Memorandum submitted by the Howard League
for Penal Reform
INTRODUCTION
The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest
penal reform charity in the United Kingdom, having been established
in 1866. Our comments in this paper are framed by our values.
These are that:
— We work for a safer society where
fewer people are the victims of crime
— Community sentences make a person
take responsibility and help them to lead a law-abiding life in
the community
— People must make amends for their
offences and change their lives
We are pleased that the Committee is taking
the opportunity to look at the huge cost to the public purse that
the overuse of imprisonment involves.
We hope that the Committee will draw attention
to the policy choice the Government has made to expand the use
of prison. This choice has resulted in the squandering of taxpayers'
money on a system which is in danger of being overwhelmed by numbers
and which has failed to reduce re-offending.
Building more prisons is not the answer and
would only encourage their use. They too would soon be filled
up in the same way that new roads rapidly become as congested
as the ones they were built to replace.
The Government has made a conscious decision
to avoid saying that prison doesn't work. This sin of omission
has left it unwilling to defend and promote strong community sentences
as an effective alternative to prison and one which does reduce
re-offending. Instead it has decided to increase the prison population
by over 17,000 since coming to power in May 1997.
We further hope that the Committee will take
account of the waste of public money involved in the establishment
of another bureaucracy—the National Offender Management
Service—whose only achievement so far is to have presided
over a further surge in the prison population.
KEY POINTS
— The prison population currently stands
at over 77,000. This is the highest it has ever been, having almost
doubled since the early 1990s.
— The population includes large numbers
of particularly vulnerable groups, including women, children,
the mentally ill, drug addicts and the elderly.
— 60% of all prisons are overcrowded.
— 71 people have taken their own lives
in prison so far this year, including two children and four women.
— Prison is extremely expensive, costing
far more than community sentences and on average £27,854
per prison place.
— 58% of those release from prison
will be reconvicted within two years of release.
— Community sentences offer a more
effective penalty against offending and involve offenders putting
something back into the community; they have lower rates of re-offending,
both in volume of offending and seriousness of offences.
CURRENT AND
RECENT PRISON
POPULATION
The prison population in England and Wales was
77,262 on 2 December 2005. This is 2,059 higher than on the same
day in 2004. The highest recorded population was 77,774 on 21
October 2005.
The prison population has grown rapidly since
in the early 1990s. The table below shows the annual prison population
for each year since 1985. It clearly shows that despite the overall
rise in the population there were two periods where the population
stabilised, or fell marginally, first between 1989 and 1993, and
secondly between 1998 and 2000. Sadly, neither of these periods
lasted.
| Year |
Average prison
population |
|
1985 |
46,234 |
|
| 1986 | 46,769 |
|
| 1987 | 48,425 |
|
| 1988 | 48,872 |
|
| 1989 | 48,500 |
|
| 1990 | 44,975 |
|
| 1991 | 44,809 |
|
| 1992 | 44,718 |
|
| 1993 | 44,552 |
|
| 1994 | 48,621 |
|
| 1995 | 50,962 |
|
| 1996 | 55,281 |
|
| 1997 | 61,114 |
|
| 1998 | 65,298 |
|
| 1999 | 64,771 |
|
| 2000 | 64,603 |
|
| 2001 | 66,301 |
|
| 2002 | 70,778 |
|
| 2003 | 73,038 |
|
| 2004 | 74,658 |
|
| |
|
By 2004 the prison population had increased by:
— 61% compared with 1985;
— 65% compared with 1990;
— 47% compared with 1995;
— 15% compared with 2000.
The Prison Population did stabilised at around 75,000 throughout
the last quarter of 2004 and the first quarter of 2005. Since
early summer, however, it increased steadily to stand just below
78,000. It has declined slightly in recent weeks, having begun
its annual downward trajectory in advance of Christmas.
