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  About CAPS



The Campaign Against Prison Slavery (CAPS) was formed in 2002 by ex-prisoners, prisoner support groups and activists to campaign against compulsory labour in UK prisons and for the abolition of the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme (IEP).

Compulsory labour is a feature of most prison systems around the world, whether it be forced hard labour as punishment, direct 'reparation' for the costs of imprisonment, prison jobs such as kitchen or cleaning work that keep administration costs down or workshop jobs where prisoners manufacture the cell doors and prison bars for the jails that house them.

However, the modern prison has also developed into a system for generating capital from a section of society that up until now has largely been held to have no intrinsic labour value, the marginalised elements that tend to be trapped on a roundabout of regular incarceration, never to hold down a 'proper' job or become a 'productive member of society'. Thus we now also have in the modern prison system the prisoners who are used to create capital for private sector companies, either through labour in prison workshops manufacturing and packing goods for these companies or those prisoners handed over wholesale to the global outsourcing and security companies that run the private prisons, to do with as they wish, often 'sub-contracting' them out to third party companies.


From Article 2 of the International Labour Organisation's Forced Labour Convention No. 29

1. For the purposes of this Convention the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.

2. Nevertheless, for the purposes of this Convention the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall not include:
c ) Any work or service exacted from any person as a consequence of a conviction in a court of law, provided that the said work or service is carried out under the supervision and control of a public authority and that the said person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or associations.

This text mirrors almost word for word the texts in the European Convention on Human Rights and the UK Human Rights Act 1998 [both Article 4].

 
 Prison Works?


Short-term prisoners are one of the most disadvantaged groups here. "Two thirds of prisoners are sentenced to prison for less than a year. Over half of these will be reconvicted within two years. The fact that serving a short sentence is one of the most common reasons given for excluding inmates from programmes is a source of concern." [HORS226]

PRISON WORK DOSEN’T WORK

Too many prisoners continue to suffer under the inequities of the present regime. It is time for the Government to make its mind up about the Prison Service. Is it to be a modern industrialised gulag, paying third world wages, or is its role to be to modify and control offending behaviour? If it is the latter, then it can only continue to function as a sticking plaster over the ills of society at large, the same role IEP has played since 1995 within the Prison service itself.

References:

Harper G. and Chitty C. (Eds.), The Impact Of Corrections On Re-Offending: A Review Of ‘What Works’ [3rd edn.], Home Office Research Study 291, 2005, Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, TSO, London.

Liebling A., Muir G., Gerry Rose and Bottoms A., Incentives And Earned Privileges For Prisoners – An Evaluation, Research Findings No. 87, 1999, Home Office Research, Development And Statistics Directorate, HMSO, London.

Webster R, Hedderman C, Turnbull P.J. & May T., Building Bridges To Employment
For Prisoners, Home Office Research Study 226, 2001, Home Office Research, Development and Statistics Directorate, TSO, London.

- Bromely Briefings Prison Factfile, June 2009, Prison Reform Trust.

- Costing And Pricing Guidelines For Prison Industries [Internal HMPS Intranet Document].

- PSO4000, Incentives and Earned Privileges, 18/10/2006, HMPS.

- Rehabilitation of Prisoners, First Report of Session 2004–05, Vol. I: Report, together with formal minutes, House Of Commons Papers 2004, HC193-I, TO, London.

- Rehabilitation Of Prisoners: First Report Of Session 2004-05. Vol. 2: Oral And Written Evidence, House Of Commons Papers 2004, HC193-II, TO, London.

 

An edited version of this article has been published in the Criminal Justice Matters © [2008] copyright: The Centre for Crime & Justice Studies; Criminal Justice Matters is available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/09627250802476668

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  Prison Facts

15% of men, 19% of women and 10% of young people were not in permanent accommodation before entering custody. 8% of men, 10% of women and 6% of young people were sleeping rough. Prior to entering prison, 63% of prisoners were renting from a local authority or housing association.

12% of prisoners depend on housing benefit to help with their rent before they enter custody.591 However, entitlement to housing benefit stops for all sentenced prisoners expected to be in prison for more than 13 weeks. This means that many prisoners have very little chance of keeping their tenancy open until the end of their sentence and lose their housing.

Surveys indicate 30% of people released from prison will have nowhere to live. This is despite the fact that stable accommodation can reduce reoffending by over 20%. The Home Office found that women prisoners are particularly likely not to have accommodation arranged for their release. Just 62% of women had accommodation arranged, compared with 90% of young male offenders and 69% of adult men. In 2004 housing advisors were recruited for all women’s local prisons.

[Bromley Briefings Dec 10]