CIVITAS BITES BACK
It was inevitable that the right-wing pressure group Civitas [1] would be unable to resist defending their 'Prison Works' platform from criticism by Ken Clarke and try to show that the theory that 'community punishment' is not the more financially prudent option. They have done this with the release of ‘Prison, Community Sentencing and Crime’ by Ken Pease of the Manchester Business School.
Taking Clarke's position at face value, Ken Pease proceeds to argue that if one factors in the additional financial costs incurred from crimes that go unreported or are reported but not cleared up, the far cheaper option, even allowing for the extra costs of building and running prisons, is to lock people up.
So, having criticised Ken Clarke and Andrew Bridges, the Chief Inspector of Probation, for their "‘liberal’ use of statistics" and demolished the coalition's policy, he then claims to demonstrate (using prison release figures from the first quarter of 2008 and figures for the attrition rate from offence to conviction from a 1999 publication) that 13,892 offences could be prevented by keeping prisoners on short sentences in prison for one month longer.
He also purports to show that the break-even point for 'preventative' custody is 5.9 offences i.e. the point where the costs on imprisonment are outweighed by the 'social' costs of potential crimes committed by a prisoner. And here is the really important point behind his argument, and one which he reinforces in his consideration of 'The impact of imprisonment on crime', is that prison can only be seen to work in that when someone is in prison they are not able to break into your house or to mug you (leaving aside the fact that they may still be stealing from their fellow prisoners or mugging the odd screw). This is effectively an argument for the mass internment based on a person's past criminal history and the prediction of how many more crimes they might commit in the future.
Interestingly, he fails to consider why prisons are so ineffective at decreasing recidivism given the fact that they have the prisoner at their mercy for months on end. Why are they no more capable of rehabilitating the criminal that a 'soft option' like litter-picking or painting the railings at an old people's home whilst dressed in a fluorescent jacket with the words 'Community payback' stenciled on the back? He also ignores the social costs visited on prisoners and their families when subjected to imprisonment compared to those on community sentences.
Another notable conclusion presented in the paper is the rejection of the other main staple of the 'Prison Works' argument so loved by David Green and his fellow Civitas members, namely that more police, more punitive sentencing and higher numbers of people in prison results in lower crime. In fact the only factor that he rightly gives any credence to as a "key driver of the crime drop" in the 1990's was the "change in the quantity and quality of security, particularly of cars." [29/08/10]
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PLANS FOR HMP RUNWELL WITHDRAWN
Plans to build a new 1,500 place category B 'mini-Titan' prison on the derelict hospital site at Runwell, Essex have been withdrawn at the last minute. The application was due to go before the Chelmsford Borough Council planning committee on Tuesday night but the Ministry of Justice pulled the plans on Monday lunchtime. The planning committee hearing had already been postponed waiting for clarification from the MoJ on a number of issues and the Essex Wildlife Trust had also asked for a postponement to allow time for a survey of the site to ascertain whether the locally found endangered species the Hazel Dormouse was present on the site, something that the MoJ's Biodiversity Action Plan had discounted out of hand (claiming that, as there was no hazel present on the site, there should be no dormice - a convoluted piece of logic as the hazel is not the dormouse's only food source).
Council officers had been due to recommend the planning committee to refuse permission as the local preferred option for the site is a 624 home housing development, for which planning permission had already been granted in 2006. The MoJ have said they will resubmit the plans when this "outstanding issue is resolved."
"This decision was taken after careful consideration of a recommendation for refusal of planning consent given by officers at Chelmsford Borough Council. Their recommendation was made on the sole ground that despite the hard work of all parties involved, the loss of the site for housing has not been satisfactorily mitigated against. We aim to resolve this issue as soon as possible." How they are going to manage to squeeze the housing and the prison onto the same site is anyone's guess but at least it gives breathing space for the local opposition to build their case against the plans. [21/07/10]
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A REHABILITATION REVOLUTION?
It has been enlightening watching the debate on sentencing both north and south of the border in recent days, and not just because of the strange bedfellows revealed. In England and Wales, if Ken Clarke is to be believed, the Tories, with a little help from their Lib Dem friends, have declared themselves to be reformed characters, leaning half-heartedly towards cutting short-term sentencing, increasing the use of community 'penalties' and a general retrenchment from the 'prison works' position.
