Article I. UNCORRECTED TRANSCRIPT OF ORAL EVIDENCE To be published as HC 242-iiSection 1.01 House of COMMONSSection 1.02 MINUTES OF EVIDENCESection 1.03 TAKEN BEFORESection 1.04 HOME AFFAIRS COMMITTEESection 1.05Section 1.06Section 1.07 The Government's Approach to Crime PreventionSection 1.08Section 1.09Section 1.10
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This is an uncorrected transcript of evidence taken in public and reported to the House. The transcript has been placed on the internet on the authority of the Committee, and copies have been made available by the Vote Office for the use of Members and others.
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Any public use of, or reference to, the contents should make clear that neither witnesses nor Members have had the opportunity to correct the record. The transcript is not yet an approved formal record of these proceedings.
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Members who receive this for the purpose of correcting questions addressed by them to witnesses are asked to send corrections to the Committee Assistant.
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Prospective witnesses may receive this in preparation for any written or oral evidence they may in due course give to the Committee.
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Transcribed by the Official Shorthand Writers to the Houses of Parliament: W B Gurney & Sons LLP, Hope House, Telephone Number: 020 7233 1935 |
Oral Evidence
Taken before the Home Affairs Committee
on
Members present
Keith Vaz, in the Chair
Tom Brake
Mr James Clappison
David T C Davies
Patrick Mercer
Gwyn Prosser
Bob Russell
Martin Salter
Mr David Winnick
________________
Witness: Mr Phil Wheatley, Director General, National Offender Management Service (NOMS), gave evidence.
Q124 Chairman: I welcome everyone to this evidence session of the Select Committee
on Home Affairs. We are holding two sessions this morning: the first is about
the government's approach to crime prevention and the second is about the
Mr Wheatley: At the moment we are meeting the targets set for the agency. Since 2000 the rate of re-offending has dropped by 20.3% for adults, which is a reasonably substantial achievement. I also keep an eye on the older measure which compares actual with predicted re-offending on the basis of whether somebody re-offends in a year's follow-up period rather than the rate of re-offending. That is interesting from my point of view because you can predict the rate at which people will re-offend but you cannot predict the rate of re-offending. You might get low offending because you have dealt with lots of people who have a very low probability of offending, that is, the police have taken a lighter-weight group of offenders, whereas comparing it with the prediction means you can see whether you are adding value. Comparing it with prediction, the evidence shows that we are adding value. The best results are being spent with the longer sentence prisoners where we can spend more time with them. Because they are serving longer sentences we can put in more effort. For the four years and over group in 2000 the actual re-offending rate was 23.4% and in 2007 it was 17.6%, so there was a real drop. The predicted rate was 25.1% in 2000. That rate had gone up; it was a heavier-weight group of offenders in 2007. Therefore, we are reducing offending on all measures and that rate of reduction in re-offending appears to relate to the rate at which we put in new resources.
Q125 Chairman: The Committee is conducting this inquiry to examine the statement made by the former prime minister that the government would be tough on crime and the causes of it. For how many years have you been involved in this area of criminal justice?
Mr Wheatley: Forty and a half years.
Q126 Chairman: It may not be fact but I am seeking your opinions now. What do you say are the causes of crime?
Mr Wheatley: Crime has not changed. Crime is tempting to lots of people. Obviously, many people are attracted to breaking the rules if they can gain from it. Most of us are restrained by moral training by our parents, schools and social contacts, in the sense that if you engage in crime it will be the end of your career and nobody will want to pay any attention to you. It would be a tremendous thing to do. If you are at the bottom of the heap where you lose a lot less by engaging in crime, particularly if you are surrounded by people who would be supportive of crime - it is what happens round there - the restraints are considerably less. The restraints are considerably less in a deterrence system if you are not very good at thinking ahead. All the Members of this Committee will be very good at thinking ahead. If you have a mental health problem you probably are not good at it. A lot of young people who are not brought up in very consistent homes are not taught to think and will have difficulty thinking ahead and crime flows from that.
Q127 Chairman: As far as concerns our criminal justice system do you think we pay enough attention to causes rather than the consequences which you deal with in the National Offender Management Service? You deal with the end product; you cannot do anything about it once they get to you because they have already committed their crimes. Have we paid enough attention to dealing with the causes?
Mr Wheatley: It is a very difficult question to answer. How do you deal with
people who have offended? We could still do more. If somebody gave me more
money I would spend it fruitfully in this area, but there is not endless money
and I do not make that bid. It is obvious that resources are always
constrained. As a society we have lots of choices. Some societies have very low
crime rates, of which
Q128 Bob
Russell: Last week I witnessed a
presentation of research undertaken by the
Mr Wheatley: I have heard people make that statement but I have seen no consistent, hard evidence from sufficiently large samples to convince me that is the case. My position is based on scepticism rather than disbelief. Certainly, it is not something that I feel is right from what I have known in the past, and I have not seen evidence to suggest that is right.
Q129 Bob Russell: Bearing in mind that the National Offender Management Service delivers a range of accredited programmes should there be an investigation into the percentage of the prison population who have experienced an acquired brain injury some time in life?
Mr Wheatley: I am all for having more research - that costs money and we must be careful about how much we do - that gives us a better background as to why people offend. I believe it is highly unlikely that that will be a fruitful area. I see lots of people entering prison who have shown no sign of a previous brain injury or an inability to think but who perhaps have chosen a life of crime.