In her most recent annual report, published on 26 January
2005, the Chief Inspector of Prisons claimed that the levelling
off of the prison population at around 75,000 was "the difference
between a manageable crisis and an unmanageable one". At
the time of publication of her report the useable operational
capacity of the prison service was put at 76,510. Since then the
prison population has increased by 3,200 to 77,262. The operational
capacity has increased by only 1,900.
Women's prison population
The increased use of imprisonment in England and Wales can
be seen most starkly in the huge rise in the women's prison population.
Prison Service statistics show that the number of women in prison
has increased by 148%, from 1,597 in 1990 to 3,953 in 2004. It
has increased further this year and stood at 4,558 on 2 December
2005. The female population now represents just under 6% of the
total prison population, up from 3.5% in 1990, 3.8% in 1995, 5.2%
in 2000 and 5.3% in 2004.
Young adults
19,114 young adults, aged 18—21, were received into
prison in 2004 compared with 22,223 in 2000. At any one time there
are approximately 9,000 young people in prison.
Children
Children can be detained in three different types of establishment:
1. Young Offenders Institutions (YOIs), which are run
by the Prison Service. It costs £50,800 each year to keep
a child in a YOI.
2. Secure Training Centres (STCs), which are operated
by private companies on contract with the Youth Justice Board.
The first STC opened in 1999. It costs £164,750 each year
to keep a child in an STC.
3. Local authority secure children's homes (LASCHs) are
run by individual local authorities. It costs £185,780 to
keep a child in a LASCH. Girls and boys are also mixed in LASCHs.
The number of children in penal custody has increased dramatically
in recent years. Youth Justice Board figures show that there were
2,786 children in custody on 2 December 2005. The vast majority
of these, 2,319 were held in YOIs. In contrast, there were 1,675
children in YOIs in 1995.
Remand
While the remand prison population has increased in recent
years, from 10,632 in 1993, to 13,073 in 2003, as a percentage
of the overall population it has fallen from 24% in 1993 to 18%
in 2003. The length of time that people are being held on remand
has not altered significantly during that time. In line with the
overall women's population, the number of women on remand increased
by 167% from 402 in 1993 to 1,072 in 2003.
However, over half of those prisoners remanded to custody
do not subsequently receive a custodial sentence, and the use
of custodial remand varies wildly across England and Wales.
Medium and long-term sentenced prisoners
This table shows that over the last decade there has been
an enormous rise in the number of people serving medium (12 months
up to 4 years), long (4 years plus) and life sentences. In addition,
the average tariff for mandatory life sentences (the part of the
sentence which those sentenced are required to spend in custody
for the purposes of deterrence and punishment) increased from
an average 12-13 years in the early 1990s to 15 years in 2000-02.
| |
Number of prisoners serving
sentences of more than 12
months and less than 4 years |
Number of prisoners serving
sentence of more than 4 years
and less than life |
Number of life
sentenced prisoners |
| 1993 |
12,511 |
11,671 |
24,416 |
| 2003 |
21,378 |
3,095 |
5,419 |
Foreign nationals
The number of foreign nationals in prison in England and
Wales has more than doubled in the last decade, increasing from
3,446 in 1993 to 8,728 in 2003. By the end of May 2005 the numbers
had increased further still, to 9,576. Foreign nationals represented
7.8% of the total prison population in 1993, rising to 12.1% in
2003 and 12.6% by May 2005. The number of female foreign national
prisoners has soared by 250% from 283 in 1993 to 904 by 2003.
In evidence to the Home Affairs Committee in October 2005,
the Home Secretary expressly linked the record prison population
with the increase in the number of foreign nationals.
The mentally ill
At any one time there are approximately 5,000 profoundly
mentally ill people being held in prison, either on remand or
under sentence. Those that are assessed as suitable for transfer
to hospital under the Mental Health Act 1983 are often required
to wait months for a bed to become available in a secure hospital.
INTERNATIONAL COMPARISON
England and Wales have the highest rate of imprisonment in
western Europe, and sit above the mid-point in an international
comparison of prison populations. The table bellows shows how
England and Wales compares with comparable western European countries.