Whilst north of the border, the Scottish Tories, who currently wander in the northern wilderness with only one Westminster MP, had to join forces with Labour to try and defeat SNP plans to legislate in favour of the presumption against prison terms of three months or less, already cut from the previously proposed 6 month limit following rejection of the proposals by Hollyrood's justice committee. The legislation was passed with Liberal support, which also helped secure the rejection of a Labour/Tory proposal for mandatory 6 months sentences for knife possession.
Not an unusual situation given the machinations of the two governmental machines. What was unusual though was the timing of the Scottish vote and Ken Clarke's speech at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, where he laid out the general thinking behind his plans to cut the Ministry of Justice budget by 25%. That, and the fact that the Leaders of the Tory parties north and south of the border where seen to be so publicly in direct ideological opposition.
Thus we had Annabel Goldie, who has described SNP plans to drastically reduce the number of prisoners in Scottish prisons by replacing short-term jail sentences with community service orders as seeking to create “a soft-touch Scotland by emptying our prisons, extending home-detention curfews, and by setting prisoners free to commit more crime”, trying to win her battle in the Scottish parliament. Only for David Cameron to be on his feet in the Commons a couple of hours later busily debunking Goldie's position and effectively endorsing that of the SNP as he defended Clarke.
Obviously, the Labour party are somewhat taken aback by the southern Tories' unexpected volte face, both in the face of their manifesto promises and previous plans to trump Labour's own prison building programme in England and Wales. Tories wanting to bang up fewer people just doesn't seem logical and smacks of another attempt to outflank Labour on the centre ground. So, whilst they tried to mask their confusion by getting Jack Straw to claim in the Daily Mail to be the true heir to Michael 'something of the night' Howard and formed a joint front with the Scottish Tories (couldn't be seen supporting their bigger Caledonian enemy after all), they couldn't pass up the opportunity of poking fun at the Tories' expense: "Who is right on short-term prison sentences, the Justice Secretary or the leader of your party in the Scottish Parliament?" quipped Gordon Banks, MP for Ochil and South Perthshire, at prime minister's question time.
In the end it is all just hot air. No one is actually proposing the end of shorter sentences, merely trying to cut back on the numbers being handed out in favour of 'cheaper' alternatives that the spin claims are more 'cost effective'. The newly adopted 'short sentences don't work' rhetoric does not represent a Damascene conversion, it is simply window dressing in order to sell the 25% cut in the Ministry of Justice budget. More a near-Death bed conversion if you will. [01/07/10]
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BITTEN BY SUN-BAITING SNAKES
We felt we could not let this typical tacky little Sun prisoner-baiting non-story, rather strangely entitled 'Jail-snake!' (clearly not up to their usual low level of excruciating puns - so no Sun pun fun with this one), pass by without comment. The paper obviously felt it was time that it fed its news-hungry readers a story of the perils of imprisonment to counterbalance the daily diet of 'prison is so cushy and everyone has 32" flatscreen TVs and PSIIs' stories, otherwise why print a piece about a prisoner at HMP The Verne being bitten by a sun-bathing adder, the only venomous snake native to the British Isles?
Then again, the paper does have an extensive network of contacts amongst prison officers across the country who pass on these little nuggets of information. And these pet screws have to be kept sweet in order to maintain the steady flow of juicy tittle-tattle, hence this dreary little space-filler. We just wonder how much the paper's 'informant' earned for the background info that the prisoner bitten was "serving five years for fraud and drug offences"? So much for the Data Protection Act.
And it still took two Sun reporters to write all 200 words of this groundbreaking article! But which one of these two intrepid non-Pulitzer prize winning journos invented the line: "A prison insider said: "A bite by an adder is not fatal for a normal, healthy human being.""?
The local Dorset Echo's coverage of the same story was somewhat differnet and did not carry any of this juicy insider info. It did however carry the following quote from Ian Prudames, local branch secretary of the Prison Officers’ Association: “As soon as they come across humans they go away but prisoners can antagonise them and try to pick them up.” Obviously prisoners aren't humans then, though that doesn't explain why one of his fellow screws was bitten by an adder last year. [28/06/10]
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SHOCK HORROR: LIB-CONS MAY CUT PRISON SENTENCES
The outrageous (for them anyway) news that the coalition government may go against decades of Tory policy and right-wing press tub-thumping and jail fewer people by upping the provision of community sentences and cutting the length of sentences certainly seemed to have caught the Daily Mail unawares. So much so, that in its coverage of the interview that Ken Clarke, the new justice secretary, gave Sky News it pulled out all the stops to try and paint the possible plan as some sort of pinko posturing from someone who has gone 'soft' on crime and who is trying to betray the Tory faithful.
