According to a letter in today’s Times, among whose signatories figures that of a former chief inspector of prisons, current over-crowding in prisons is so acute as to deny prisoners opportunity for any form of education while there, save of the most basic kind to which priority, apparently, is currently being given.
Some might be tempted to retort by saying: ‘Tough, prison should no more be a university than it should be a vacation resort’. While true enough, such a response might dispose too quickly of the issue raised by the letter.
For the letter also claims the re-offending rate of prisoners who receive some form of education while in prison is three times lower than that of those who do not.
Assuming such reduced rates of re-offending hold true of all prisoners who receive any form of education while in prison, not just those in receipt of the most basic kind, what the statistic suggests is that comprehensive educational opportunities for all prisoners might be more than just a frivolous luxury neither deserved nor needed.
It suggests, rather, provision of such educational opportunity has a vital role to play in preventing crime.
Prevention is better than cure in the area of crime as much as it is in medicine. Without their making any genuine attempt to reform those they hold, prisons are little more than mere restraining devices. They prevent those whom they hold from committing crimes, at least against members of the general public, whilst serving their time. But all too often, fear of imprisonment has very little deterrent effect upon potential and convicted offenders.
So huge are the financial and human costs of crime, it might well be a false economy for society to withhold from prison-expenditure the extra needed to ensure all prisoners have opportunity to receive some suitable form of education while inside them.
There is scope here for some serious econometric work to ascertain what likely financial, and other, benefits are liable to result, through reduced crime levels, for every additional £100 million spent on prisons, over and above current and projected levels of expenditure, so that they may improve the minds of those they hold, and not just confine their bodies.
Comments (2)
Crowded prisons are part of a broader problem. Labour have failed with regards to law and order and the government's planned refroms are likely to make things worse. This is demonstrated by the Conservative Future article below:
It is a universal truth in politics that if a government is so set on a policy that it is willing to bully and bribe to get its own way, then the policy must be a dud.
Labour’s proposed police force mergers, creating ‘super’ regional forces to replace the local county forces, is just such an example of political bone headedness.
A Whitehall study, co-authored by the Downing Street strategy unit, has roundly condemned the policy as expensive and highly disruptive
Yet in an effort to have its own way, the Government has threatened restrictions on funding to those forces that don’t agree to merge voluntarily. Police chiefs have been given until the 7 April to respond to the plans.
In the biggest shake up in the way the police are organised in forty years, these reforms are being forced through so quickly there has not been ample opportunity to consult fully with the different police representative bodies and the communities.
The Government should not be criticised for wanting to think afresh about how to tackle crime in this country
Organised crime and terrorism are a curse on modern society that must be dealt with through new methods of policing – bigger police forces might indeed be part of the answer.
But everyday crime like mugging and burglary blights all our lives, perhaps more so, and this indisputably needs to be tackled on a local basis, by local police forces.
If there are some shire forces today that are too small to combat serious crime then this can be addressed by better organised co-operation and collaboration between forces.
The proposals as they stand will cost council tax payers dear and further remove the police from our lives.
Posted by CF Activist | April 2, 2006 3:47 PM
Posted on April 2, 2006 15:47
Discussions on sentencing tend to revolve around the 'four horsemen' called protection, punishment, deterrence and rehabillitation. It is hardly surprising then that something as venal as a cost benefit analysis is rarely considered in this lofty, esoteric debate.
A 1992 study by the Australian Institute of Criminology ('Estimates of the Cost of Crime in Australia' - John Walker) suggests that the corrective services budget (AUD 600 million) could be as little as 3% of the highest cost estimate of all reported crime in Australia (it goes without saying that expenditure on prisons is substantially lower than on the police and lawyers).
It would not be unreasonable to assume that one could extrapolate key findings from this study and apply them to the criminal justice system in the UK today. In general terms we could safely conclude that expenditure on corrective services as a proportion of the estimated total cost of crime might have to rise steeply (assuming socio-economic trends remained constant) to bring about a statiscally significant diminution in offending rates.
Whatever horseman the criminologists are currently backing we still need more correctional facilites of every type: maximum security prisons, open prisons, young offenders institutions. We need more (and longer) custodial sentences and whole of life tariffs. Finally, we need fewer soft options: fewer ASBO's, community service, probation and parole orders and far, far, less remission.
Corrective services expenditure currently accounts for less than 0.5% of total public spending in the UK. Isn't it time we started to focus on resourcing the prison system rather than rehash endlessly sterile teleological arguments regarding its function? In straigtforward language - first put the guilty behind bars then consider whether they should be punished, deterred or rehabillitated.
After all 'Philosophy 101' never seems to get in the way of splashing the cash on a hopelessly inefficient and unreformed NHS does it now (16% of total public spending)?
Posted by Joseph | March 31, 2006 11:56 PM
Posted on March 31, 2006 23:56