The rate is expressed as the number of prisoners per 100,000 head
of population.
Country |
Prison Population rate per
100,000 of national population
|
England and Wales |
142 |
| France |
91 |
| Germany |
96 |
| Italy |
98 |
| Spain |
140 |
|
|
WHY HAS
THE PRISON
POPULATION INCREASED?
The main driving forces behind the increase in the prison
population have been:
1. An increasingly harsh political climate, fuelled by
shrill media campaigns to get tough on and punish offenders.
2. This has contributed to legislative and administrative
changes to establish a more punitive sentencing framework, such
as found in parts of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, which serve
to increase both sentence starting points and sentence maxima
for particular offences. The Home Secretary has raised the number
of foreign national prisoners as contributing significantly to
the current prison population. He will doubtless be aware that
the more punitive punishment for drug importation offences as
enshrined in legislation has been the overwhelming factor contributing
to the number of foreign national prisoners, especially women,
being sent to prisons.
3. The consequence of both of these factors has been
harsher sentencing practice in which both the number and length
of custodial sentences have increased.
A comparison between sentencing rates for 1994 and 2004 shows
that while there has been no significant change in the number
of people sentenced for an indictable offence, the type of sentence
handed down has become significantly more severe. In that ten
year period:
— The use of the fine as a sentence for indictable
offences has collapsed by a third, from 31% of all sentences in
1994 to 21% in 2004, or 93,355 people fined for indictable offences
in 1994 compared with 62,279 by 2004.
— The use of community sentences has increased by
a quarter, from 28% to 35%, or from 88,919 people sentenced in
1994 to 111,013 in 2004.
— The use of custody has soared by over half, from
17% to 26% of all sentences, or from 53,350 people sentenced to
custody in 1994 to 79,938 sentenced in 2004.
The increased use of custody does not solely reflect an increase
in the seriousness of offences committed by those appearing before
sentencers. The British Crime Survey (regarded as the most accurate
measurement of crime, as it asks people about their experiences
of crime and captures those crimes not reported to the police
and which therefore will not be included in the recorded crime
statistics) says that overall crime has fallen 44% since 1995.
The recent apparent increases in violent offences are due in part
to changed and better recording practices by the police.
The following significant changes in sentencing practice
are examples of the key factors explaining the increase in the
prison population:
— The increased use of custody for offences relating
to the import or export of drugs, from 69% to 95%, and the increase
in the average custodial sentence length, from 50 months to 71
months.
— The almost doubling of the average custodial sentence
for burglary in a dwelling, from 12 months to 21 months.
— The increased custody rate for actual bodily harm
from 15% in 1994 to 19% in 2004 coupled with the increase in the
average custodial sentence length from 6.8 months to 9.6 months.
— The almost three-fold increase in the use of custody
as a sentence for theft from shops, from 5% to 19%.
Other factors have also contributed to the growth in the
prison population, such as:
— A tightening by the probation service of the regulations
surrounding the enforcement of community sentences, increasing
both the number of breaches and the number of cases where custody
is the sanction for breach.
— An increase in the number of people recalled to
prison whilst being supervised on licence in the community; six
out of ten technical breaches of a licence will now result in
a return to custody.
WHAT ARE
THE CONSEQUENCES
OF THE
GROWTH IN
THE PRISON
POPULATION?
Impact on the prison system
The massive increase in the prison population in recent years
has caused extreme prison overcrowding and has impacted on all
aspects of prison life, including safety, prisoner welfare and
purposeful and rehabilitative activity.
Put simply, overcrowding means too many prisoners, not enough
spaces for them, and not enough staff to care effectively for
each prisoner. Overcrowding causes prison regimes to be squeezed
even further and threatens the ability of a prison to treat a
prisoner with decency and compassion. Overcrowding and the consequent
movement of prisoners around the estate limits the ability of
staff to get to know and develop personal relationships with prisoners.
