Examination of Witness (Questions 60 - 79)
TUESDAY 10 MARCH 1998
SIR DAVID
RAMSBOTHAM
60. As I understand it, the sentence plan, which is supposed
to be done very soon after someone is convicted, is meant to lay
down a programme where these issues are theoretically addressed
in a progressive way as the prisoner moves through the prison
system.
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Correct.
61. We could take your man of 57 addresses doing that particular
sentence, it is just not going to happen, is it?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) No. The Prison Service have
designed a new sentence planning programme, which they introduced
on 1st April last year which I hope will go some way towards doing
this. They have realised that it is haphazard, there was a lot
of stuff done on the back of a fag packet here and not passed
to somewhere else. It is all very well to design a sentence plan
in a prison, what is not there at the moment is the machinery
to pick a person up and say, "You ought to go to there."
What actually happens far too often is the person works his way
up the incentives and earned privileges scheme to enhanced standard,
then they say, "He ought to move on now", and they will
ring up their mate in another prison and say, "Hey, will
you take so-and-so", and he says, "Yes, okay, but you
take so-and-so", and it is done by horse trading. It is not
done in a progressive way relating to the prisoner. This is what
I shall be highlighting in the study on lifers, by drawing attention
to that and drawing attention to the need for the Prison Service
to be much more constructive and look at passing people through
the system.
62. Is it your impression there are enough resources devoted
to this work on minimising reoffending?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) The trouble is that the resources
are not properly directed in that line. I do not think it is shortage
of resources to do this, it is just shortage of good management
practice, frankly.
63. You have mentioned in passing, and indeed we have had
some experience of this in work the Probation Service have done,
some first-class schemes, including a very imaginative one we
saw in Manchester—
(Sir David Ramsbotham) It is a very good area.
64.—a one-to-one programme dealing with young arsonists
who can put a match to a school and leave a bill of £2 million
or whatever, so it is fairly serious stuff. Do you know how best
practice gets around this system, or does it not?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am interested you should
ask this because I asked that question when I first took up the
job because it was not happening. I am concerned that in every
prison I go to there is masses of good practice and what I now
do in every report I write is highlight good practice and list
it, and I also send it separately to the Director General. After
my first list in 1996 he then put some of it as good practice
around the Prison Service. Not enough because, again, it is why
go and re-invent the wheel if good things are happening? From
all the prisons around the country you could pick good things
which would design a very good regime for everyone and all the
examples are there. It is not as if the Prison Service is not
thinking about these things. When you go and talk to governors
they are very worried about this, when talking about the shambles.
The governor of Holloway Prison got together all the governors
of all the women's prisons and his plea to the Prison Service
was, "Who is our champion? Who is looking after our interests?"
So they are all thinking about this. But good practice is something
they are very bad at sharing. The "not invented here"
syndrome comes into play. I think an awful lot of it is not helped
by having a very bad IT structure to enable information to be
passed round the system. Hopefully it is coming in the programme
called Quantum, which you have probably been told about, which
is a new system designed to do financial management better, because
believe it or not the Prison Service introduced a financial programme
called Focus which goes to every prison but instead of telling
every prison how they want information given, they tell every
prison they can present the information in their own way. There
is another programme which is going to deal with staff issues,
which is terribly important, and another one to deal with prisoner
handling information. There are some very good examples of prisoner
information around, there are very good examples of sentence planning
on a computer but only used in one prison, not transported to
others. They could help themselves if they sorted out their IT
and shared information much more quickly.
Chairman: Young offenders we have touched on already. Mr
Allan?
Mr Allan
65. Sir David, you have demonstrated a very impressive understanding
of the facts and issues around it, which I think will be a lot
of food for thought for us. Accepting that there is always a small
number of persistent and serious young offenders who will end
up in custodial sentences, you have described the current system
as chaotic and you have suggested there should be a separate youth
justice framework. Is that still your view?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) For those under 18, yes, absolutely.
