Examination of Witnesses (Questions 80-99)
MR
JOHN GIEVE
CB, MR MARTIN
NAREY AND
MR WILLIAM
NYE
15 JULY 2003
Q80 Miss Widdecombe: You can categorically
say you have not issued any targets or guidelines?
Mr Narey: I am certainly unaware
of any targets at all; I would be very surprised if there were.
I will check immediately with the Director-General and let you
know if that is the case.[3]
Q81 David Winnick: Would you describe,
Mr Narey, the situation in some of our prisons as "appalling"
Mr Narey: In some of our prisons,
some of the time, yes, I would say that was a fair description,
but very few of them.
Q82 David Winnick: What number of
prisons would you say would fit that description?
Mr Narey: I think at any one time
the number is very low. To give you perhaps a more reliable statistic—
Q83 David Winnick: You would certainly
presumably say that Wandsworth and Pentonville come into that
category?
Mr Narey: I think at some time
conditions for prisoners at Wandsworth and Pentonville have been
very poor. At Pentonville at the precise time of the inspection
conditions were very poor indeed but that was in part because
there had been a disturbance and the prison had been partially
locked down, and the day after the Inspectorate left twenty more
prison officers arrived at Pentonville and immediately the place
became much better. I think there are very few prisons at any
one time to which I would apply that. In the twenty or so Inspectorate
reports which have been published this year, only I think three
or four of them have been very critical. Most have been very positive
and a few have been mixed.
Q84 David Winnick: Mr Narey, when
I asked you whether you would describe the situation in some of
our prisons as "appalling" you said "Yes",
and now you are beginning to qualify?
Mr Narey: Very few of them is
the point I was making, and I think this is sometimes a temporary
position.
Q85 David Winnick: Would you be in
a position to name those prisons which you describe as "appalling"?
Mr Narey: I would not like to
condemn a whole prison. What I was trying to say is that in some
prisons for temporary periods, when prisoners get out of cells
for a very few hours in a single day, I think those conditions
are pretty appalling for individuals, but I do not think at the
moment there is a single prison which is consistently appalling.
We would not allow that. If you had asked me that a few weeks
ago I might have said that was the case at Ashfield prison, if
you had asked me a couple of years ago I would have said it was
the case about Birmingham Prison, or I might have said it about
Wormwood Scrubs a year before then.
Q86 David Winnick: The Chief Inspector
of Prisons told the Committee about four tests which the Inspectorate
have for what would be called a healthy prison—safety, respect,
purposeful activity and resettlement—and she said, "I
have now seen all those being damaged or potentially damaged by
the effects of overcrowding and that is very damaging to the system
as a whole". Would you disagree with that?
Mr Narey: I would say that if
it were not for the pressure on numbers the performance of the
Prison Service in those areas would have been much better, but
I think any glance at the statistics for the last year in what
was produced in, for example, getting prisoners educational qualifications
show that the prison service did not go under. We could have produced
much more but I think the performance in making prisoners employable
and getting them into jobs has been pretty praiseworthy in a period
where there has been huge pressure.
Q87 David Winnick: And, of course,
as has been mentioned by Miss Widdecombe, we have since had the
reports into Wandsworth and Pentonville Prisons. The cells where
the prisoners have to do their toilets with someone else in, what
percentage would that be? You told us, if I have got the figures
right, that 22% of prisoners are sharing a cell which are meant
for two.
Mr Narey: 22% of prisoners share
two to a cell in a cell which was meant for one person.
Q88 David Winnick: In all how many
would be undertaking toilet facilities where someone else is?
Mr Narey: All of those prisoners.
22% of the population will at some point, particularly through
the night, have to use a toilet in a cell in which another prisoner
is living, and I accept entirely that that is pretty gross.
Q89 David Winnick: Pretty barbaric,
is it not?
Mr Narey: It is gross. I do not
think it is barbaric.
Q90 David Winnick: And the chances
of that improving?
