much harder for prisoners who have not had Alan’s good fortune; people who have longed for a safe and loving family while growing up. In order to cope with their deprivation and frustration, youngsters join the street gang (often a kind of substitute family) and end up involved in drugs and crime. 

Stories like Alan’s highlight the deepening inequalities in our society for which those at the bottom of the pile seem to take the brunt of the blame for the inevitable consequences. We all end up paying: prisons cost the country billions every year as does repeat offending. The money would be much better spent giving real opportunity to those who have been denied it due to circumstances completely beyond their control.