Far more used to having their paper plough the 'hang 'em, flog 'em' furrow, Daily Mail readers must have been spluttering in their cornflakes when they came across the headline blaring ''Don't send as many criminals to prison': Furore over Justice Secretary Ken Clarke's plan to cut the jails budget' in typical Mail fashion. So what was Ken's crime?
First up, the very idea that a Tory Minister "questioned the need for the tougher sentencing that has seen the prison population nearly double since the early 1990s" was beyond the pale. That could mean that "[t]housands of criminals could escape being jailed" in what the paper described as "a drastic cost-cutting move."
Clarke apparently also "provoked further astonishment by claiming public fears over crime were overblown and did not reflect the reality of life in Britain."
"He also criticised short sentences, raising fears that he intends to resurrect the LibDem policy of scrapping jail terms of less than six months."
"‘It’s not to be soft on sentencing, it’s to be sensible on sentencing,’ he said."
Needless to say "[h]is remarks provoked outrage among some Tory MPs who accused him of being ‘badly out of touch’."
One of those most likely to have suffered a fit of apoplexy when he heard Clarke's views just happened to be one of the Mail's trusted rosta of 'rent-a-quote' Tory backbenchers and putative criminological experts Philip Davies: "It’s very sad that somebody of Ken Clarke’s calibre is talking such drivel. This is a ridiculous false economy - it saves money to have the most persistent criminals in prison... If short sentences do not work, frankly the argument should be for longer sentences, not putting them out on the streets to terrorise local communities."
Classic Mail copy. Never mind that John Redwood, someone surely with the sort of unimpeachable right-wing credentials that even the Daily Mail wouldn't criticise, has already talked about sending fewer people to prison in order to save money. But then again, the Mail failed to cover his ideas at the time.
One thing we can agree with the Mail on is, "[h]is comments are surprising because when in opposition the Tories promised to create 5,000 more prison places if they got into power. Mr Clarke provoked further astonishment by claiming public fears over crime were overblown and did not reflect the reality of life in Britain." Too true. [15/06/10]
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P.O.A. - AL QAEDA'S CHIEF RECRUITING OFFICER IN UK PRISONS?
It now appears that Anne Owers, the Chief Inspector of Prisons, has come to the conclusion that HM Prison Service is in danger of becoming the number one recruiting agent for al Qaeda. In her recently released report 'Muslim Prisoners’ Experiences', she highlights the fact that prison officers tend to treat the estimated 10,300 Muslim prisoners in England and Wales (roughly 12% of the prison population) all as terrorist, despite less than 1% of them actually having been convicted of any terrorism-related crimes.
The report claims that the HMPS "blanket security-led approach to Muslim prisoners in general" runs "a real risk of [becoming] a self-fulfilling prophecy: that the prison experience will create or entrench alienation and disaffection, so that prisons release into the community young men who are more likely to offend, or even embrace extremism." This is a direct result of what the report terms the "pervasive theme" of staff ignorance, where "staff tended to think of [Muslims] as a group, rather than as individuals, and too often through the lens of extremism and terrorism", leading to Muslim prisoners reporting "more negatively on their prison experience, and particularly their safety and their relationship with staff, than other prisoners."
As a direct result, "[t]hree-quarters of Muslims had felt unsafe in these prisons, and this perception was strongly linked to mistrust of staff". Race and ethnicity were also seen as "important factors in Muslim prisoners’ negative experiences and perceptions," reflecting additional racially-based nuances in the discriminatory behaviour of staff. For example, Asian Muslims are seen as 'proper' Muslims and are therefore treated with more 'respect' than black Muslims. Whereas white converts, despite generally not being taken seriously as Muslims by screws, continue to reflect survey finding of the wider white prison population.
Needless to say, the yellow press had a field day with the findings, selectively reporting, twisting and, in parts, fabricating evidence to fit their editorial prejudices. The Daily Mail's coverage led with: "Prisoners are converting to Islam to win benefits and gain the protection of powerful Muslim gangs inside jails, the Chief Inspector of Prisons has warned." This of course bears little relation to her conclusions. The report found that prisoners converted because of "the discipline, structure and comfort provided by observing Islam", "the opportunity to obtain support and protection in a group with a powerful identity" and the "perceptions of material advantages of identifying as Muslim" i.e. better food at Ramadan and more time out of cell; and in that order of importance.
