Getting the most out of prisons

Civitas, 5 October 2010

Ken Clarke today announced his intention to get prisoners working 40-hour weeks in preparation for a life of employment. This is a broadly sensible idea. Most importantly, it rejects the supposed dichotomy between rehabilitation and incarceration. It illustrates that it is possible to have a robust criminal justice system that protects the public but also offers offenders the chance to improve themselves. But mind the pitfalls!

One major issue will be finding enough productive work for prisoners. It is not as if working in prison is a particularly new idea, and it is unclear exactly what a policy shift in Whitehall can do to help prison governors make inmates more productive.

Another issue is how to maximise the effectiveness of prisoner activities. Evidence from the United States indicates that it is vocational training, rather than actual employment, that reaps the most benefits later on in terms of reduced re-offending. For example, take the most comprehensive study of work and training programmes, the Post-Release Employment Project (PREP) carried out for the US Federal Bureau of Prisons by Saylor and Gaes (see Crime and Civil Society, pp.100-103). It found that prisoners who engaged in prison work were 24 per cent less likely to re-offend than expected. However, those who had participated in vocational or apprenticeship training were 33 per cent less likely to re-offend than expected. In other words, those given training in prison were even more likely to become law abiding than those who were given work.

This illustrates a potential trade-off between making prisoners pay for their crimes now (a laudable goal in itself) and making them less likely to re-offend later. It is important that policy-makers do not rush headlong into ‘making prison pay’. The primary focus should remain on reducing re-offending in the long-term, which is how our society can most benefit from criminal justice.