Examination of Witness (Questions 1 - 19)
TUESDAY 10 MARCH 1998
SIR DAVID
RAMSBOTHAM
Chairman
1. Sir David, good morning. Your last visit here was two
years ago, when the Committee was under previous management.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Very nearly that, yes.
2. There are two purposes in our questioning you. We are
doing an inquiry, as you know, into alternatives to prison. We
want to get your thoughts on that. We are also interested in the
wider aspects of your responsibilities and many of our questions
will be about that. May I start the ball rolling by asking you
about the growth in the prison numbers that has occurred over
the last few years. What, so far, have been the effects?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) As you know, the prison numbers
reached a new record the other day. 65,000 is the new figure.
I tell Richard Tilt, the Director General, that this represents
a rise of almost 25 per cent in the just over two years I have
been in the job. There is no connection between those figures,
but the fact is that 65,000 is a horrendous increase in a comparatively
short period of time. I think there are various impacts of this.
First of all, the prisons obviously were not prepared for those
numbers. Therefore, they have had to have an emergency rebuilding
programme, and one must congratulate them on the speed with which
they have put up additional house blocks in various prisons. They
have, of course, been bringing on one or two new prisons as well.
Therefore, they have not had to revert to putting people into
police cells at the cost of £300 at night. Nor, indeed, have
they had to triple up, which was one of the main problems in the
past. They deserve congratulations for that. However, the problem
about overcrowding is that it is not just whether there are places
enough for people to spend the night in prison. It is what happens
to them by day. What worries me is that in keeping them in, they
have not actually got the activities to occupy them by day. There
are too many of them sitting around idle. What we have been trying
to impress on the Prison Service is the need for them to build
into the infrastructure, to support the extra numbers wherever
they go in, with workshop places, instructors, extra staff, extra
activities, places and so on. The Government have made two extra
provisions of money particularly aimed at that, but the fact that
they have had to make two provisions in such short order indicates
just how far behind the curve everyone is. I personally think
that it is symptomatic of something I said to the Home Secretary
when he first took over, which was: unfortunately, although everyone
knows how much money is actually spent on imprisonment now—and
it is roughly of the order of £2 billion a year—in
fact, nobody knows how much money should be spent if you were
actually going to conduct imprisonment as you would like to: in
other words, provide all the regimes and offending behaviour treatment
and resettlement activities and so on. It always seems to me surprising,
coming in as a complete outsider, which I did, that there is a
perfectly good agenda, agreed by all parties in this House in
1991—the White Paper Custody Care and Justice, which set
out 12 very clear priorities for taking the Prison Service forward,
including the ending of overcrowding which was number one—but
that the only one of those 12 which has actually been activated
is the one about integral sanitation in cells. Personally, I believe
that until we get back and actually examine those priorities again
and cost them out, and therefore have a clear estimate for Ministers
and therefore for the Treasury of how much imprisonment as envisaged
by this House should cost, then the Prison Service is always going
to be behind the curve; always begging for extra money to plug
the gaps rather than being able to say: "Look, the provision
at the moment does not allow us to do the following and this is
what we need."
3. If the trend continues, where do you see the future lies?
I see from a Parliamentary Answer given by Mrs Quin to Mr Beith
the other day, that on present trends we can look forward—if
that is the right word—to an average prison population of
69,000 in 1999, 72,000 in the year 2000, and 82,800 by the year
2005. Now, that is obviously a prediction based on present trends
but if that were to continue, where would it lead?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I think that it emphasises
even further the need for a real radical look at the Prison Service
structure to see how it can cope. Hidden within that, you have
a whole lot of different categories of prisoner who all need treating
in a different way; not least—and the ones I am studying
at the moment and I shall be reporting on in the summer—the
increasing numbers of lifers who number 3,800, where there is
not proper provision for them. You might like to question me more
about that in a minute. The fact is that there are increasing
numbers of long sentence prisoners. The evidence shows that both
the long sentence and the short sentence and the medium sentences
are going up. There are an increasing number of young offenders.