Q130 Bob Russell: Perhaps we can revisit that on another occasion. How have resources allocated to reducing re-offending in the Prison and Probation Services varied over the years, if they have?
Mr Wheatley: They have varied. We have always worked to try to reduce re-offending but in terms of investment we have had a substantial additional investment since 2000 as new money comes in. Before coming here I looked at base information. Going back to 1998-99, we were spending £745 per prisoner per year on reducing re-offending by way of offending behaviour programmes, drug treatment programmes and education. By 2008-09, the last year for which I have full information, that had gone up to £4,300. That is a big increase in resources specifically spent on drug treatment, offending behaviour programmes and education. There has been a similar increase in resources on the probation side. There has been a 40% increase in money going to the Probation Service since the start of the national service. I believe that has produced a reduction in re-offending. I am less sure I can tell you precisely which of the things we have put in has made the biggest difference.
Q131 Bob Russell: That is my next question. Linking that answer to the area of questioning with which the Chairman started this session, where do resources make the most difference in terms of preventing re-offending?
Mr Wheatley: In prison we deal mainly with people who have either done something dangerous or horrendous or are persistent. There are not that many first-timers unless they have come in for horrendous offences. People get out of offending because somebody convinces them that they could be different. That needs a persuasive individual who understands the person's problems, who is not a soft touch and can convince him that the world can be different for him and he can really make that stand. Once that has been done you have to stack up behind it some practical things to help people: you have to get them de-toxed if they are using drugs; you probably have to help them get accommodation that is not with other criminals. They will do much better if they can get work, particularly work that gives them some social standing and is not mindless and boring which carries the danger of making the individual think that a straight life not what it is cracked up to be. If you can put those things behind them and keep them motivated they will give up crime. You need a combination of things; it is not a single factor, and it is best to target the riskiest group. Obviously, if there is only one in a hundred chance of certain people re-offending, a lot of money is invested in it and you make a 20% reduction in a very large group it will not result in a big difference. If I can target people who have a 60% or 70% chance of re-offending and get a 20% reduction that is quite a lot of crime prevented.
Q132 Tom Brake: On the subject of research, you said that pre-2000 £745 was being spent per prisoner.
Mr Wheatley: That was the figure for 1998-99.
Q133 Tom Brake: We are now up to £4,300. Are you aware of any research done to show that for every pound spent on trying to address re-offending you save the Prison Service x pounds by people not going to prison?
Mr Wheatley: Not in quite that way. Using results published each year I can show you the first quarter's releases. The first quarter's releases are a tranche of offenders including those who are on community sentences, so it is both prison and probation. They are followed up for a full year with a proper gap to make sure we have all the convictions. The results are published showing the rate and frequency of re-offending by sentence, age and sex. There are lots of data. That is changing over time. The research techniques needed to work out which things make a difference are incredibly complicated. You would normally need to do random controlled trials in which everything else remained static. Take an individual prisoner who is greeted in reception by a particularly powerful officer who is able to persuade him to be different. Then he undertakes an offending behaviour programme and education. In the mean time he is de-toxed and comes off drugs. The Probation Service links the individual to a group outside to support him in coming off drugs, find him accommodation and supervise him. How do you work out which of those things has made a difference? It is very complicated. It may be the reception officer, the Probation Service at the end or the drug treatment. It is probably a combination of all of them, but it is not easy to do and I would be foolish if I said I had a pat answer to that.
Q134 Mr Winnick: What is the prison population as of today, yesterday or whatever?
Mr Wheatley: Friday's figures which are published show there were 82,761.
Q135 Mr Winnick: As I understand it, the Ministry of Justice will increase capacity to somewhere in the region of 96,000 by 2014.
Mr Wheatley: That is the plan.
Q136 Mr Winnick: In 2002 the Social Exclusion Unit said that the current balance of resources did not enable the Prison and Probation Services to deliver beneficial education and rehabilitation programmes to "anything like the number who need them". What has been the position since 2002?
Mr Wheatley: Probation and prison resources for reducing re-offending per head for the people we are looking after have gone up substantially. It has tripled for education and gone up 15 times for drug treatment. Looking at the data, my maths are not good but an increase from £745 to £4,300 is more than a quadrupling of resources. One has to take account of inflation. There has been a substantial increase. I do not expect these increases to continue but I expect to be able to maintain what we are doing at the moment. The resources for reducing re-offending have substantially increased and produced a measurable result.
Q137 Mr Winnick: I do not question what you have just said but, however true that is, is it not a fact that a prison population of 83,000 means that the prisons are hopelessly overcrowded?
Mr Wheatley: They are not hopelessly overcrowded because we will not overcrowd them more than we think we can safely do, and we take that operational judgment carefully. They are crowded.
Q138 Mr Winnick: To say the least!
Mr Wheatley: Having said that, the capacity in the system is over 86,000. Currently, I have available 86,000 places and we are now looking after under 83,000 prisoners. This is a time of year when the numbers are always low. There is seasonality in the prison population caused by Christmas. Nobody can quite work out why that is, but I can speculate without giving a straightforward answer. We have spare capacity at the moment and we are not hopelessly overcrowded. We are slightly less overcrowded than we have been and we will not overcrowd to a level that we think makes prisons hopeless.
Q139 Mr Winnick: Therefore, reports about the difficulty in finding accommodation for prisoners and all the rest of it do not really reflect the situation?