Mr Narey: As I explained to Miss
Widdecombe, I think the chances of it improving significantly
over the medium term are quite small until we can convince the
courts that community penalties are a much more constructive way
of dealing with first time offenders and offenders who are neither
persistent nor serious. We have not yet convinced the courts of
that.
Q91 David Winnick: Lord Justice Woolf
recently made some comments, which were considered to be controversial
at the time, about sentencing where he argued, did he not, that
in certain instances, as you have just mentioned, non-custodial
sentences would be more appropriate? Would you agree?
Mr Narey: I would agree with that.
I think the significant point is that the Home Secretary has been
saying that as well. In all the time I have been involved in prisons
I have not heard a more consistent message from a Lord Chief Justice
and a Home Secretary, which is that first time offenders and less
serious offenders should be given community penalties when appropriate.
There is something rather mysterious that has happened. One of
the reasons for the rise in the prison population over the last
few years is that twice as many first time offenders go to prison
as, I believe, four years ago. There is no explanation for why
that should be.
Q92 David Winnick: Can you give your
opinion as to why judges are so reluctant to give non-custodial
sentences where it would be more appropriate for first time offenders?
Mr Narey: I think that because
we have perhaps not made clear to the judiciary the way the Probation
Service has radically changed over the last couple of years they
do not yet either know or believe that, for example, some of the
new community sentences are much more effective. The drug testing
and treatment order, or, for example, the new intensive Control
and Change Programme are all much more likely to reduce crime
and reduce criminality than is a very short prison sentence. We
only need slightly to adjust sentencing behaviour to make a dramatic
reduction in the prison population. If just half of all prison
sentences of six months or less became community penalties the
population would fall by 3,500.
Q93 David Winnick: As a result of
the overcrowding in prisons, Mr Narey, what would be your assessment
of the chances of successful rehabilitation?
Mr Narey: I think that the chances
of successfully rehabilitating a prisoner who is serving a reasonably
long sentence has significantly increased in recent years. I know,
for example, that between 1996 and now the proportion of prisoners
going into jobs on release has more than doubled. There were 42,000
educational qualifications gained by prisoners last year. All
the things which we are doing to make prisons more effective—drug
treatment, education, offending behaviour programmes—cannot
impact on prisoners who serve very short sentences. The reality
is that they will spend most of their sentence lying in their
bunk watching TV because it needs, for example, about six weeks'
intensive work to move somebody up from one level in terms of
their literacy and numeracy. We have lots of prisoners who do
not serve anything like that.
Q94 David Winnick: What percentage
of prisoners re-offend?
Mr Narey: The percentage of prisoners
who re-offend overall is about 60% within two years, although
there is significant evidence that that proportion is falling.
The most recent statistics on re-offending showed, across prison
and probation, a fall in expected re-offending of about 3.5% and
for young offenders punished in the community a fall of more than
20%.
Q95 David Winnick: But 60% overall?
Mr Narey: Yes.
Q96 David Winnick: We had an inquiry
into Blantyre House where re-offending, if I remember, was less
than 10%. You will remember that inquiry very well.
Mr Narey: I do indeed.
Q97 David Winnick: You were in charge
of the Prison Service. You gave evidence to us. What is the situation
now at Blantyre House?
Mr Narey: The re-offending rate
at Blantyre House remains extremely low but it is not a typical
cross-section of the prison population. These are long term prisoners
coming towards the end of their sentence.
Q98 David Winnick: We know that,
Mr Narey. What I am asking is, what is the situation since our
inquiry?
Mr Narey: I think Blantyre House
is a better prison than ever right now. I think it has a marvellous
atmosphere, it has got a very good record of getting prisoners
into work, but it has some of the things one would expect from
a prison which were not featured at the time of your inquiry.
We have got adequate security there, proper monitoring of prisoners,
supervision of their work placements and so forth, which were
the things I was very concerned about at that time.
Q99 David Winnick: The prison visitors
are satisfied?
Mr Narey: The Independent Monitoring
Board, as they are now called, are extremely positive and, as
you would expect, I have been in very close contact with that
board ever since the unhappy circumstances surrounding the removal
of the then governor.
3 See Ev 33 Back
| 