There are an increasing number of women. There are increasing
numbers of foreign nationals. There are increasing numbers of
mentally disordered offenders. There are an increasing number
of people who are on remand for far too long, which is choking
the system really. I have quoted on a number of occasions that
if you use the 110-day remand rule they have in Scotland, between
4 and 5,000 of the current 12,000-plus people on remand would
have to be released. This is because they have been in prison
for over 110 days already and many of them for much longer. What
I believe is that the rather hand-to-mouth putting-people-where-beds-are
type of approach, is actually negating a lot of the good work
which should be done to tackle reoffending. I think the Prison
Service have had all the guidelines as to how they might do this:
Lord Woolf's community cluster of prisons, which localises things
more. Better focused direction, where you have people responsible
for consistent delivery of treatment to each type of prisoner,
wherever they happen to be in the country. But those numbers are
just going to swamp the existing management system.
4. Would you say that all of the progress of the last few
years is threatened?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes.
5. By the rise of the prison population?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes. I do. I think from all
that I learned, that actually it is slightly complicated in that
the Prison Service was moving forward, and then for the last four
years the numbers swamped and the money was spent on security.
The Prison Service deserves enormous credit for the fact that
the escapes have come right down to 0.3 per cent. That is greatly
to their credit. But it is unfortunate that so much money was
spent on the security, the physical security, rather than all
the other activities with prisoners. What is now happening is
that the Prison Service are picking up on all the programmes that
have been developed and would like to run with them, but the numbers
are preventing them doing all they would like to do.
6. You are already seeing evidence of that from your daily
work?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Absolutely. I am reporting
on it in inspection report after inspection report.
7. Before we leave this subject, you did mention the proper
provision for lifers. May we touch on that now.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes. Lifers worry me. They
worry a number of people as well. The Lord Chief Justice is very
concerned at the number of people who pass their parole date and
their tariff date without being released. I am very concerned
that a lifer, who really needs to have proper sentence planning
and management started the moment he is sentenced, all too frequently
is left languishing in a local prison for up to a year before
he is moved on to a training prison. This is because there is
no proper provision for him. I am not satisfied that there is
a proper structured programme which moves them on through the
system when they achieve things. Particularly, as the numbers
of lifers are likely to increase under the new legislation, this
is something which I think has got to be tackled. What I am doing
is a joint study with the Probation Service - the first time we
have done a joint one—because a life sentence, after all,
is some time in custody and some time on licence. We are doing
this by going into both prisons and probation areas jointly and
looking and seeing the work. When we come up with recommendations,
they will be based on what should happen to a lifer when they
first come in. What I would like to see is some form of proper
induction to their sentence. There is a very good example of this
in Scotland, at the moment, at Shotts, where they have started
a national induction centre for people with sentences of ten years
or more, where they go for six months preparation. I would like
to see that done. Then I would like to see them have a proper
sentence plan, made which is followed in certain prisons. At the
moment there are lifers in 61 prisons in this country—sometimes
only three or four. I think that is wrong. It penny packets them.
What I would like to see is that they are sent to places where
there are people trained to look after them and follow their sentences.
One ought to be getting them to their parole and tariff dates
as quickly as possible. This particularly applies to people like
sex offenders who must start sex offender treatment as quickly
as possible, so that the risks of their reoffending can be assessed.
It is fortunate that the National Audit Office is studying the
Parole Board at the same time, so we are working with them as
well. Again, the Prison Service is choked. They have people in
the wrong places. Because they are such a special part of the
system they need special handling, so I hope we will be able to
help them.
Mr Allan
8. To come back to the issue of remand prisoners, if I can
recall the figures, I believe you said there are around 12,000,
of which 4,000 have been waiting for longer than 110 days?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) That is right.
9. Can you tell us what sort of distribution there is in
terms of their accommodation. How many are in suitable and how
many are in unsuitable? What sort of accommodation are those 12,000
in?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am very worried about local
prisons particularly, which is where most of them are held. They
are held in local prisons because, of course, they are adjacent
to the court. The local prisons are, in fact, no longer local.