Mr Wheatley: We have been very near to maximum capacity on a number of occasions over the past seven or eight years, and before that. This is not a new problem. At that point we are moving prisoners around from prison to prison to make the maximum use of the estate. That is difficult and I do not try to minimise it. At the moment we do not have to do that. There is some seasonality in it. But the government is building so we can contain the population without being in a hopeless position.
Q140 Martin Salter: I may have misheard you, but did you say at one point that the Ministry of Justice planned to increase the capacity of prisons to 96,000?
Mr Wheatley: Yes.
Q141 Martin Salter: Is that not predicated on the assumption that people choose to commit crime and receive custodial sentences?
Mr Wheatley: It is based on the predictions of what the prison population will be which certainly includes some estimation about what offending will be, how the courts operate and police efficiency. It is an attempt by statisticians using all available past data to forecast the future. As with any forecast, the future is a little different from what people think it might be.
Q142 Martin Salter: You are telling us that re-offending rates are going down and yet the prison population will rise?
Mr Wheatley: Not only that but, looking at the national data, re-offending is going down and offending is reducing. What is primarily driving the increase in the population is an increase in the number of prisoners serving very long sentences. To go back to 1969 when I joined, the average life sentence was about nine years; now it is about 16 years.
Q143 David Davies: You made a very interesting point earlier. I wonder whether you can confirm that the longer the prison sentence the less likely it is that the prisoner will re-offend.
Mr Wheatley: The lowest predicted rate is for one-term offenders. That is probably related to the fact that in the long-term population there are a number of offenders who have committed some horrendous acts on the very first occasion and have a very low probability of re-offending. What I can tell you, which I believe is the point you pick up, is that in percentage terms the actual versus predicted results show we have made the biggest reductions in offending with long-sentence prisoners because they are the people to whom we have been able to devote the most resources.
Q144 David Davies: That is the point I want to get on the record. I have done some research into the figures. Correct me if I am wrong, but even if you remove sentences for murder, where in a lot of cases an individual has killed another in a bout of temper or something, you find that somebody serving a 10-year prison sentence is only about 30% likely to re-offend in two years, whereas somebody who has served less than one year is 70% or 80% likely to re-offend. My figures may be a little bit out but I think it is of that order.
Mr Wheatley: That is roughly right. The predicted rate for the four-year and over group is 25.1%; for the 12-month and over group it is 42.1%; and for very short sentences it is 51.2%. Some of that arises because the people who pick up short sentences are very often drug users who do a lot of shoplifting.
Q145 David Davies: Do we agree that with people like that the longer we can keep them in the more help we can give them?
Mr Wheatley: It is not really a product of time. With very short sentences it is difficult to do anything with them. Realistically, you do not have time to work with people who do only a week. For longer sentences we are able to devote more resources. We also have targeted resources for our riskiest offenders.
Q146 David Davies: To put it on record, there is a strong argument, is there not, for saying that even when a persistent offender commits what may be seen as a relatively trivial crime it may be the 50th time he or she - usually a he - has done it and there should be a mandatory six or 12-month sentence, not to victimise him but to help him get off the ground to deal with his other problems and give him some sort of education?
Mr Wheatley: If you wanted me to work more in prison with anybody you would have to give him longer than a very short sentence. That would give rise to a substantial public expenditure implication. They do not have to get a four-year sentence. The gains that we have been able to make show a 17.2% improvement in results for the 12 months and over group and 29.5% for the two to four-year group. Therefore, we have achieved that for the shorter sentence groups.
Q147 David Davies: The costs to the public purse are a lot less than your figures suggest, are they not? The vast majority of people who are in that category are in receipt of a range of benefits when they are outside anyway, so even if you leave out the cost of investigating any crimes they commit the net cost to the public of putting somebody into a category D or C prison is not that much greater than the cost of housing them and keeping them on benefits outside, is it?
Mr Wheatley: I cannot say; I do not know enough about the costs to the benefit system and the fact that they normally leave relatives outside who may go onto benefit because they are not able to work.
Q148 David Davies: But most of them are not working nine to five in well-paid jobs?
Mr Wheatley: Some will be, but I would not like to speculate; I do not know enough.
Q149 Chairman: Remind us of the cost in
Mr Wheatley: It is about £3,200 a month, so the annual sum is under £40,000.
Q150 Chairman: Is that broken down to the daily rate?
Mr Wheatley: No. I have just divided the annual figure by 12.
Q151 David Davies: That is the average cost?
Mr Wheatley: Yes.
Q152 David Davies: It is very important we remember that category A prisoners are far more expensive than Ds and Cs, so if you take an average across-the-board cost that includes the cost of category A prisoners.
Mr Wheatley: It is an average cost. There are a small number of high-security prisons which drive up the costs. I cannot give you the categories C and D average; I have not brought it with me.
Q153 Chairman: It would be helpful if you could write to us and tell us the cost in each category.
Mr Wheatley: We can do that.
Q154 Gwyn Prosser: I want to ask about the prolific and priority offender programmes to some elements of which you have made reference. What recent research is there to show the impact of those programmes on reducing re-offending?
Mr Wheatley: I am aware there has been some research, mainly action research, ie people looking at how the process has worked. There has been a sound two-year criminological follow-up study. Certainly, the evidence I have suggests that the PPO scheme has been effective. Probation services are working very closely with the police to target the most prolific and some local anecdotal evidence suggests that it is making really big reductions in re-offending. Some of the police evidence I have seen suggests that they are very pleased with the reduction in re-offending by some well-known prolific offenders as a result of the intervention.
