What hope for prisoner rehabilitation?
Prison is meant to rehabilitate. Eric Allison writes on prisons and criminal justice in the Guardian’s Joe Public blog, on questions of mistreatment of officers by other officers and asks what hope there is for prisoners in such an environment. – 9th April 2008.
Comments included:
“Nobody takes real responsibility for rehabilitation; it’s against the spirit of our punitive times. Lip-service only is paid to it. Probation was long ago converted to an organisation devoted to ‘managing’ offenders (public protection) or dispensing community punishment. Prison governors always, and I mean always, have security as their number one priority. And so there is no real advocacy for rehabilitation. What is needed is effective case work on behalf of individual prisoners to assist rehabilitation. Offender behaviour programmes, education, resettlement initiatives and the rest are delivered piecemeal. There are some successes, but in general prisons do containment and punishment reasonably well, but not rehab. Which, in the end, produces negative and demoralising effects on prisoners and staff alike.
To introduce a proper rehabilitative regime in prisons and on release will take political vision and courage. It ain’t there”
and …
“Not using the opportunity prison provides to do something positive is one of the most mystifying state failures. Here you have criminals, both career and nascent, gathered together, under government control, 24 hours a day. And what do we do with them? Educate them? Teach them skills that could lead to jobs in the outside world? Give them serious and continued help to get off drugs?
Nope, we just lock them up for hours on end, and pay thousands for the privilege. Bonkers, absolutely bonkers.”
Capacity Building
Ann Widdecombe: Does Prison Work?
Ann Widdecombe speaking in 2000 said prison works because “When people are locked up they can’t commit any further crime”.
Further points included:
- Prison does not do anything like as much as it should to prevent crime
- It only defers crime, it does not solve it
- Rehabilitating offenders was not some wet liberal extra, it is necessary
- If people spend any length of time in prison they should not leave without being able to read and write
- Self financing prison workshops were the way forward
For the full article on BBC News
Does Prison Work? – Overseas Evidence 2003
The Government has set out to reduce crime, but the evidence from a study comparing the policies pursued in the USA with those in England and Wales suggests it has adopted the wrong policies.
From the early 1980s until the mid-1990s the risk of imprisonment increased in the USA and the crime rate fell; while in England and Wales the opposite happened: the risk of imprisonment fell and the crime rate increased.
Then, from 1993, policy in England and Wales was reversed and the risk of imprisonment increased, though it remained historically low. Even this relatively small increase in the use of prison was followed by a reduction in crime.
For the full report – CIVITAS The Institute for the Study of Civil Society
Does Prison Work? The Guardian
The Guardian’s prison columnist, Erwin James , reflects on the lessons of 16 years under lock and key in an article written on Monday January 29 2001.
(JC: interesting to note the prison population seven years ago and how the tabloid headlines are still saying the same things)
“Almost 63,000 people live behind bars in Britain, about the same number as live in Guildford. They are locked up in our name, yet we know remarkably little about the life they lead. Are we too hard on our criminals – or, as the tabloid headlines frequently suggest, too soft? And more importantly: does prison ever work?”