The idea that, as the Daily Express put it, "Muslim prisoners are cashing in on their religion to claim hundreds of thousands of pounds in additional benefits," is also far from the truth. As is the existence of "powerful Muslim gangs," which the Mail claims (quoting the report) "[s]taff at one high security prison said non-Muslims were pressured into converting and adopting a 'strict' form of Islam" by. Yet, the previous line in the report clearly states: "Concerns about intimidation of non-Muslims, the emergence of gangs and conversions to Islam were often linked, but were backed by little evidence" and "[n]one of the wing history sheets [in the prisons where anecdotal concerns were raised] revealed staff concerns about forced conversions."
Another conclusion of the report was that: "It was also evident that events and perceptions outside prison, in the public and the media, directly affected relationships inside prisons." Whilst this is true to an extent, with most people apparently basing their understand of what life in prison is like on old episodes of Porridge and the rantings of Mail, Express and Sun reporters about 36" plasma TVs and PSII consoles in every prison cell, much of this gibberish comes directly or indirectly from the offices of the Prison Officers' Association (POA).
Ever desperate to protect and enhance their members' interests, this supposed bastion of working class trades unionism, collectively and individually, is only too willing to feed the media's anti-prisoner hysteria and to try and turn it to their advantage. Thus, the vast majority of these stories about the venal nature of, in this case Muslim, prisoners come in one way or another from the union. Thus we had, in anticipation of Anne Owers' report, an article in the Guardian claiming that the POA had "received 'credible intelligence' of a kidnap plot by a group of Muslim extremist inmates at HMP Belmarsh."
Not to be outdone, the Daily Star had their own tale from a "security source", i.e. a former warder, who "told the Daily Star Sunday exclusively“ that Belmarsh prison staff had been briefed on “received intelligence” that Muslim prisoners had planned to escape using an aircraft assembled from parts smuggle into the prison. The Prison Service needless to say denied any such briefing.
Interestingly, the 'beheading story' has become a common trope within prison news stories. At the beginning of 2008 the Daily Mirror claimed a "plot by al-Qaeda terror suspects to kill a prison warder after holding him hostage has been foiled. An inmate was caught with detailed plans of Belmarsh jail and the alarm response times of staff." The usual unnamed "Officials believe a gang of prisoners, dubbed the Muslim Boys, were planning a 'spectacular show of strength'."
Similar stories 'leaked out' from Frankland and Whitemoor also, with the Daily Mail heading the list of papers only too willing to take the bait. Amongst those stories was the secret plans being drawn up based on "[i]ntelligence gathered from within Britain's eight top-security prisons claim[ing] specific threats to kidnap and behead an officer." And how did they know this? "A senior prison source told the Mail that it was 'a real, live threat'."
Another such prison source turned out to be a screw named Paul Capewell, who ended up on trial for trying to sell the Frankland beheading story, along with details of Soham killer Ian Huntley for £40,000 to the News of the World. Unfortunately, he ended up being aquited and never got to spend doing time with all those feared al Qaeda types. [10/06/10]
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WORLD CUP - "PRISON BREAK-INS OUT OF CONTROL"
The Home Office has discovered that record prison overcrowding is not due to successful conviction rates but innocent members of the public breaking-in to 'bagsy' seats for the World Cup.
Wardens have always allowed in a trickle of people to deliver drugs and mobile phones but this is rumoured to of become a flood in the run up to the South African spectacular. One inmate said the courtyard had become a 'sea' of ropes, ladders and grappling hooks.
The attraction is said to be one of the best integrated home-cinema systems in the world.
"We've got multi-room HD in all the cells, there's a 60" beaut in the canteen and a 3D ready 130" stonker in the governors office. There's even commentary in the showers!" one inmate laughed.
One excited visitor said "Its full-board here so I won't miss a minute. There's a 56" full-LED Panasonic in the chapel nobody even knows about!"
The influx is said to be causing a headache for wardens as they struggle to keep up with the headcount. As football fans arrive, dangerous cricket fanatics are sneeking out they warned.
Some desperate arrivals are even donning disguises to try to blend in. One warden admitted "There's about 6 Peter Sutcliffes in here at the moment." - Courtesy of The Spoof [02/06/10]
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