Q155 Gwyn Prosser: We are told that the effectiveness of it depends very much on the co-location of the parties involved in it, but that does not happen in all areas. What is your view on that? What are the barriers to further co-locations?
Mr Wheatley: There are no legal barriers. I am keen on co-locating probation staff and police staff where that is possible. There are some practical considerations such as whether there is space. Can we get office space in the right place to do that? There are barriers on the two systems sharing IT. Obviously, the police have some very sensitive data about intelligence that they would normally not share openly with other agencies. The more we can share base information the better this works. The very best co-working involves the two agencies crossing over in their work rather than saying this is the police bit and that is the probation bit, but even where we cannot get complete cohesion it is better than two silos operating quite differently.
Q156 Tom Brake: In the past year the government in its Cutting Crime strategy announced the "new, single, comprehensive prolific offending scheme". Can you explain what that is and whether any work has started on implementing that new scheme?
Mr Wheatley: I would not like to do so because it is not my area; it is mainly a Home Office-led piece of policy. We are working with prolific offenders in an increasingly joined-up way with other agencies. Prolific offender schemes also play a part in the integrated offender management initiative which a number of areas are driving forward with lots of the work being led by local authorities at crime and disorder partnership level. I have just reorganised the Probation Service so that its leadership lines up with the BCU police command unit to match the overall strategy which allows local variation to take account of local factors, which is one of the major improvements in the way we have been working.
Q157 Tom Brake: Am I right in thinking from your response that if a "new, single, comprehensive prolific offending scheme" is in the process of being introduced it does not appear to have hit your desk?
Mr Wheatley: I do not think that is entirely accurate because what I am describing is our bit of it. That is the bit I need to know about, but apart from knowing that we are delivering the things the Home Office want us to deliver - because we still work in an integrated way with the department - I would not like to comment on what is a major area of policy for them.
Chairman: Mr Wheatley, thank you so much for coming to give evidence today. If you would be kind enough to write to us about the pieces of information we requested we would be grateful.
Witness: Mr Paul McDowell, Chief Executive, Nacro, gave evidence.
Q158 Chairman: Mr McDowell, you know why the Committee is conducting this inquiry.
Mr McDowell: Yes, I do.
Q159 Chairman: You will realise that we are trying to look at the causes of crime. What do you believe to be the root causes of crime, and do you believe the government has addressed them? If you were to think of the five most important causes what would they be?
Mr McDowell: These things are as ever very complex to summarise. The experience that we as a charity have had over many years in working with those at risk of committing crime and offenders themselves is that many different elements connected to social deprivation are probably among the biggest causes. For instance, I refer to young people who are excluded from school, do not have a sound education or level of attainment, are unable to get employment and have not had great role models in their family and upbringing, so there is a broad lack of opportunity which leads them into crime. Potentially, it could lead everybody into crime, but a mixture of those missing opportunities which most of us take for granted tends to lead those who do commit crime in that direction.
Q160 Chairman: Can you profile from birth?
Mr McDowell: What I am describing is based on the experience that all of our people on the ground have had over many years. Typically, the people who come through the door and attend and benefit from the programmes we deliver very much fit that profile. Very often they will tick that list I have described.
Q161 Bob Russell: From your long history in the Prison Service you must have been a very nice game-keeper to have the job you have now. You will have heard my question to the previous witness. From your experience are there many people who enter prison with an acquired brain injury?
Mr McDowell: I am not able to add to the answer that has been provided to you. In the time I was in the Prison Service I was never exposed to any discussion or evidence to suggest that either way.
Q162 Bob
Russell: That will have to be revisited
because the evidence from the
Mr McDowell: This is key work for us. We are very clear that the focus on the delivery of basic joined-up resettlement processes is most likely to have made the difference in respect of that reduction in re-offending. The key factors that we know are likely to help offenders make different decisions to change their lives are: level of educational attainment; the ability to get a job; dealing with housing issues; maintaining family ties; dealing with health-related issues; and individual assessment, recognising what the individual might need and delivering on that. Crucially, following the delivery of those services through the gate back into the community is in our view most likely to have had the biggest effect in that respect.
Q163 Martin Salter: I declare an interest in having been involved in both the Nacro-sponsored Jail Guitar Doors campaign and the Reading Angling Action project. I am aware of your work and support a lot of the initiatives you do on the ground certainly in my constituency. The government is talking about focusing even more intensely on prolific offenders. We have to an extent got our head round what could work in terms of people entering the prison estate for the first time. Of course prolific offenders fall into a different category. In your experience what sorts of programmes work best in targeting prolific offenders and attempting to change their behaviour?
Mr McDowell: The theme to which I shall keep returning is joined-up services. We are weakest when we stick to our silos and do not join up the relevant work of the agencies. In terms of prolific offenders individual needs must be assessed. It will depend on the background of offending, the offending history and the particular problems of that individual. The delivery of relevant offending behaviour programmes is dependent on their individual need but an assessment of their resettlement needs and the level of support they might get once they leave prison is very important as far as we are concerned. One of the things we believe should be a distinct part of what we do in relation to prolific offenders is an increased level of relevant mentoring for offenders by well-trained adults once they are released back into the community. We are running those types of schemes around the country especially for young offenders. We believe that to be quite effective.