I was talking yesterday to the Minister about this. I am going
to do a study of them starting in the autumn. The local prisons,
where remand prisoners should be held, in fact you will find in
there remand prisoners, long sentence prisoners, lifers, short
sentence persistent offenders, mentally disordered offenders.
You could find young offenders in that. In Winchester you will
find women. That is an impossible task for any governor; to conduct
a regime which can cater for the needs of all those people. Also,
the trouble is that because all the work opportunities there are
in those local prisons have to be used for sentenced prisoners,
because you have to do something with them when they are sentenced,
it means they are denied to remand prisoners. Although in theory
you cannot do anything with the remand prisoners unless they volunteer
to do it, they are denied the opportunity to volunteer for anything.
I think that is wrong. I want to tackle the problem of remand
prisoners at the same time. For example, I have seen some very
good and imaginative work done in Gloucester Prison where they
have some juveniles. They have set up a special education department
to deal with juveniles on remand; to do some education tackling.
At Lincoln they have organised a very good day where they have
divided remand prisoners into three groups. Each of them has a
third of the day to do something. There is good work going on
elsewhere which I would like to see repeated. It worries me because
about 60 per cent of the remand prisoners do not get a custodial
sentence. What are we actually doing with them during that time?
10. There are several thousand individuals in inappropriate
accommodation—
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Correct.
11.—in inappropriate regimes, 60 per cent of whom will
not get any form of custodial sentence?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) You have to be careful with
that figure because I suspect that the time spent on remand is
taken into account by the sentencer and so on, but it still is
a figure which is concerning if nothing is being done. What is
the effect on those people who are being held like that, inappropriately,
for that period of time?
12. What way is the trend going?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) The trend, I am afraid, is
for longer remands at the moment. This is why I am very glad that
the Government are trying to tackle this. The figures show that
they are going up. I had a letter which I gave to the Minister
yesterday, from a young offender's mother, who had been on remand
for 15 months before trial. He is 16. This is awful.
Mr Allan: I agree. Thank you.
Mr Howarth
13. Sir David, you mentioned that there are 3,800 lifers,
people serving life sentences. You expressed concern that there
was not a proper programme to move them on. Can you explain to
us what you mean by moving them on. Does this mean moving them
from prison to prison? What kind of regime of work is programmed
for them?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) As you know, the prisoners
are categorised into A, B, C and D. A lifer is never likely to
start below category B, which is not the high security but the
next one down, by the nature of his offence. That is a training
prison in which work could start. The Prison Service is developing
increasing numbers of training programmes: sex offenders; anger
management. They have cognitive skills training, which a good
old classicist would call logic. They have programmes for armed
robbery, programmes for violence, they have a programme now for
financial—
14. Not training them in these things. Not training them
in armed robbery—
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Exactly. These courses take
nine months or so to go through. During the course of these things
they have to face up to their victim. I think it is essential,
particularly for the people who have gone in for violence, and
sex offenders, that this particular part of their offending behaviour
should be tackled at the start of a sentence. At the moment it
is tackled just before they go out. I think that is a pity. That
is the initial course. After they have spent a certain amount
of time in category B and proved their good behaviour, they can
be moved on to category C. The idea then is to move them on to
category D, which is the prison from which they are released.
I believe that at each stage the offending behaviour treatment
should be repeated. It is a relapse prevention, a booster programme,
if you like. So you have done an initial sex offender programme
in category B. When you move to category C you do a relapse presentation.
When you go to category D from where you are released, then I
believe you should do a pre-release check. Similarly, if you are
doing an education programme, you can take that continuously through
the various prisons where you are. Some of the work programmes
I am not very happy about. It seems silly to teach someone bricklaying
in his first week of a life sentence. You ought to teach him bricklaying
just before he goes out so that he has a chance of getting a job.
The way things are structured, at the moment, is that what is
done in one prison is all too frequently not passed on to the
next one, so they are not picking up where someone left off. Therefore,
the prisoner should be given a target on all this. If you achieve
this you will get your parole or tariff date. He should be enabled
to do it. All too often, at the moment, there is not a structured
programme. He is not able to meet his date. This is one of the
reasons why there are too many of them sitting in prison long
after the parole and tariff dates, which is not their fault. I
want to get some system into that. To try to get them released
earlier, meet their dates, and undo some of the clogging in the
system.
