APPENDIX 14
Note by Sir David Ramsbotham GCB CBE,
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons
As a member of the Board preparing a report
to the Home Secretary on the closer working between the Prison
and Probation Services, I have come to realise how much more it
would be possible to conduct better community sentencing were
the two to be more closely aligned. I shall be conducting a joint
examination with the Inspectorate of Probation into Throughcare,
that is to say, all work done with prisoners throughout their
sentence, both custodial and non-custodial, to ensure consistency
of delivery. In this connection I shall be recommending a re-examination
of the restrictions imposed on release on temporary licence and
home leave imposed by the previous Government, because I believe
that the new rules are restrictive in that they prevent community
and other work being done during and towards the end of sentences,
which is particularly important for Young Offenders and those
coming to the end of long sentences.
But I believe it is time we thought much more
boldly and longer-term. For example, I would like to see work
done towards the development of day and weekend imprisonment,
by which I mean that, in the case of day work, prisons should
be resourced so that they can provide offending behaviour and
other programmes for which prisoners should report by day, thus
breaking away from the current practice of Probation staff having
to make separate arrangements for such programmes. The fact that
people have to report to the prison to do this will not only bring
the prison itself more into the community, but will impose a discipline.
As far as weekend prisons are concerned, I would like to see more
small resettlement prisons around the country, from which people
can go on home leave, and into which other prisoners should be
brought for the weekend, inconveniencing them but enabling them
to maintain a job during the normal working week. If, as I hope,
the future structure of the prison service makes it more community
orientated, then I would see the onus being put on the area Criminal
Justice Co-ordinating Committee for determining what openings
there are for community sentences in that local area, using their
authority to encourage Local Government and other agencies to
provide suitable opportunities, and particularly opportunities
that allow some form of appropriate retribution for the crime
committed to be built into the type of sentencing. For instance,
those who put graffiti over tube trains should be made to clean
them.
January 1998
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