Q164 Martin Salter: Presumably, a prolific offender is someone who has offended before and therefore we come back to the point Mr Davies raised earlier about how we deal with people when they first enter the prison estate. At that point they are not prolific but obviously if they re-offend, re-offend and re-offend they soon hit the "prolific" category. Based on research from the Social Exclusion Unit I note that 20% of prisoners have the writing skills, 35% the numeracy skills and 50% the reading skills of an 11 year-old child. Sixty to 70% of prisoners use drugs and 70% of prisoners suffer from at least two mental disorders. If you have that toxic cocktail does it not tell us that we must begin to address those basic deficiencies at the moment people enter the prison estate before they can get to the stage of being prolific offenders?
Mr McDowell: Yes. To add one more statistic to your list, over one quarter have levels of educational attainment below those of a seven year-old. When I list the resettlement pathway outcomes that need to be joined up and delivered on an individual basis education and training is a key element in that. There is no doubt in my mind that if you do not deal with that issue you will not deal with employment and therefore you are unlikely to be very successful in the work you do.
Q165 Martin Salter: Does that lead to the inevitable conclusion we have been pushing that you cannot do any of this in the context of a short first-time custodial sentence? If you are to put people on effective programmes you cannot do it if you have people in the prison estate for only a short period of time?
Mr McDowell: That depends very much on the quality of the interventions and resettlement programmes that you can deliver in a joined-up way both in custody and beyond. We are not necessarily very good at the moment in joining up through the gates. When people are back in the community there is a tendency for us not to continue with the delivery of effective services.
Q166 David Davies: In terms of the resettlement of offenders one of the criticisms levelled at prisons is that they become universities of crime and prisoners pick up other tricks from them. I have never accepted that. Is it not the case that when prisoners are resettled they are just as likely to go back to their old haunts and meet with the people who introduced them to crime in the first place?
Mr McDowell: To a great extent both of those things are true. Early intervention and how you prevent crime from being committed in the first place is a key part of this debate. Tackling those very difficult issues in our communities is absolutely key. In a sense I would not want us to give up on the idea of changing people's lives and reducing their likelihood of re-offending simply on the basis that we shall return them to damaged communities where they are likely to link up with the same people who influenced their decisions in the first place. Let us deal with what is going on in those communities.
Q167 Mr Winnick: The previous witness whose evidence you listened to gave us the picture that if all was not well in prisons it was better than it used to be and he denied there was overcrowding and the rest of it. Do you go along with that?
Mr McDowell: As the Committee is aware, I have only just left the Prison Service after 20 years' service.
Q168 Mr Winnick: You were a prison governor, were you not?
Mr McDowell: Yes, I was. What I can tell the Committee is that the quality of the work delivered in the Prison Service now compared with when I joined has changed significantly. Levels of educational provision, the quality of offender behaviour programmes we deliver, even the ability of the service to join up with other agencies, which has improved though there is a long way to go, and the involvement of the voluntary sector which is crucial to Nacro have improved and increased significantly. There are huge challenges. Nobody could have predicted that the prison population would double effectively in the past 20 years, but a lot more work is being done with individual prisoners than was being done before.
Q169 Mr Winnick: Most people, certainly Members of Parliament, opinion-formers and the general public for that matter would take the view that a large percentage of those who go to prison once released will hopefully have learnt their lesson, have the opportunity of a job or job training and not re-offend. What percentage of offenders find a job on leaving custody?
Mr McDowell: I do not have that figure.
Q170 Mr Winnick: Will you write to us in due course and provide that figure?
Mr McDowell: I will certainly try.
Q171 Chairman: Is it over 50%?
Mr McDowell: We know that the rate of re-offending is still high despite the progress we have made. We will certainly look into it and provide the Committee with the information. We know for sure that it is very difficult for ex-offenders once released to get employment as a consequence of their record. We take calls in their thousands from ex-offenders who seek advice from us about how they overcome the restrictions on them in terms of employment opportunities.
Q172 Mr Clappison: I dare say that if we hear the figure we will come to the conclusion that not enough offenders find a job on leaving custody. Do you believe enough is being done to provide prisoners, particularly young offenders, with practical training in particular and skills to help them find a job in a trade or line of work?
Mr McDowell: We are doing a lot more of that. Nacro is itself involved in
delivering vocational training outside custody. I was formerly governor of
Coldingley in
Q173 Mr Clappison: Should we not have a lot more prisons and institutions like Coldingley where people can do training and work?
Mr McDowell: Yes.
Q174 Mr Winnick: Statistics given to us show that in 2002 nearly three out of five prisoners were reconvicted within two years of leaving prison. As I understand it, since then the situation has improved. To what extent has it improved?
Mr McDowell: I do not have figures to show the percentage improvement.
Q175 Mr Winnick: Would it be right to say that the majority of those who leave prison re-offend within a period of two years?
Mr McDowell: My understanding without having the figures in front of me is that even though an improvement has been achieved in relation to the level of re-offending it has not occurred to an extent where we can say more prisoners do not re-offend than do. Your point is well taken in that respect.
Q176 Mr Winnick: Insofar as you are able to do so will you supply us with some figures about re-offending within two years?
Mr McDowell: Levels of re-offending within that period are still far too high.
Q177 Chairman: Would you write to us with the figures or, if not, tell us where to find them?
Mr McDowell: If we have those figures we shall supply them.