Whilst additional prison places have been created to accommodate
the rising number of prisoners, some through building private
sector run and financed prisons, and some through the provision
of additional places at existing prisons, most have come through
squeezing more prisoners into existing accommodation.
The costs involved in building new prison places are prohibitive,
hence the squashing of more and more prisoners into existing accommodation.
The 7,454 new places created across the prison estate in the financial
years 2000-01 to 2004-05 cost £744.2 million.
On the last day of October 2005, 17,576 prisoners were "doubled-up"
in cells meant for one, where many of them will spend a considerable
portion of their day, will eat their meals and will use the often-unscreened
in-cell toilet in the presence of their cell-mate. The former
Director General of the Prison Service and ex-Chief Executive
of the National Offender Management Service has accurately described
such conditions as "quite simply gross".
Figures for October 2005 show that 85 prisons out of 142
(or 60%) were overcrowded. This is 7 more than the previous month.
Of the 85 overcrowded prisons:
— 16 were overcrowded to 150%[7]1
of their capacity or more with the average rate of overcrowding
now 165%.
— 18 were overcrowded to between 125%—149%.
— 40% of all overcrowded prisons were overcrowded
to 125% or more of their capacity.
The table overleaf shows the 16 most overcrowded prisons
in October 2005.
| Prison |
Overcrowding rate % |
Preston |
184 |
| Shrewsbury | 177 |
| Swansea | 172 |
| Exeter | 169 |
| Leicester | 169 |
| Wandsworth | 169 |
| Dorchester | 167 |
| Usk | 165 |
| Altcourse | 163 |
| Northallerton | 163 |
| Lincoln | 160 |
| Durham | 159 |
| Canterbury | 156 |
| Leeds | 156 |
| Lancaster Castle | 152 |
| Reading | 150 |
| |
The Chief Inspector of Prisons has frequently drawn attention
to the indecent conditions caused by overcrowding and how these
can have a negative impact on prisoner welfare. For example, in
her report of the inspection of Pentonville prison, published
5 July 2005, she referred to the problems of overcrowding, and
recorded how vulnerable prisoners were being placed in stained
cells infested with cockroaches.
Impact on prisoner safety and welfare
The Joint Committee on Human Rights, in its 2004 report on
deaths in custody, emphasised that the overall culture of a prison,
including whether prisoners are treated humanely and with dignity,
can have a significant impact on prisoner distress and vulnerability
to suicide and self-harm.
Prison overcrowding increases prisoner vulnerability and
the current Director General of the Prison Service admitted in
2003 that overcrowding was implicated in the increase in the number
of self-inflicted deaths in prison in recent years.
Research by the Howard League for Penal Reform and published
on 20 October 2005 showed that of the 159 suicides in prison between
1 January 2004 and the date of publication, 90 of them occurred
at the 35 currently most overcrowded prisons. This means that
over half of all suicides in prison since 1 January 2004 had occurred
in just a quarter of all prisons. These prisons are predominately
busy, local prisons, which serve the courts.
