Select Committee on Home Affairs Written Evidence


12.  Memorandum submitted by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

   1.  I cannot comment on sentencing matters, as these are outside my remit. I can, however, comment on the impact of sentencing on the prison population, as evidenced during my inspections of prisons. I attach a copy of my most recent Annual Report, laid before Parliament on 30 January 2007.

  2.  It is somewhat dispiriting to read the report of the 1998 inquiry to which this is a follow-up. That inquiry records a prison population which had risen by 50% over the previous five years, and had reached 65,000.[64] It also records the comments of my predecessor, Sir David (now Lord) Ramsbotham, to the effect that there were many people in custody, particularly women and young offenders,[65] and that prisons were unable to provide sufficient activities for the growing numbers.[66] Concerns were alsq expressed about ethnic minority prisoners and those with mental disorders.[67] These problems have, if anything, increased during the last nine years.

  3.  In the three years that followed the publication of the report, the prison population remained roughly stable. But since 2001, it has risen by nearly 20%, and now stands at around 80,000. It is accepted that many of those who enter prison are mentally disordered, have limited literacy and numeracy skills, and have used illegal drugs, or have hazardous levels of drinking.

  4.  The women's prison population has also risen by 16%, though it has remained relatively static over the last two years. Additionally, there is a significant number of women in prison whose extreme vulnerability on entry to prison is exacerbated by the additional vulnerability generated by imprisonment—which separates women from their children and carries the real risk of them losing home, possessions and therefore children. The incidence of self-harm among women in prison is one indicator of that vulnerability. Women account for around 5% of the prison population, but for over 50% of self-harm incidents, some serious and repeated. I welcome the fact that Baroness Corston is leading a review into vulnerable women offenders.

  5.  The number of children (under 18) in prisons has risen, in spite of the Youth Justice Board's intention that it should decrease. This, too, includes a number of less serious offenders and vulnerable young prisoners. I understand that the Children's Commissioner is considering whether to undertake some work in this important area.

  6.  One matter that concerns me greatly is the number of prisoners who suffer from mental disorder or a learning disabiity. It is not possible with any accuracy to quantify the number or proportion of such people. But it is clear, in every prison that we inspect, that there are people who should more properly be treated in some form of they peutic environment, either secure or community-based. Estimates of mental disorder among prisoners suggest that it is as high as 75%. Some of those people will necessarily be in a secure environment. But others, including those with severe learning difficulties, are casualties of the decision to close the large mental hospitals without providing sufficient alternative care outside prison. My Inspectorate is completing a thematic review into menta disorder within prisons, which is due to be published in September. I also understand that the Prison Reform. Trust, together with MENCAP, is looking at the issue of learning disability.

  7.  Though the quality and quantity of education and training in prisons has increased since 1998, it has struggled to keep pace with the expanding prison population. My annual report records both the improvements over the last five years and what still remains to be done (pp 35-37). The report itself covers inspections carried out before April 2006. My introduction (pp 6-7) expresses serious concerns about the effect of the population pressure in the second half of 2006: such as the fact that the proportion of positive assessments of training prisons dropped from two-thirds to half. Increasingly, we find that additional spaces are not accompanied by sufficient additional resources. This will be exacerbated if capital funding for the promised 8,000 additional prison places is not accompanied by significant additional revenue.

  8.  The concerns that were expressed before the Committee in 1998 therefore still obtain. Prison remains an expensive Option: assessed at around £28,500 in direct costs per prisoner place, compared with £24,000 in 1998 (though the inclusion of capital costs is said to raise this to over £40,000). In order to be an effective option, it needs to be used only when necessary, and surrounded by a considerable investment in comumity provision, both to provide alternative interventions for those who can better be dealt with elsewhere, and support for those who leave prison.

  9.  The Committee has asked specifically for evidence about the operation of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. I can only speak to the consequences for prisons. Ever since my annual report in early 200, I have been flagging up concern about the number, and the managemenit, of those serving indeterminate sentences for public protection (IPP). There are currently 2,230 such prisoners. It is clear that they are not the very serious and dangerous offenders envisaged when the sentence was first mooted: one in five have tariffs of 18 months or less. Moreover, it is reprehensible that there was no advance planning for this group of prisoners, in spite of the-fact that their numbers have grown slightly less than was projected.

  10.  This has been exacerbated by the fact that the population management arrangements for indeterminate-sentenced prisoners in general (including life-sentenced prisoners) are considerably less robust than they were. As a consequence, these prisoners remain for many months in local prisons, where they are unable to do anything that would reduce their risk and increase their likelihood of parole once tariff has expired. Their presence, and frustration, in local prisons also increases risk. As I said in my last Annual Report (p. 58) "The inability to progress these prisoners properly through the system is both a casualty of, and a contributor to, our overcrowded prisons."

  11.  A further contributor to the rising prison population is the number of recalled prisoners, which has risen by 30% over the last year alone. While it is clearly important that prisoners on licence whol, pose real risks of reoffending should be returned to prison, it is clear that thel, processes and systems for providing full reasons for recall and therefore I challenging such decisions where appropriate have not kept pace with the rising numbers. As our short thematic report in December 2005 found

    "The overriding impression was that neither recalled prisoners nor receiving prisons were adequately prepared. Recalled prisoners often arrived without sufficient information and with limited understanding of their situation. Receiving prisons often had little warning of recalled prisoners' arrival and struggled to advise them adequately given the complexities of their legal situation, the lack of adequate IT systems, and communication failures with the release and recall section of the National Offender Management Service.

    "The process to review the appropriateness of recall decisions was slow and complicated, and few prisons had adequately trained staff to inform prisoners about their entitlements."

  12.  This, too, results in prisoners who may have been recalled in error, or who need to address the reasons for their recall as swiftly as possible, remaining for longer than necessary in prison.

  13.  There are therefore a number of built-in drivers to an ever-increasing prison population, without any assurances of the kind of resources that would be needed effectively to deal with those in prison, in order to ensure safe and decent environments and to reduce their risk of reoffending. The consequences both for humanity and decency within our prisons, and for public protection, are in my view serious.

Anne Owers

HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

8 March 2007






64   Para 1. Back

65   Para 18. Back

66   Para 12. Back

67   Para 184. Back


 
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