Q178 Gwyn Prosser: You have underlined the importance of training and more education. Other witnesses have also talked about more effective use of those tools when offenders have longer rather than shorter sentences for pretty obvious reasons. What about the churning effect? During the Committee's previous inquiry into these matters which concentrated on prisoners themselves we heard quite worrying stories about a prisoner being moved three or four times in as many months. That must also be debilitating in terms of being able to resettle.
Mr McDowell: That is absolutely right, and we are also very concerned about it. There is potential wastage in the system in that respect. There is a lot of investment in education in prisons but if individuals are unable to complete the particular education in which they are engaged because they are moved on, or there is population pressure which leads to that, and that is not picked up in the place at which they arrive clearly that is not good for the individual and potentially we have wasted the original resource by delivering only half the education. That is definitely a challenge.
Q179 Gwyn Prosser: How much importance do you place on the treatment of drug-abusers and people with mental health problems?
Mr McDowell: In relation to both of those issues it is absolutely vital. From my experience I have a very clear understanding that unless you deal with the underlying causes of individual offending - in relation to mental health and drug addiction it is abundantly clear that it is likely those two causes will have a massive effect - you are unlikely to move people to a position where they will stop offending in future. It is massively important.
Q180 Gwyn Prosser: In that case, are the government's policies and measures satisfactory? If not, what single recommendations would you make?
Mr McDowell: My personal view is that there are too many individuals in prison who are mentally ill. For a long time as chief executive of Nacro and as a prison governor I would have liked to see a different kind of investment in terms of the facilities that might be available to deliver mental health care treatment and for those individuals to be treated in a different way. It comes back to the old debate about prisoners versus patients. Who come first? Was it a mental health problem that led to offending or did the offending in part lead to the mental health problem? We need to be more honest and braver about that as a society.
Q181 Chairman: I am sure you will answer that you do not have the statistics, but can you give me a rough percentage of those you have to deal with in Nacro in two categories, namely those who may have mental health problems and those who use drugs?
Mr McDowell: Your prediction is absolutely spot on.
Q182 Chairman: Can you provide a rough estimate?
Mr McDowell: I have worked for Nacro for only three months and I am not in a position to give you even a rough estimate. I would not like to hazard a guess but I shall certainly clarify it.
Q183 Chairman: Putting on your old hat - obviously, you do not have today's figures - do you know the rough percentage of prisoners who went into Brixton who had either drug or mental health problems?
Mr McDowell: I can give you a rough percentage based on my three-year experience at Brixton. I left there last August. In relation to drug addiction probably 60% of offenders who came in had some level of drug addiction. The level of addiction varied quite significantly. As to mental health it is more difficult to judge because often such problems are hidden for various reasons, but I would say that at least one quarter of them had suffered mental health problems at some level or other.
Q184 Chairman: So, 25% had mental health problems and 60% had drug problems?
Mr McDowell: Yes. I am separating mental health from some sort of drug addiction.
Q185 Tom Brake: You may have heard me ask the same question of Mr Wheatley. Are you aware of any research to show how much you save if you spend £1 on supporting ex-prisoners or training them while they are in prison because those individuals do not reappear in the prison system at some future point? Is there any research that can tell us the answer to that question?
Mr McDowell: I heard your question and was very interested in it. For all of us who work in various sectors of the criminal justice system an understanding of the savings we can make if we do x is almost like the Holy Grail. I know there are attempts ongoing to try to identify those figures. Nacro is now measuring the work it does in relation to the potential saving to the taxpayer that might be realised. I am not aware of any solid evidence in the form of figures to back that up at this stage.
Q186 Tom Brake: I urge you to pursue that line of inquiry because if you were able to tell the Committee that spending £1 would result in a saving of £3 down the line that is the sort of thing politicians want to hear. Given we are entering an era when there is likely to be less rather than more money available, are you aware of current areas of spending that you believe are unnecessary, are targeted at the wrong things or could be more effectively spent elsewhere?
Mr McDowell: Speaking on behalf of Nacro, one of the big frustrations for us is the level of bureaucracy built into many of the commissioning systems. Drug treatment is an interesting example of that. To go back to my experiences as governor of Brixton prison, in order to implement the integrated drug treatment system there the process was one where the money flowed down from the government department to the NHS, the PCT, the prison and the private prison health provider with whom we had contracted inside the prison. All sorts of people were taking an interest from the side, for instance the National Drug Treatment Agency. You get into a situation where there are people employed to check the checkers. That is very frustrating. I am clear that there is a lot of wastage in that respect.
Q187 Chairman: Too many managers?
Mr McDowell: Too many managers, too many levels and too much bureaucracy. What we would very much like to see - commissioning services is what keeps Nacro able to deliver the work it does in contributing to the reduction in crime - is straight line commissioning arrangements so we can deliver horizontal joined-up services. For us that would be an ideal outcome.
Q188 Tom Brake: In relation to that particular example, who would get the pot of money which could be drawn down instantly without having to go through the long chain of organisations before the funding eventually dribbled down to the offender?
Mr McDowell: I absolutely believe that you must have a degree of checking. My concern is that there is just too much of it. I would have thought that at least a couple of levels could be cut out. It would be interesting to know - before you ask I confess that I have not made the calculation - how much more money could have been used on the frontline delivery of those services had we been able to cut out some of that bureaucracy.
