Examination of Witness (Questions 20 - 39)
TUESDAY 10 MARCH 1998
SIR DAVID
RAMSBOTHAM
Mr Winnick
20. As far as women and young offenders are concerned, some
of my colleagues will be pursuing the very interesting (and I
am sure) quite valid points you have made, but on other aspects,
particularly as far as adults are concerned, I wonder how far
the public would be satisfied if there were alternative ways of
dealing with such people? You see, Sir David, there is a feeling—justified
or otherwise, and you would know as well as I do the sorts of
feeling which have been expressed—that probation is a sort
of soft option. Moreover, there is quite a delay between breaching
a probation order and bringing the offender back to court, if
indeed he is brought back, and a general feeling that he does
not really amount to much and the only way you can deal with such
people is by prison. Indeed, we have had evidence along those
lines from two or three former probation officers who feel that
the whole Probation Service is a farce. Do you feel that the combination
orders, which are now in operation, are one way of dealing with
the criticism that probation is a soft option?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I accept all that you say.
21. They are not my views. I am just expressing them.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Indeed, it is the public. One
is concerned about it. I certainly find it strange that if there
was a warning of a non-custodial sentence they are not treated
as offenders. I reckon that it should go on their record in the
same way as where they get a custodial sentence. I am concerned
that some of the things which one hears about the Probation Service,
which it is or is not doing, or is or is not able to do, it does
not seem to me to be a very tough option. I like one of the trends
that is happening in youth justice; the idea that the court will
demand that something is done in a period of time by a youth action
team, which is an actual purpose, and then it goes back and accounts
for it. I personally think—this is probably a radical thought
on it—that it is time that the Probation Service was made
a national service and came under national jurisdiction like the
Prison Service. This is because again there is tremendous unevenness
in what is done in different probation areas around the country.
That is not to blame the individual probation officers so much.
If we are going to stiffen up on what is done as a community sentence—and
it is a community sentence, it is not a period of time doing nothing—then
it ought to be dictated rather more and structured rather more.
22. I am very interested indeed, as I am sure my colleagues
are, by your suggestion about weekend prisons. Would you like
briefly to develop that. What you are saying, in effect, is that
the offender having been convicted and sentenced would, in fact,
not serve a prison sentence in the normal way but keep his job,
(if he or she has a job in civilian life), and go into a prison,
into an institution, from Friday evening to Monday morning?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Correct. This is not a completely
new suggestion. It actually happens in Germany now.
23. But not in Britain at all?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Not in Britain, no. It is linked
with the other end of what I think needs to happen when resettlement
takes place. If I can just expand on what the Prison Service would
need to do to enable this. It worries me that when resettlement
comes, people need a period of time to resettle into the community
into which they are going to go. All too often they are not in
the right place. For example, I went the other day to a prison
in Kent—an open prison, a resettlement prison—where
I found that half the inmates came from Manchester. It is not
very easy to resettle in Manchester on the Isle of Sheppey. What
I would like to see is more resettlement prisons developed in
areas, particularly urban areas, to which people return for the
last part of their sentence, which is the resettlement part. Now
part of the resettlement, particularly for the long prisoners,
is weekend leave. So it is where you would hop back into those
resettlement prisons, which would mean that you would not require
extra spaces, although staff would obviously have to work with
them. There is a great deal of merit in doing that because the
person keeps his job, keeps the family, but he is disrupted at
the weekend, which makes the point on behalf of the community.
Also, you are not wasting the facilities which the country has
paid for in a prison. The prison is working seven days a week,
which is quite right.
24. Is there a danger that the person concerned would start
sending in medical notes that he could not come to the prison
that weekend, or there was some pressing domestic crisis and the
rest of it? How would you enforce that it is not a sort of option
whether he goes to prison or not for the weekend?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) The way the Germans deal with
that is that if one does put in a sick note, it has to be verified
by the prison medical officer. If they do start making excuses,
then they are awarded sentences in the week as well. You are given
this: it is not quite a suspended sentence, but it is a four-year
sentence to be served at weekends or whatever. If you breach that,
there is a sanction against you.
25. I am very sympathetic to the idea. I am just wondering
whether you have seen it in operation in Germany.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I have. I saw it in very close
operation because the son of friends of ours was required to go
down to a prison in Stuttgart every weekend.
26. Do you think it would stretch the Prison Service too
much? I take the point you make about prisoners, who are on leave,
away for weekends.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I do not because there is always
a weekend staff on duty. If it requires one or two more people
on duty to look after these people who come in—because I
do not know how many people it would work out to. However, I do
not think it would mean an intolerable burden on them.
27. Have you put your proposals for weekend prisons to the
Home Secretary in the last Government or this one?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I have discussed it with this
Home Secretary, yes. It is one of the proposals which is in the
pot. I think he is considering day and weekend prison as well.
28. If it is a fair question to ask you, did you find him
sympathetic to the idea?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Oh, yes. He is open to every
idea going. That is one of the marvellous things about him.
Mr Winnick: Thank you very much.
Chairman
29. Before we move off that, Sir David, what would weekend
prisoners do? One frequently hears prisoners say that they are
banged up for most of the weekend. Staff shortages and the like.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) They are. For staff reasons
that happens. I would insist that they had the offending behaviour
or other programmes for which they have been brought in. You would
have to employ people to deliver those programmes. They would
be given the task of conducting certain things in the weekends,
which I would like to see, as happens in Germany. The person I
was talking about was somebody who had committed financial offences.