15. What kind of response are you getting from the prison
management?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Very good. I am doing all this
in full concert with Richard Tilt and with the Lifer Management
Unit in the Prison Service. Total co-operation. They all admit
that there is an awful lot which needs to be done. An outside
look, in fact, is helpful to them because they are pretty well
swamped by their day-to-day activities.
16. May I ask Sir David one other question. You mentioned
that there are other categories: mentally ill offenders and foreign
nationals. What sort of numbers are we talking about in terms
of foreign nationals? What sort of programmes have they been given?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am afraid I cannot give you
a figure for foreign nationals. I will get one before you. When
I appeared before the Committee on refugees before Christmas,
the figure we had was in the order of 4,000 foreign nationals
in the prisons. I have not an up-to-date figure. I think again
we are poised on the need for some form of wider look at this.
I have just come back from inspecting the prisons in the Dependent
Territories in the West Indies. They have exactly the same problem.
You go into the prison in Grand Turk, and there are a whole bunch
of Puerto Ricans with 20-year sentences for drug offences. Why
should poor old Grand Turk have to put up with these people for
20 years? I would like to see something done on international
protocol to repatriate drug offenders back to their own country.
They are a hideous drain on the Prison Service. You have a language
problem for a start. There is a wing in Wandsworth where 51 languages
are taught at the moment. You have people in there for a very
long time for whom the offending behaviour programmes and the
rehabilitation programmes, which the Prison Service are trying
to conduct, are completely inappropriate. They are also taking
spaces. Because the drug offences are on the increase and, therefore,
these numbers of foreign nationals are on the increase, it is
something we need to look at very seriously.
17. Have you made representations to the Home Office about
this? It is absolutely ridiculous that the British taxpayer should
be forking out these huge amounts of money to keep people here—at
disproportionate cost, the official line might be.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I agree with you. I have mentioned
this. I have talked about the problem in connection with the immigration
centres. I am also responsible for inspecting them. In the report
on Campsfield House which is coming out shortly, I have made a
recommendation that some of the drug offenders who go to prison,
at the moment they come out of prison and go and sit in an immigration
centre. They can go and sit there for up to a year while their
case is processed. This seems to me to be expensive nonsense.
If they are going to be deported because they have committed an
offence, why on earth can you not process them whilst they are
in prison, and get rid of them from prison as quickly as possible
to where they should go, and not waste time and money?
Mr Winnick
18. Sir David, the Chairman asked you questions about the
ever rising prison population. Our job is to make recommendations
if we can, as you know, to alternatives to prison. I would like
to ask you—whether you are in the position to answer it
straight off I do not know—but what do you consider would
be the proportion in the present prison population who could be
dealt with, at least as effectively, by a non-custodial sentence?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I do not think I can answer
you precisely for everyone. If we start with women, I reckon on
the sentences they have, that only 30 per cent of the women currently
in prison actually need to be there. There is no reason why they
should not be given an appropriate sentence which does not require
them to go to prison. The actual figures for women in prison at
the moment are just knocking on 3,000. It is an increase of 18
per cent this year already. The women's estate has bulked out
three times since August 1996. They have had to convert men's
prisons to females' prisons and to open an disused prison in order
to accommodate. Indeed, I suspect they will have to do it again
unless they do something.
Mr Linton
19. So 2,000 of those can be released?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I think 2,000 of those could
be dealt with by other means. I do not say that they do not deserve
punishment for their crime but I do not believe that prison is
the right place. One reason for that is that if the crime is not
one of violence against the public, which is one that means that
they should be separated from the public, I also take into account
that 61 per cent of all women in prison are primary carers for
children, with an average of three children each. Therefore, if
one is being honest about the future, you have to think about
the effect on those children as well, taking their parent away.