The following table shows those prisons which in September
2005 were operating at more than 125% of their capacity and the
number of suicides each of those prisons had experienced since
1 January 2004.
Prison |
Number of prisoners current
accommodation is designed
to hold (In-use Certified
Normal Accommodation) |
Number of
prisoners
actually held |
Capacity rate
% |
Number of suicides
between since 1
January 2004
|
Preston |
330 |
595 |
180 |
3 |
| Shrewsbury |
168 |
302 |
180 |
5 |
| Leicester | 206 | 363
|
176 | 5 |
| Swansea | 248 | 427
| 172 | 2 |
| Dorchester | 147 | 252
| 171 | 1 |
| Exeter | 316 | 537
| 170 | 3 |
| Wandsworth | 845 | 1,437
| 170 | 4 |
| Usk | 150 | 249
| 166 | 0 |
| Altcourse | 614 | 1,003
| 163 | 4 |
| Lincoln | 307 | 490
| 160 | 2 |
| Leeds | 806 | 1,258
| 156 | 4 |
| Canterbury | 196 | 305
| 156 | 1 |
| Durham | 496 | 748
| 151 | 5 |
| Lancaster | 159 | 240
| 151 | 0 |
| Reading | 190 | 284
| 149 | 4 |
| Bedford | 324 | 480
| 148 | 2 |
| Winchester | 476 | 691
| 145 | 0 |
| Doncaster | 771 | 1,111
| 144 | 1 |
| Cardiff | 524 | 749
| 143 | 0 |
| Bristol | 426 | 604
| 142 | 2 |
| Gloucester | 214 | 295
| 138 | 7 |
| Pentonville | 868 | 1,194
| 138 | 5 |
| Hull | 721 | 983
| 136 | 1 |
| Northallerton | 152 | 206
| 136 | 0 |
| Brixton | 606 | 810
| 134 | 3 |
| Chelmsford | 437 | 585
| 134 | 1 |
| Cookham Wood | 137 | 184
| 134 | 0 |
| Norwich | 587 | 780
| 133 | 7 |
| Nottingham | 385 | 513
| 133 | 4 |
| Forest Bank | 800 | 1,059
| 132 | 0 |
| Elmley | 753 | 988
| 131 | 1 |
| Manchester | 954 | 1,249
| 131 | 7 |
| Blakenhurst | 821 | 1,058
| 129 | 3 |
| Bullingdon | 759 | 965
| 127 | 2 |
| Birmingham | 1,121 | 1,408
| 126 | 1 |
| | |
Total suicides: 90
|
Since the publication of this research a further seven people
have taken their own lives in prison[8]2.
In addition, 228 people required resuscitation following
a recognised suicide attempt in 2004, and there were 17,678 incidents
of self-harm during the same year.
Impact on prisoner rehabilitation
The maintenance of good family ties is a significant factor
in reducing the likelihood of re-offending on release and in reducing
prisoner distress at being cut off from loved-ones. Current population
pressures result in emergency `overcrowding drafts', which see
groups of prison moved round the country to any available space
at very short notice.
In addition to severing family ties, these movements have
a disastrous impact on the both the rehabilitation of prisoners,
for example by disrupting rehabilitation programmes which subsequently
have to be started again in a new prison, and for the successful
resettlement of those prisoners who wish to return to their home
area. It is far harder to make the necessary arrangements for
prisoners' release with local agencies when the prisoner is hundreds
of miles away.
The Home Secretary has announced his intention to develop
`community prisons', and a new resettlement programme for London
prisoners based at Wormwood Scrubs aims to be the embodiment of
this idea. We congratulate active efforts to resettle prisoners,
but are sceptical of how successful such schemes will be in practice
if the numbers entering custody continue to exert such pressure
on the prison system.
It is easier for prisons to create extra bunks to accommodate
prisoners than it is to provide additional classrooms, workshops
or staff. Consequently, prisons have been unable to provide appropriate
or sufficient purposeful activity and rehabilitative programmes.
Prison Service annual reports previously contained performance
data on the extent to which they were able to provide purposeful
activity in each prison, measured against a target of 24 hours
each week. Notwithstanding that 24 hours a week is clearly insufficient
to meet the huge and complex needs of the prison population, the
Prison Service was never able to meet the target and consequently
it was abolished as a performance indicator in time for the 2004-05
annual report.
The data from the 2003-04 Annual Report shows why: no local
prisons, where the real population squeeze is felt, met the target,
where performance ranged from 22.1 hours at Leicester to only
10.4 hours at Brixton.
There is a question over the legitimacy of some of the activity
recorded as being "purposeful". In large prisons the
movement of prisoners between residential and activity wings can
take up to a significant amount of time. Some prisons start counting
hours of purposeful activity from the moment prisoners are released
from their cells and not from when they actually commence the
specified activity.
Even training prisons are feeling the population pressures.