I say that because of legal reasons. The Children Act, 1989 applies
to those under 18 in this country but you were questioning about
remand prisoners and I can accept that the Children Act, 1989
may not apply to a sentenced young offender because he may forfeit
some rights as a result of that, but not a remand prisoner, he
still must be subject to the Children Act. When I took social
services inspectors in with me to look at the conditions in which
juveniles under the age of 18 were being held, they said that
if this was accommodation run by social services it would have
been closed, both because it lacked facilities and because it
was not good enough. The UN Rights of the Child is another mechanism.
There is a very large number of organisations involved in the
custody of people under the age of 18 in addition to young offender
institutions—there is special accommodation run by social
services, there is local government accommodation, there are homes
paid for by the Home Secretary like Glenthorne, there are special
schools, there are some run for the mentally disordered and so
on. It is a muddle. I do find it extraordinary that I went to
a place called Leverton in Essex the other day, which is a local
government place looking after 24 offenders, where £3,200
a week is the cost of a young offender. You go to Onley, which
is a young offender institution, and they cost £300 a week.
I think there is something wrong here. I would like to see consistency
in this and I would like to keep the young people out of anything
to do with prison. That is not to say they should not be in custody,
and that is not to say it might not be you would have a wing for
juveniles attached to a young offender institution so it could
use the facilities, but run by a completely different service,
a youth service of some kind. I believe prisons are for adults,
and the Prison Service should be an adult service, and it divides
it to have to look after children.
66. Is it your view that no under-18 year old should be in
a system managed by the system for 18-plus?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Obviously there will be exceptions.
There will be some for particular reasons, some serious sex offenders
are probably better off with young adults—
67. But that is your ideal?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) That is the aim, the ideal.
I would suggest 18 purely because of the legal implications. People
have said, "Why not 17?" I have said, "Why not",
but I am saying there should be a service and I say 18 because
of the legal implications.
68. Are you envisaging then that, for example, local authority
remand centres, at the moment custodial centres, should be transferred
effectively to this new agency? That they should all be owned
and managed by one agency or do we continue to have some Prison
Service and some local authority?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I would have them all organised
by a youth service and all subject to the same rules, regulations,
treatment programmes and so on.
69. So the local authority ones come out of local authority
ownership and management?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes, or the local authority
will manage it using people from the youth service to do it and
subject to inspection by them, because I think inspection is very
important in this, to make certain there is consistency.
70. Can I ask about the secure training centres? How much
of an impact do you think they will make as they come on stream?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Well, I will be able to tell
you better when I have taken responsibility for inspecting them,
or have been involved in the inspection. I think they should all
be in the whole thing together. I do not like separating this
because you should have to my mind ideally a series of options
which are available to people to suit the needs of the individual,
remembering you are dealing with an adolescent at this stage and
the criminality may be part of the adolescence. The danger of
having prison put in there is that you concentrate on the criminality
and ignore the adolescence. I feel quite strongly about this because
if you put an adolescent into a criminal environment while he
is coming to terms with becoming an adult and with the background
they come from, they have had no proper preparation for adulthood,
in fact you risk corrupting them and making them criminals anyway.
I would like to keep them far away from the criminal, whatever
they have done. Some of them will have done horrendous things
and they will need the special secure units. I am sure you have
discussed the issue of people like Venables and Thompson frequently,
as we do, because one wonders what the Prison Service will do
with them when they come to them. Are they going to come at 15?
What preparation are they going to have? Are the prisons prepared
to pick up on what has been done before with them because they
come from a different service and so on?
Chairman
71. These are the boys convicted of the Bulger murder?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Correct.
Mr Allan
72. What about the issue of numbers of places? My understanding
is that there are severe constraints at the moment in terms of
numbers of places available for juveniles and under-18 year olds.
