An effective rehabilitation strategy
384. We agree with the Government that the core
purpose and measure of rehabilitation must be to reduce re-offending.
However, a reduction in re-offending can only be achieved through
a rehabilitative strategy which reintegrates offenders into society
by giving them the opportunity and assistance needed to reform.
385. An effective prison rehabilitation strategy
must look not only at the offending criminal behaviour but also
at the individual prisoner himself or herself. A prison
rehabilitation regime must, where appropriate, challenge a prisoner's
chaotic and deprived lifestyle by—
- investigating the prisoner's background and
needs in order to develop specific measures for his or her reintegration
into society
- addressing offending behaviour and other deficiencies
such as drug and alcohol misuse
- offering alternative life choices to the offender
through the provision of education, training and work opportunities.
Further, the rehabilitation regime must be designed
to deal with the different needs of different types of prisoner
and the different factors affecting the re-offending of certain
groups—in particular, women, young adults, black and minority
ethnic groups, remand prisoners and short-term prisoners.
386. Wherever possible, offenders should be actively
engaged in their own rehabilitation, and encouraged to take responsibility
for themselves and their behaviour, from sentence planning through
to resettlement.
387. The objectives we have set out in the previous
paragraphs can only be achieved if there are significant changes
in the regime within prisons. We have set out specific proposals
earlier in this report. To summarise, the changes that are needed
are (in order of priority):
(i) a major drive to provide work and
work-like regimes and training within prisons;
(ii) an extension of this provision and other
rehabilitative interventions to short-term and remand prisoners;
(iii) significant improvements to drug and
alcohol treatment;
(iv) independent inspection of mental health
provision; and
(v) specific provision to address the needs
of minority and vulnerable groups.
388. Prison rehabilitation initiatives should aim
to link offenders into resources existing in the community. Through
this 'community provision' approach, the prison rehabilitation
regime can successfully align the identified needs of the individual
prisoner with the portfolio of interventions available both within
the prison system and within the community. This is the model
operated in Sweden under the principle of "normalisation".
This means that the Prison and Probation Service should not
provide services which are available in the community. Rather,
the task of the Prison and Probation Service should be to make
sure that the offender has access to the community services that
he needs. In our view, this approach is imperative as a method
of normalising the prison experience, (i.e. maintaining close
ties between the inside and the outside, through links to social
support services, voluntary organisations, church organisations
and family members). Further, resources are invested in building
up and sustaining adequate community provision rather than spending
ever increasing sums on ever increasing numbers of prison places
and wasting resources building a second—arguably substandard—tier
of treatment within the prison estate.
389. This community approach to prisons has been
advocated as long ago as the early 1990s. In his report on Prison
Disturbances, Lord Woolf recommended the establishment of community
prisons on the grounds that prisoners would maintain better links
with their families if they were imprisoned locally, better links
with families would in turn assist with ex-prisoners return to
the community, and local custody would also help with obtaining
employment and accommodation on release as well as facilitating
continuity in links with the probation service both before and
after release.
390. A major impediment to rehabilitation within
the existing system is that too many prisoners are held in prisons
that are geographically remote from their homes, families and
communities. This is partly a legacy of past decisions about where
prisons should be built and how large they should be. The Director
General of the Prison Service, Mr Phil Wheatley, told us that
"the reason why we do not have community prisons is not because
they are not a good idea, it is because the prison estate is where
it is and it does not actually line up with where prisoners come
from".[310] This
situation is exacerbated by over-crowding and the consequent high
level of transfers of prisoners across the country as places become
available. We recommend that, in future, rehabilitative needs
should be taken into account when decisions are taken on the locations
of new prisons. New prisons should be built with the right
facilities to deliver a rehabilitative regime that meets the needs
of the local prison population. The Prison Service should focus
on developing a variety of types of prisons across a region. It
is particularly important that a network of local community prisons
be built up to benefit short-term prisoners and prisoners close
to the end of their sentence.
391. Overcrowding is undoubtedly causing severe
problems within the prison system. However, overcrowding should
not be used as an excuse for poor management. We are not convinced
that every effort is currently being made to minimise transfers
between prisons where these impede the work of rehabilitation.
392. Historically, in England and Wales, the focus
of prison rehabilitation regimes within individual prison establishments
has depended more upon the views of the governor than on any overarching
Prison Service strategy. As we have seen in many different contexts
earlier in this report, the result has been a wide divergence
from prison to prison in what is provided by way of education,
training, work activities and offending behaviour programmes.
393. The current situation means that it is something
of a lottery as to whether a particular prisoner actually benefits
from rehabilitative interventions appropriate to his or her needs.
We believe that this is unfair to the individuals concerned. We
recommend that the Prison Service should move towards ensuring
greater consistency of provision across the prison estate, by
means of common standards and, where appropriate, ring-fenced
funding for particular rehabilitative provisions. We accept that
this will inevitably entail some loss of prison governors' present
autonomy, but consider that this would be a price worth paying.
310 
