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Mr. Evans: Yes, I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Home Secretary, who said that every prisoner is a volunteer--the fact that prisoners have committed crimes means that they volunteered to enter prison--but prisons can become pressure cookers. There is pressure between the criminals, some of whom can be violent--I am delighted that they are not walking the streets--and can have drug and other problems. Drink will not help them in prison. We have a duty to ensure that prisoners are not the target of other prisoners who are acting under the influence of alcohol.
One other thing disturbs me. Prisoners are one side of the story, but the people who work on our behalf to ensure that the prison population, which is approaching 60,000, is not walking the streets, also need our protection. Prison officers are making our daily lives that much safer and the last thing that we want is for them to be the targets of prisoners who are suffering from taking alcohol. We must make certain that we give prison officers the rightful protection that they deserve.
I find it difficult to believe that one could have hooch and that alcohol could be distilled and circulated in prison--perhaps it happens in prisons with lax regimes. It is difficult to believe that we do not have sufficient security within our prisons to ensure that that does not happen and that, if it does, it is stamped out immediately. I would hope that any prisoners caught distilling their own alcohol would feel the firm hand of the law and be given a further sentence on top of their original sentence.
Another problem is that of prisoners who come out of prison on temporary licence or for some other reason--perhaps because they are approaching the end of their term and we want to rehabilitate them. The temptation for some of those offenders, who may have been locked away for three or four years, particularly when they meet old colleagues and friends, is to make for the nearest pub. They might be out of prison for only a short period and go on a drinking binge. We must ensure that, when they return to prison, prison officers have the power to test
them for alcohol, particularly when it is apparent that they have been drinking. Indeed, prison officers should be given the same power as they now have, thanks to the Government, to test for drugs.
Like many other hon. Members on both sides of the House, I have spent some of my time over the past five years visiting some of our prisons. I went to Strangeways in Manchester after the riots. Another point on which one might care to reflect is that some of the prison riots in the past few years may have been drink-related. We should take into account the fact that that is how they may have started in the first place.
I have also been to Preston prison just outside my constituency and to a young offenders prison, Lancaster Farms, in Lancaster to look at that regime. Two of the three prisons that I have visited have had large sums spent on them to ensure not that they are the most austere prisons but that they are places where offenders are sent for a period, and where, as well as being punished, they receive the direction, education and discipline that they failed to receive when they were in society.
I met a number of people who work within those prisons and I want to ensure that, particularly in young offenders institutions, they are given the tools to let offenders know that, if they take alcohol, they will be tested and will face punishment if they are found guilty of taking it.
Dr. Spink:
Does my hon. Friend agree that the positive environment of education, training, development and changing prisoners' attitudes cannot take place successfully within a prison if prisoners have access to alcohol? Removing prisoners' ability to have access to alcohol by introducing a testing power will help the reforming ability of prisons and thereby help society as well as individual prisoners.
Mr. Evans:
I agree with my hon. Friend. Some prisoners might never have gone a day without drinking alcohol when they were out in society, and their severe alcoholic problem might have led to a life of crime. We must ensure that, while such offenders are in prison, they are immersed in a regime whereby they do not have access to one of the elements that led to the problem in the first place. We must help to clean up some of our prisons. We have done so on the drugs front; if we can do it on the alcohol front as well, that will be extremely important.
Dr. Spink:
My hon. Friend tempts me to intervene again by mentioning drugs. He will be aware, as we all are, that a high proportion of the first use of drugs takes place under the influence of alcohol. If we cut off the supply of alcohol through the power to test for it in prisons, we can stop prisoners coming under the influence of alcohol, making misjudgments and becoming involved in drugs. In that way, we can help both prisoners and society at large.
Mr. Evans:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The problem of creating a mafia within prisons was mentioned earlier. Some individuals within prisons are not the sort of people with whom one would wish to mix ordinarily, so for some prisoners to have to mix with such people, particularly if they have the power of alcohol and drugs,
I do not want my speech to be regarded simply as negative or Victorian, in the sense that prisoners are to be punished at every turn while they are in prison. I do not accept that view for a second, although others may think that I do. We should ensure that we assist prisoners as much as possible. I understand that Alcoholics Anonymous, for instance, provides support to prisoners to help them overcome their problem.
Prisoners with an alcohol problem who, even while in prison, are prepared to go that extra mile to get their hands on alcohol, need more help than anybody else. It is not just a case of punishment and ensuring that they do not have access to alcohol from relatives or friends who visit them and somehow pass alcohol to them. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Castle Point (Dr. Spink) that, if it is apparent that a prisoner is using his visitors as a means of getting alcohol and drugs and then circulating them to a wider group of people within the prison, we must take harsh action against him. It may mean that, for a period--perhaps even for the remainder of his sentence--he is separated from his visitors by glass or some other means so that objects cannot be passed to him from his relatives or friends. We should look seriously at that idea.
Lady Olga Maitland:
My hon. Friend touches on an important point and I wonder whether he will explain it a little further. It is about alcohol being passed to inmates from visitors. Did my hon. Friend have the chance when he visited prisons to observe the procedure whereby bags are passed through an X-ray machine? On the whole, it is not customary for prison officers personally to search visitors, and that is a difficulty. They have the power to do so but tend not to use it. Should we not consider encouraging prison officers to make greater use of the power to search visitors when they fear that there is a problem of that nature?
Mr. Evans:
My hon. Friend hits the point with the words "when they fear that there is a problem of that nature". I am sure that guilty visitors are known to the prison authorities. May I stress, however, that every visitor who enters the prison to visit an inmate should not be made to feel like a criminal. We must make absolutely certain that everyone is not tarred by the same brush. We must also be careful not to deter people from visiting friends and relatives in prison.
After all, part of our prison regime is rehabilitation, and the last thing we want to do is to leave prisoners in solitary isolation so that the only people they mix with are other prisoners and prison officers. We want to ensure that they have as many visitors as possible so we must be careful in choosing whose bags to search or who to put through an intimate search.
I take my hon. Friend's point seriously. When prison officers know that certain individuals may be guilty of passing alcohol or drugs to prisoners, a greater use of closed circuit television cameras within meeting rooms should be encouraged. I understand from my hon. Friend the Minister that some videotapes from those cameras have proved to be extremely interesting. Perhaps we should learn more of what goes on in meeting rooms between prisoners and their visitors.
When the Bill becomes an Act, I hope that prisoners who have problems will be given help, guidance and the opportunity to serve the rest of their sentence in prison without the temptation to turn to alcohol whenever problems arise, or just when they feel like drinking.
It is clear that the Bill has resource implications for prisons throughout the country. It has been estimated that the testing equipment would cost around £700. I support the prison building and reform programme that has been going on for the past 18 years, and I do not flinch when people say that we have more people in prison per head of the population than any other country in Europe. So be it. If people do the crime, they deserve to do the time.
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