Chairman: Thank you very much for giving evidence today. What you have to say is extremely important to our inquiry. Please write to us with the statistics that you have. I am sure they will help us in our deliberations.
Witnesses: Ms Pauline Bryant, Governor, and Mr Clive Barber, Deputy Governor, Reading Young Offender Institution, gave evidence.
Q189 Chairman: Thank you very much for coming to give evidence. From what you have
heard so far I am sure you know why we are conducting this inquiry. Thirteen
years ago the government said it wanted to be tough on crime and on the causes
of it. You at
Mr Barber: It is quite difficult to quantify in the sense that when they leave
the establishment sometimes we lose sight of them because they then go into the
Probation Service. What I can say to you is that since the programme started 66
prisoners from
Q190 Chairman: The witnesses have between them years and years of experience of the criminal justice system. Ms Bryant, how many years have you spent in the system?
Ms Bryant: I have spent 23 years in the system starting at Holloway. The past
six years have been spent at
Mr Barber: I have spent 35 years in the system starting with long-term dispersal prisons.
Q191 Chairman: Combined you have over half a century's experience. What do you believe are the causes of crime?
Ms Bryant: Speaking for the lads we have at
Q192 David Davies: What proportion of inmates would be eligible for release under the programme?
Mr Barber: We are a young offender establishment and we have a mixed population inasmuch as probably two-thirds of the population are remand prisoners and about a third have been sentenced. As for release under temporary licence, which I think is the question you ask, only those prisoners who are sentenced are eligible. There are certain other criteria. For example, if they are high risk or have a further charge down the line they are ineligible for it.
Ms Bryant: To quantify that, Kennet unit holds about 20 prisoners. We accept up to 24 year-olds and we struggle to fill it with prisoners who are of a risk low enough to release them on temporary licence.
Q193 David
Davies: Yesterday there was an article in
the papers about an individual who had helped to murder a young woman. Within
three years he was out on an early licence scheme and supposedly doing work
placement, but it seems that he was night-clubbing and had found another
girlfriend in the interim. Many law-abiding people would be horrified by
stories like that. Can you assure us that that is not happening in
Ms Bryant: Absolutely. They are not eligible and obviously we do not even consider them. They have to be eligible to go out in the first instance and with those sorts of numbers we consider very carefully beforehand the risk to the public and any victim issues. Usually, they have gone out on a placement first, perhaps to something like a charity shop, before they go on to work. We have a very high success rate with any prisoners who have gone out.
Mr Barber: All of our prisoners who are released in the morning come back in the evening after they have finished their job or training.
Q194 Gwyn Prosser: What about those inmates who do not meet the criteria? They are not left to wither on the vine. What do you do to help them with training?
Mr Barber: When they first come into the prison they have all sorts of issues.
We have to get them through de-tox; some have quite prolific self-harming as an
issue. In a sense coming into prison is another problem they have to face.
Initially, sometimes it is about stabilising those individuals and dealing with
them through our safe custody team in terms of self-harm monitoring and also in
terms of drug-related issues, putting them through de-tox, getting them to
engage initially with our drug counsellors at work within the prison and from
that induction there is a series of assessments for education. We also give
them information about what we do in the prison and how they can access that.
They are seen by people with various functions working within the prison to
assess them. From that they are signposted. If they have literacy or numeracy
deficits obviously there is education. It may be a drug programme or a
cognitive thinking skills programme that we operate at
Q195 Gwyn Prosser: In general what is their attitude to education and training? Do they look upon it as just another chore and soldier on or do they welcome it?
Mr Barber: Having worked with National Grid and other employers, prisoners are aware of the Kennet unit in the prison and it is something to which they aspire. If they want to change but cannot read or write clearly that will limit them in getting a job or even doing things like going to some of our workshops, the gymnasium or reading some of the safety notices. Within the prison what we do is not purely education. We map it across to other things we do in the prison that is more on the vocational side. They may attend a Duke of Edinburgh course. We will map communication across to that as well so that at the end of it they are doing a presentation to parents or visitors who come in. There is a whole raft of ways to get round it. Let us take the example of numeracy. If you have weights on the end of a bar you need to be able to count them. It is a question of mapping it across not just purely in terms of education.
Q196 Martin Salter: If the witnesses have found it inconvenient to come here it is my fault but also their fault for inspiring me in the work they do and some of the things they have told me. I wanted you to be able to share that with the Committee, for which we are grateful. Are you still using the musical instruments provided through the Jail Guitar Doors programme and is that still working?
Ms Bryant: Yes, with a caveat: we have had to silence them so they do not disturb everybody else. We choose a time when they can make a noise with other noisy classes rather than disrupt anyone who is trying to learn how to speak English, for example. There are some limitations to the rather noisy musical instruments we received via yourself.
Q197 Martin
Salter: I want to explore one matter we talked
about previously both at
Ms Bryant: We have tried some innovative ways to engage people in key skills.
We have a multi-skill workshop which is one of the things we tailor for
remands. We used to call it the Planner Kitchen. When prisoners came in we made
sure we engaged them in education that could interest them and throw in with it
key skills. For example, we would get them to measure up an area of a kitchen.
They would make the kitchen and cost it; they would build the kitchen and do
simple plumbing and electrical work. It was a four-week course. At the end
their families would come in. It would give them experience of work and
practical skills to move them on. Once we have convicted prisoners we tend to
move them on. Our two main places are Onley and
Q198 Martin Salter: This is important to us and may be reflected in our recommendations. To be absolutely clear, are you telling us it is difficult for the prison estate to do anything meaningful in terms of training for sentences of less than six months, and even if you are required to move them on there needs to be joining up between the young offender institution and the host prison?
