What is prison for?

Generic presentation on 'what is prison for?' for the Howard League for Penal Reform. This version used for University of Oxford in October 2009.

1. WHAT IS PRISON FOR?
•Andrew Neilson,
Assistant Director, Public
Affairs and Policy

2. What is prison for?
•Punishment
•Public protection
•Deterrence
•Rehabilitation

3. What do people have to say
about prison?
•‘The degree of civilisation in a society can
be judged by entering its prisons’ - Fyodor
Dostoevsky
•‘The first real principle which should guide
anyone trying to establish a good system
of prisons would be to prevent as many
people as possible getting there at all’ -
Winston Churchill

4. How is prison used?
•The past decade and a half has seen an
unprecedented expansion in the English &
Welsh prison population
•In 1994, the average prison population
was 48,631
•On Friday 16 October 2009 the English &
Welsh prison population reached an all
time high of 84,711

5. Many thousands of new prison
places have been built…

7. What has caused this growth in
prison numbers?
•A 78% increase in the use of immediate
custodial sentences
•A 19% increase in those sent to prison for
breaches of parole licence and community
supervision

8. People are also spending
longer in prison
•The average time served in prison has
increased by 14% since 2000
•The proportion of the sentenced prison
population serving indeterminate or life
sentences increasing from 9% in 1995 to
19% in 2009
•England & Wales has more prisoners
serving these open-ended sentences than
the rest of western Europe combined

9. Legislation has had its part to play…

10. Do crime rates have any
bearing on prison numbers?

11. Not necessarily...

12. Does prison reduce
reoffending?

13. Who do our prisons hold?
•Around 55% of prisoners are considered
‘problematic drug users’
•One in five prisoners report opiate use in
prison, many for the first time
•27% of prisoners are BME - compared to
one in eleven of the general population
•48% of prisoners are at, or below, the
level expected of an 11 year old in
reading, 65% in numeracy and 82% in
writing

14. Mental health is a major
concern
•Over one third of men serving prison
sentences have a significant mental
health problem
•One in four attempt suicide in prison
•Self injury rates in prison increased by
37% between 2003 and 2007 - four times
the increase in the prison population
•Women committed 54% of this self injury,
despite the fact that only 5% of the prison
population is female

15. Women in prison
•Women in prison are twenty times more
likely to suffer from delusional or
schizophrenic disorders than women in
the general population
•Over half of women in prison have
suffered domestic abuse and one in three
have been victims of sexual abuse
•Nearly a third of women in prison have no
previous convictions, more than double
the proportion of men

16. Children in prison
•Two out of five girls and one out of four
boys in prison report violence at home
•One in three girls and one in 20 boys in
custody have histories of sexual abuse
•40% of children in prison have been
homeless

17. Prison fails children
•Over a third of children report feeling
unsafe in custody
•75% of children leaving custody will go on
to reoffend, the highest for any age group

18. What are prison population
rates?
•International prison population rates are
measured per 100,000 of the general
population
•The median prison population rate for
Western Europe in 2008 was 95 prisoners
per 100,000 of the general population

19. UK prison population rates
•The English & Welsh prison rate in 2008
was 153 prisoners per 100,000
•Scotland’s prison rate in 2008 was 152
prisoners per 100,000
•Northern Ireland’s prison rate in 2008 was
88 prisoners per 100,000

20. Some other countries...
•France (96)
•Germany (89)
•Republic of Ireland (76)
•Norway (69)
•Finland (64)
•Iceland (44)

21. England & Wales is an outlier in
Western Europe

22. How overcrowded are our
prisons?
•The prison system in England and Wales
has been overcrowded for every year
since 1994
•At the end of July 2009, 88 prisons were
officially overcrowded
•Around 19,000 prisoners – almost one in
four – are currently sharing cells designed
for one person

23. What is the government and
opposition saying?
•The government is committed to building
another 10,500 new prison places to
reach 96,000 prison places by 2014
•This will include five new 1,500 place
prisons, the largest in the country
•The Conservatives pledge to build a
further 5,000 prison places on top of this
by selling off ageing Victorian jails and
using the money to fund further new
prisons

24. A word of warning...

25. No jurisdiction has ever built its
way out of overcrowding

26. A vision for change
Less crime, safer communities,
fewer people in prison

27. There is growing concern at ever-
increasing prison populations
•In 2007 the Scottish government set up an
independent Prisons Commission to look
at the purpose and impact of
imprisonment in Scotland
•The Commission’s final report, Scotland’s
Choice, was published in 2008 and made
23 recommendations
•Scotland now taking steps to reduce its
prison population, including a presumption
against sentences of six months or less

28. What about England?
•In 2007 the Howard League for Penal
Reform set up the Commission on English
Prisons Today, with Cherie Booth QC as
its President
•The Commission’s final report, Do Better
Do Less, was published in July 2009

29. What did the Commission
recommend?
•A significant reduction in the prison
population and the closure of
establishments
•The replacement of short prison
sentences with community-based
responses
•The dismantling of the National Offender
Management Service (NOMS), including
the break up of the centrally managed
prison service

30. Justice reinvestment
•The Commission also recommended a
restructuring of the penal system on
justice reinvestment principles
•Local authorities would take the lead in
local strategic partnerships, bringing
together representatives from criminal
justice, health, education and other
sectors

31. Canada: a success story?

32. Spending cuts...
•In 1993 the new Liberal government faced
the need to reduce a $42bn deficit
•As part of a strategy to reduce public
spending by 20%, the government sought
to reduce its spending on prison

33. ...meant prison cuts
•Between 1995 and 2004, the Canadian
prison population was reduced by 11% -
lowering their rate of imprisonment from
131 per 100,000 to 108 per 100,000

34. How did the Canadians do it?
•Inserted a ‘restraint principle’ into their
criminal code
•Introduced conditional sentences served
in the community
•Developed restorative justice programmes
•Speeded up the parole process

35. What happened to the crime
rate in Canada?
•Crimes rates in Canada are at their lowest
for 25 years
•Between 1991 and 1999 there were drops
ranging from 23% in assault and robbery
to 43% for homicide
•The magic formula: less crime, safer
communities, fewer people in prison

36. Thank you
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