What are you going to do with them? What worries me, at the moment,
is that the programme for looking after women in prison is just
not good enough because the Prison Service has not designed for
them. We are calling for a director to come in and do something
about it. For young offenders, there are again certainly 30 or
40 per cent, I would say, who need not be there. I heard the other
day of someone who had been given a three-year sentence for urinating
in Trafalgar Square. In all conscience I do not find that sentence
one which appeals. There must be more appropriate things for them
to do. I am publishing in my next annual report, which Parliament
is calling for on 7 April, some figures which will interest your
Committee. These are about juveniles at the moment in this country,
which makes one concerned about what else you should do with them.
These figures will show that only 18 per cent of all the 1,900
in prison were living with both parents at the time of their arrest.
34 per cent were living alone or living with friends. 54 per cent
had witnessed the divorce or separation of their parents before
the age of 15. The reason I mention that is because an awful lot
of suggestions about what should be done, particularly with youngsters
in the community, are based on bringing the parents in. However,
we have to be aware that this is not actually as practical or
as easy to do if those are the figures. When you look at the other
figures, it is interesting that 75 per cent have failed to complete
school. Of that 75 per cent, 55 per cent were evicted or expelled
or excluded, which is a horrendous figure, and which I did not
realise was as high. Breaking that down, 34 per cent were for
fighting, 19 per cent for assaulting a teacher and so on. Therefore,
anything that talks about doing something that is school based
has also to be looked at very carefully. What concerns me in a
way, particularly about the youngsters, is that until there is
a situation in place where all the agencies are working together,
it is very difficult to say, "Let's look after them in the
community because the community is ready to receive them."
I do not think the community is yet ready to receive them. If
there is one example of how it might be done that I would commend
to your Committee, it is the example in America in the state of
Massachusetts, where they have put all dealings with youngsters
under the age of 18, under somebody called the director of youth
services. He co-ordinates the activities of the Police, the Probation
Service, the custody services, the social services, the mental
health, voluntary organisations, the Church and education. They
divide the days that they are required to do, either in custody
or in day work: six and a half hours education, which can include
education for work, and six and a half hours on community or victim
reparation. It is a pretty sensible division I think. The reason
I say that—sorry, it is rather a long-winded answer—but
I am very concerned about these youngsters in prison because prison
corrupts them. One does not want to see them in there but you
have to have something meaningful for them outside. I believe
what these figures show is that you have to include in what is
done—and this is a community sentence—education as
well, to make good the ravages of what they have not had. I do
not see evidence of that being provided. Of course, in education,
it is not just the reading and writing and arithmetic they have
missed. It is all the communication skills, learning that you
can be wrong, the learning to work as a team and so on. Of the
adults, again I would think of an order of 30 per cent, certainly
I would say should not be there. Some of the very short sentence
ones—I find people sentenced for four days—I do not
find that a very sensible sentence, particularly if it is given
on a Thursday. This is because the prisoner is released on Friday
as the prisons do not release on Saturday or Sunday, so what have
you done? There is always talk about the problem of people who
have not paid their fines. I do not know what the answer is with
these. I do sympathise with the sentencers because they have pretty
limited options as to what to do. The people who worry me most
in this particular park—and I am quite certain the long
sentences will not be there - are the short-term persistent offender.
The chap who goes out and does something silly and goes back in
again. He is a menace to the Prison Service because he knows how
to work it. He is a good chap and he gets to deliver the tea.
Nobody challenges him and out he goes. Canterbury are doing a
very good piece of work and challenging them. They put them on
a basic regime. They make life pretty miserable for them. They
have been very innovative in that they have got European money
to employ resettlement officers to look after them. What this
says to me is that if you can get money from Europe to hire resettlement
officers to work in prison, why should they not work with the
non-custodial organisations and do the same work with them outside?
I think also the use of some of the sex offender treatment courses
which should be continued after people have left prison. Some
of the drug treatment courses need not be done in prison. Some
of the anger management courses need not be done in prison. If,
as I hope, the Prison Probation Review comes up with a much closer
merging of those two services, I believe there are quite a lot
of things which they are now conducting in prison with prisoners,
which they could conduct outside. They could bring people into
prison on a day basis to use the facilities of the prison, if
you like.
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