Ms Bryant: Yes.
Q199 Martin Salter: We talked previously about perverse performance indicators. Such indicators apply across a whole range of public services, but clearly they can have perverse and unintended consequences. Can you give us some examples of where you have performance indicators that might prevent you from delivering other objectives, particularly in terms of trying to reduce re-offending?
Ms Bryant: I am struggling at this particular juncture.
Q200 Martin Salter: Are you required to do one thing which then inhibits your ability to do something else? You can always write to us later.
Ms Bryant: We have an operational capacity which suggests that we should have
a certain number of prisoners in there. We are unable to meet that because of
the risks posed by some of our prisoners. We are constantly unable to meet
targets in that sort of fashion. Some of the other ones are related to
employment, training and education. While we can probably attain some of the
employment targets, and have done successfully, we are not attaining all of the
training targets because we have not got people there long enough or they are
being released from
Q201 Martin Salter: I recall a conversation that you and I had a few months ago.
Ms Bryant: That is probably where we are.
Q202 Martin Salter: Perhaps you can follow that up with a letter to us.
Ms Bryant: Yes.
Q203 Bob Russell: Ms Bryant, in response to Mr Salter's questions about prisoners moving on with their rehabilitation and education programme to the next place you said "We have tried that". I got the impression that that was not necessarily a roaring success.
Ms Bryant: We have a head of learning and skills. We have gone out to
Q204 Bob Russell: I apologise. When you said "We have tried that" it was a positive response. I interpreted it as something you had tried but nothing had come of it.
Ms Bryant: We continue to try it.
Q205 Bob Russell: It may be that in due course there will be feedback as to how successful it has been at other establishments?
Ms Bryant: Yes.
Q206 Bob
Russell: When young people arrive at
Ms Bryant: I was intrigued by that. I have not come across it.
Mr Barber: We have a mental health team within the prison which sees all the new people coming in and do an assessment. It is not something of which I am aware.
Q207 Bob Russell: The Committee may need to revisit that at a subsequent separate inquiry. When youngsters come in with appalling levels of literacy and social deprivation, which is a damning indictment on society generally, are any of them ever asked whether they have been members of a recognised youth organisation at any time in their lives?
Ms Bryant: I do not think they are asked that specific question but they usually come with some antecedents and information. We have quite large numbers who are affiliated to gangs but not other youth services. We are usually aware of quite a good deal of their background via the police liaison officer.
Q208 Bob Russell: They are not asked the specific question, "Have you ever been a member of a recognised youth organisation?"
Ms Bryant: No.
Q209 Bob Russell: When is the critical intervention point for offender rehabilitation, if there is one?
Mr Barber: We have a number of interventions. It is probably the point at which we make a very thorough assessment when they first come in so we can signpost them to some of the facilities and programmes in the institution. In terms of critical intervention I think one of the earlier witnesses said that it could be any of a number of things that we do.
Q210 Tom Brake: Is there anything in the current sentencing process that you would change to maximise rehabilitation? You have heard from some of the earlier questioning that perhaps there is a push from the right to ensure people spend a much longer time in prison to maximise the rehabilitation potential. Perhaps at the other end of the spectrum there is a demand for tougher or more heavily supervised community sentences. What would you change if you had a free hand?
Ms Bryant: I believe we have a very good relationship with the Thames Valley Probation Service. We get an increasingly better service in terms of offender management from outside. All young offenders get at least three months' supervision when they come out of prison, so they are addressing the needs of young offenders probably better than they do adults who can just fall out of the system and then move on. Certainly, community sentences are increasingly more acceptable because people have long since recognised that very short sentences in prison just do not do any good. If anything, as long as the Probation Service is able to address the needs of the offender and convince the courts that interventions can take place outside that is the way forward.
Q211 Tom Brake: Obviously, it is not your area of responsibility but in terms of community sentences are you happy that as far as you can tell they are being properly supervised?
Ms Bryant: I am content that they are quite well supervised. In addition,
quite a lot of work can be done in the area. We are next to
Q212 Chairman: A few months ago Members of the Committee visited Feltham and spoke to some young offenders. There was a view that though some had come in as a result of having committed serious crimes they left with additional skills to commit more crimes; in other words, for some these young offender institutions was an education process. What are you doing to ensure that they do not pick up new skills they did not have before and commit further crimes when they come out?
Ms Bryant: We have a comprehensive violence reduction strategy. We have had
some problems with an existing gang culture.
Q213 Chairman: Maybe they come in for burglary but go out knowing how to commit fraud; it is the kind of place where they graduate with more criminal skills. Are we conscious of this and are we doing our best to deal with it?
Ms Bryant: I would not be confident that those are the sorts of problems we
have particularly at
Q214 Chairman: The lesson of Feltham is that you have to be extremely careful where you place young people in terms of their accommodation. Presumably, we have learnt all the lessons about that.
Mr Barber: Yes. We make the same risk assessments that Feltham conduct and those have been adopted nationally in the Prison Service.
Chairman: Thank you for coming to give evidence today; it has been very
helpful. If there are any other issues that you think the Committee should look
at in this inquiry please let us know. If Members have the opportunity to pay a
visit to