22. Memorandum submitted by
Ray Mallon, Mayor of Middlesbrough
I am the elected Mayor of Middlesbrough. I am
responsible for the policies and budget of Middlesbrough Council.
The council is a unitary authority serving a population of around
140,000 in the Tees Valley. I was elected in May 2001 as an Independent
candidate. I am supported by an Executive board made up of eight
councillors.
There are no prisons in Middlesbrough. However,
there is a large local prison and a resettlement prison in the
neighbouring borough of Stockton. There is also a young offenders'
institution, Deerbolt, in Barnard Castle on the fringe of the
Tees Valley.
Like all local authorities, we have a duty to
promote the social and economic well-being of our area and a range
of statutory duties on housing, community safety, social care
and environmental protection. It is clear that some of the people
who use our services will have been in prison. It follows that
we must plan sensibly for their needs and re-integration in our
community.
Middlesbrough Council has taken part in the
Restorative Prison Project, which is funded by the Northern Rock
Foundation and run by the International Centre for Prison Studies.
The project aims to raise public awareness of the experiences
of prisoners, develop ways of resolving conflicts in prison, create
links between prisons and communities and involve prisoners in
work which will benefit others. These two final objectives provide
a clear link with the objectives of the council.
The three prisons worked with the council's
Landscape and Countryside Development service on a project to
restore Albert Park, a large Victorian park in central Middlesbrough
which is being extensively improved and renovated.
The work included mending boats and railings,
making furniture and a mosaic for the café and community
rooms and flags and decorations for special events. The prisoners
showed they were capable of sustained, useful and creative activity.
The quality of work was acknowledged in a number
of significant ways. Perhaps most importantly, contractors working
at the park gave permanent employment to four prisoners. The young
offenders who created the mosaic won a Jerwood Prison and Community
Art award and staff at all three prisons were presented with Butler
Trust awards.
The project was well supported by staff at the
three prisons and the regional manager of the prison service.
Middlesbrough Council has also promoted the project locally and
to other local authorities. The Director General of Prisons visited
the project and it was also the main topic of discussion at an
urban parks forum attended by 130 people, mainly from other authorities
in the region.
The publicity around these events has substantially
increased the profile of restorative justice projects. I also
wrote about my personal views of the value of this work in my
regular column in The Northern Echo, one of the main regional
newspapers.
It is abundantly clear that local authorities
have many responsibilities towards prisoners who are trying to
resettle in the community, both by providing services directly
and by signposting them to other agencies. They also have a wider
responsibility in encouraging their re-integration in the community.
Projects like the one Middlesbrough took part
in are very valuable. They help re-integration by encouraging
prisoners to put something back into the community they have damaged,
allow that same community to see that prisoners can do a useful
job and finally, give a prisoner back the self-respect which is
fundamental to their rehabilitation.
At this point, before respectfully putting some
suggestions of action to the Home Affairs Committee, I would like
to make a more personal observation.
Before I was elected Mayor of Middlesbrough,
I was a police officer for many years. While accepting that prison
was the inevitable and proper disposal for many offenders, reflecting
the serious nature of their offences and the need to protect the
public, I never took any satisfaction in seeing anyone jailed.
Far too often, prison was a temporary respite
for the community as a whole and a brief interruption to the destructive
downward spiral of an individual. It is clear that we need to
provide measures, which will help break the cycle of retribution,
and re-offending by sustained and focused intervention.
Society is best served by a system in which
the elements of punishment and deterrence are balanced by the
rehabilitation of those who offend and their diversion from future
criminal activity.
I believe that local authorities with their
substantial service base and overriding duty to promote the well-being
of their communities are well placed to assist this process.
I think it is important that there are formal,
structured links between local authorities and the Prison Service
so that local authorities are included in the range of "after-care"
service for prisoners. This would include information about the
number of prisoners leaving prison to reside in a specific area,
so that support programmes can be organised and assessments made
of the potential impact on services.
It is also important that careful consideration
is given to where prisoners serve their sentence. The Middlesbrough
restorative justice project has shown the clear advantages of
prisoners serving their sentence in their home area. It makes
it far easier to organise resettlement and restorative projects.
It also gives prisoners a far greater sense of putting something
back into their home community.
14 October 2003
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