According to HM Chief Inspector of Prisons, of the 18 training
prisons visited during the course of the reporting year 2003-04
only five were providing sufficient work and training.
This lack of purposeful activity, or inability for prisoners
to participate in education, training, work or rehabilitation
and treatment programmes, especially in local prisons, will see
prisoners locked up in their cells doing nothing but sitting out
their time waiting for release.
HM Chief Inspector of Prisons found in her annual report
that in local prisons only 45% of prisoners spent four or more
hours out of their cell every day, with prisons such as Gloucester,
Lincoln and Bedford, falling well below this.
A prison system creaking under the weight of numbers cannot
meaningfully contribute to rehabilitation or a reduction in re-offending
on release.
The consequences of an ever-rising prison population are
felt far wider than just the prison system. They impact on both
other criminal justice agencies and the wider community, not least
because 58% of those released from prison are reconvicted within
two years.
It costs on average £27,854 per prison place across
the whole estate. This rises to £31,140 for a place in a
male local prison.
THE GOVERNMENT'S
RESPONSE TO
THE RISING
PRISON POPULATION
The government has grudgingly acknowledged that prison is
mostly not effective at reducing re-offending, especially amongst
prisoners serving short sentences. It has set a target for a reduction
in re-offending of 5% by 2007-08, rising to 10% by the end of
the decade.
The Howard League for Penal Reform believes that having contributed
to the current punitive atmosphere the government is loath to
tackle it directly. This has rendered it unwilling to make a sufficiently
strong and determined effort to defend and promote community sentences
as a necessary alternative to the catastrophic increase in the
use of imprisonment.
Instead, it established the National Offender Management
Service, which aims to bring together the custodial and community
elements of the criminal justice system and ensure the end to
end management of offenders. It claims to be able to do this through
the concept of "contestability" in which public, private
and voluntary sectors will compete to both provide services in
custodial and community settings and to manage offenders and the
commission services.
The process of establishing the new National Offender Management
Service (NOMS) has been marred by confusion, waste of public money,
lack of consultation and secrecy. All the while the prison population
has carried on rising. It was 74,850 when NOMS was established
on 1 June 2004 and is now 77,262. This failure to increase confidence
in community sentences or to reduce the number of short term prison
sentences, has resulted in the lifting of the `cap' on prison
numbers of 80,000 that the previous Home Secretary had instituted
and on which the performance of NOMS would be judged.
Indeed, not only has the Government failed to promote community
sentences it intends, as part of the contestability agenda, to
privatise large part of the probation service, which has served
only to further undermine the confidence of sentencers and resulted
in the recent increase in the use of custody, even before the
privitisation has taken place.
WHAT WE
BELIEVE THE
GOVERNMENT SHOULD
DO
The Howard League for Penal Reform believes that
— If the government is really serious about reducing
re-offending, then it needs to take concerted action now to reduce
the numbers entering custody. Particularly the majority of non-violent,
non-dangerous offenders who could be more appropriately managed
on a community sentence, which enables them to make amends for
their crime and encourages them to live a law abiding life.
— It should emphasise the vast cost to the public
purse of the current use of imprisonment. It costs £27,854
on average per prison place, or £31,140 for a place in a
male local prison, where the majority of short-sentenced and remand
prisoners will be held. It should highlight the human costs of
imprisonment, both for prisoners and for the further victims created
on release.
— Accordingly, the government must talk down sentencing
and make it clear that short prison sentences serve no purpose
other than to create more victims of crime when they are released
from prison.
— It should encourage the Sentencing Guidelines
Council to take into account the effectiveness of sentences in
reducing re-offending when it comes to issuing guidelines.
— And it should ask itself how it is that after
more than a decade of rising numbers in prison the public still
have an unjustified but understandable fear of becoming victims
of crime.
7
1 The overcrowding rate is expressed as a percentage; thus 150%
means that the prison had 50% more prisoners than it is certified
to hold. Back
8
2 To 8 December 2005. Back
|