Do you think that is a problem and how do you envisage getting
more places?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I think it is a problem. I
think it is high time, and I have said so in a report and in my
annual report too, the Prison Service got round to analysing this
part of its population. It is going up hugely fast. I think the
figures were it went up by 16 per cent last year. The thing is
that they have designed no new young offender institutions during
all that. They have rammed in an extra house block here and there,
which merely makes the things bigger, and I personally do not
believe that any young offender institution should be bigger than
300 people, and they should have no more than 60 in any one unit
because they become unmanageable. That is not happening. I do
not believe that you should allow the big warehouses like Feltham
and Glen Parva, with their 900 and so on, where you are just ramming
people in and you are not able to do anything with them. You must
look and say, "What do we need to do with these particular
types of people?" The secure accommodation when it is built
is amazingly lavish. I do not know whether you have been to Leverton
near Brentwood but I am absolutely astonished. It makes some Hilton
hotels look unremarkable. There are 24 youngsters in there, 100
staff—
Chairman
73. Do you not think it is a bit too lavish?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Yes, because you do not need
that degree of lavishness to do that degree of work with people.
74. Whose idea was it to make it that lavish?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I have to admit I do not know.
But it did alarm me because the conditions in which those young
people were living were so far removed from anything they could
ever expect when they went back to the community; it was false,
frankly. I am not saying that prison is normal but—
Mr Allan
75. The crucial thing is the regime in there, not the built
environment?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) That is right. It is hugely
lavish on staff㬇 education staff for 24 people. It is
marvellous they could afford it but—
Mr Howarth: That sends all the wrong messages to young offenders.
Chairman
76. Education does not send the wrong messages, does it?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Providing it is good education.
Mr Howarth: But eleven staff to 24 pupils is the wrong message.
Mr Winnick: Lord Irvine has not been involved in that one!
Mr Corbett: These are not an alternative to schools, Gerald.
They do not know what schools are, that is why you need large
numbers of staff—
Chairman: We will sort out our prejudices amongst ourselves.
Mr Allan
77. Anyway, your vision for the system is a separate youth
justice system which has its own institutions, its own structure,
a range of institutions covering everything from the Venables
and Thompson end to much more minor offenders, more concentration
on things like the youth offender teams in the community to try
and move people out in more effective ways?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) Correct. Also, very much towards
the end of the sentence there should be a concentration on resettlement
to the community. If it is important for adults, my word it is
important for juveniles. That is why you must have these places
as near to their place of home as possible, so you can involve
the families if they are there in the treatment if possible. Also,
there are people who are going on to an adult sentence, of which
there are inevitably going to be some. It is very important that
the preparation for that adult sentence is made extremely carefully
towards the end of the sentence.
Ms Hughes
78. Just a couple of follow-up questions on this issue of
young offenders in prison. Given the rise of the young offenders,
15 to 17 particularly, in prison which you yourself pointed out,
given the current review of the secure accommodation that is going
on and the fact the Home Secretary, as you have just noted, has
noticed the difference in cost between that kind of accommodation
in young offenders institutions and prisons, and also given that
the Crime and Disorder Bill does not place a requirement to place
young offenders who need custody of that age in non-prison accommodation—it
says they ought to be but it does leave a loophole there—do
you have any concerns, taking into account those various things
going on at the moment and the Crime and Disorder Bill, that we
will see further rises in over-15s in prison?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) I am very concerned at the
rise in the number of 15 to 18s in prison. The last figure I saw
was 1,899, I think, which is quite an increase. It was most vividly
explained to my by the last governor of Feltham who said that
when he took over he could number the 15 year olds on one hand,
when we inspected him 15 months ago he had over 50. That is an
horrendous increase.
79. Can you see any way of stemming or reducing that rise?
Secondly, in relation to the point I have just raised, do you
have any concern that that may rise because of things that have
been put in train at the moment and because there is not a requirement
in the Bill to provide non-prison accommodation in all but exceptional
circumstances for children of this age?
(Sir David Ramsbotham) My concern is that poor old
prison is just on the receiving end at the moment of this, and
my concern about imprisonment is that people seem to regard it
as an end in itself. It is not an end in itself, it has a role
to play in a system. Prison is on the receiving end of what has
happened to those children before they arrive with them. What
worries me as a private citizen rather than Chief Inspector of
Prisons is the evidence we see of the deprivation, if you like,
they have been through before they come there which has led them
there. Therefore it suggests you have to do something about that
deprivation in order to prevent them coming in, which of course
is outside the responsibility or role of prisons.
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