He went through a financial cleansing programme. At the end of
that the prison authorities were required to report to something
rather like a parole board to say he had done that work. Then
he was released. I think you could give them a programme target.
They are going in there, they are going into prison. They will
be occupied for as much of the working day as possible. You are
taking them out of circulation for a period of time.
30. Candidates for this form of sentence would be people
who might otherwise be sentenced to full-time imprisonment, would
they not?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes.
31. And it is rather important, is it not, that it is not
an additional prison sentence, because otherwise we shall end
up with increasing the prison population even more, shall we not?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) No. Indeed, you could say,
as a way out, that when you have done so many years, "Right,
okay, rather than going on home leave, we will send you to weekend
prison." There are plenty of people now who are going on
working in the community during the week and coming back into
prison at weekends because of the restrictions made by the last
Home Secretary. That is not weekend prison. They are actually
in prison but they go and work out of prison during the day.
32. That is the same principle really, is it not?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes. Working at Latchmere House,
if you have ever been there, at the edge of Richmond Park, they
are the ones who are pioneering the working in the community.
As they say, in fact it is costing them a great deal of money.
Originally they used to let people go out for the weekend. Now
they have to have staff in because they are not allowed to let
them out at weekends, so they have pretty accurate estimates of
what staff costings may be to provide weekend imprisonment.
Mr Winnick
33. To get it quite clear, Sir David, apropos of what you
replied to the Chairman, in some cases it would be a custodial
sentence, in the proper way, at the weekend; but in the main,
as I understood it, in reply to questions from me, you see it
as being a sentence whereby they go in at the weekends?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) That is right.
34. And keep their jobs.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Keep their job. Keep their
home. Keep their family going but disappear at weekends.
Mr Winnick: I take the point entirely.
Chairman: May we now turn to the relationship between the
Prison and Probation Services. Mr Cranston.
Mr Cranston
35. You touched on this when you told us about the work you
are doing with lifers on the Probation Service. What is your impression
of the way the two services work together and how do you think
they might work more effectively together?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I think it is patchy. As you
know, there are two types of probation support given to prisons.
There is the probation staff who work in prisons, who are on contract
to the Prison Service. Now, they have been subjected to cuts by
the Prison Service, not by the Probation Service. Those have been
cuts merely because there is not enough money to pay for what
they do. I think that is thoroughly unfortunate. I see in prison
after prison shortages of probation staff, which means that they
cannot do the work with prisoners, particularly in the run-up
to release.
36. Is everyone who is going to be released, do they meet
a probation officer?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) They should do.
37. But they do not at present?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) No. I will come on to other
bits of this. They should do but all too frequently this does
not happen. If you have two probation officers trying to cover
a prison of 600 people, there is no way they can get round everybody
as they should. Now what happened about this was that last year
the Chief Inspector of Probation published a report of the working
of the contracts in prisons, as far as it affected the Probation
Service. It was a very good historical record of what had happened,
but I not think it was tough enough about what should happen.
I believe that there should be a formal contract signed by the
prison governor with the Prison Service saying, "That is
what you are to do for my prisoners." The other thing the
probation staff do is work with prison staff and the psychology
staff; they conduct offending behaviour programmes in prisons.
If you find in a prison that you have a probation officer in charge
of what they call throughcare—that is, all work that is
done—there is no doubt at all that throughcare is better
done in the prison, if it is led by probation officers, because
they are used to looking broadly at all the other agencies.
38. What sort of work is done with throughcare? Is that the
sort of programme you were talking about earlier?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Exactly. It is everything which
is done in prison. Personally, what I would like to see: there
is a framework document, which is signed between the Prison and
Probation Services, which lays down what throughcare means. I
think the sentence plan, which is made at the start of a prisoner's
sentence in prison, should be binding on both the Prison and the
Probation Services for the period of the sentence. It should describe
the work that should be done in custody. Then the work that should
be done on the part in licence. That then prepares the Probation
Service for what is happening, particularly at the time of crossover
when a person is leaving. It is very important that the probation
officer, who is going to look after them in the community, be
involved with the prison in which the prisoner is serving; to
get to know him or her and start the process of integrating them.
Similarly, I would like to see the personal officer in prison
who has been looking after the prisoner, get involved in the first
few months after release, because he is the one person on whom
the prisoner has been hanging and relying. If you are going to
help them into the community that should be allowed. That introduces
the second part of the Probation Service, which is the local Probation
Service in the part of the country into which the prisoner is
going to be released. This is a real problem because you will
find probation officers who will tell you that, for instance,
in Hereford and Worcester, the Probation Service have got prisoners
in over 60 prisons. It is an impossible burden on the Probation
Service to go to visit all these people and check that everything
is well. However, there is a classic example of that which is
working extremely well. This is up in West Yorkshire at a prison
called Wealstun, where the West Yorkshire Probation Service are
working very closely with prisoners, many of whom come from West
Yorkshire, and therefore are helping them out into the community.
This is what I see ought to be developed much more.
39. You are talking about tighter contracts?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes.
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