To think prison reform wasn't the top of most voters agenda?

[malificent7]

I get it is important due to overcrowding but I'm a bit surprised this is one of the first topics in the headlines.
I am all for youth hubs to target knife crime....excellent idea but releasing lots of prisoners who apparently shouldn't be there will give Reform lots of ammunition what do you think?

Short term measure yes. But why not build more prisons?

Because prison is not the answer for many. It doesn't reduce crime or turn people's lives around and stop reoffending or going to prison again.

It's probably the case that, for someone sent to prison for a relatively minor crime, they've a bigger chance of going to prison for a second time, for something more serious than they have of being rehabilitated and living a crime free life.

So until we start to do something different than send people to prison, it's never going to improve. And both the PM and the new prisons minister have a lot of relevant knowledge and experience to know what type of 'something different' has a good chance of succeeding.

Do you actually know anything about this?

I worked with prisons as part of my job. There are some phenomenal schemes in operation to give the 16-weekers job skills and experience in carrying them out. There are also companies such as Suez who actively will work with ex-offenders to bring them into the workplace as employees.

I've seen this from the inside and it's impressive.

This was already Tory policy and was already happening. I don't know why it's been announced as something new.

Prisons have extensive rehabilitation programmes and it does mean some men will be released before completing important elements or training.

The scary thing is that this applies only to men as there is only a shortage of men's prison spaces. There is no shortage in the women's prison population and yet the vast majority of women are there for non violent crimes, usually petty. It remains unclear whether Labour will extend early release to women.

The other worrying thing is that it shortens the time men will be recalled to prison for breaking parole to just 2 weeks. Again this was already Tory policy. So released prisoners will know they can reoffend with just a 2 week punishment.

There are indeed, but you'll also know that the prisoner has to choose to engage to get the benefit from it, but also the schemes actually have to be available to them.

With so many prisons running heavily restricted regimes due to the lack of uniformed staff, lots of things are stopped. We can't recruit enough people into education and training roles either. We definitely don't have enough availability for the sex offender courses.

There's also the enormous problem of recidivism with 75% of ex prisoners reporting they reoffend and government stats showing 20-33% proven reoffending rates with the higher figure being for young black men.

Prison doesn't work for the majority and never has. There's a reason penal policy has been so ignored by the Conservatives - it's complex and requires radical changes which may not be palatable to the electorate even if they are highly effective.

The countries with the lowest reoffending rates have prisons which aim to rehabilitate. Locking people up doesn’t work. You can say you want long prison sentences as a point of principle if you like but you can’t advocate for long prison sentences with no rehabilitation as a route to lowering crime. If you want less crime, we need better prisons and fewer custodial sentences.

Sadly we have a tabloid fueled 'lock em up and throw away the key' mentality in this country. Anytime a minister has flirted with any kind of reform the usual suspects are screaming 'soft on crime' headlines which the likes of Ken Clarke and Rory Stewart found to their expense. People with addiction issues and mental health issues should not be in prison and thanks to austerity any semblance of early intervention and prevention programmes are threadbare or non existent.

That runs into the problem of being forced work or slavery, then you could end up imprisoning people to provide free labour. It happens in less democratic countries.

I worked in rehabilitation and the major problems facing prisoners on release are lack of gainful employment. Nobody except the Timosons actively employ ex cons
edit to say if you can't get a proper job , what are your options.

Yeah, reading this thread (it’s always the case, the population is extremely ‘right wing’ on crime and punishment) you can see why this wasn’t part of an election campaign. There are very few votes in prison reform. Conversely people talk about crime as being very important when it comes to voting intention. The problem is that no one has managed to make the case that if you want less crime you need to lock fewer ppl up, not more. As you say, the media plays a big part in this massive misconception. sigh

That’s spot on. And I speak as a Tory!

@DoreenonTill8 Some people do need to be locked up, but many don't

I'd prefer a convicted criminal to be rehabilitated, working and contributing to society / the economy than locked up at vast expense to the public purse

They are trying to build more prisons, there is some funding in the system to increase prison places by building more. But it is not an overnight process, and planning issues are causing significant delays. The new prison in Northamptonshire was first announced in 2018 but building wasn't completed until late 2020, and that was being built on the site of a former prison so there were fewer planning difficulties.

People want more prisons but they never want them in their neighbourhood...

I'm still reeling at how much has happened in Keir Starmer's first weekend.

He only took possession on Friday, didn't he?!

So there's a distinction between transwomen, women and men - it's not distorting the statistics - they're just nuanced.

Yeah me too. There’s fine wine running out of my kitchen tap. And the dead are raising themselves from the local cemetery and doing odd jobs for the needy. It’s a Labour weekend miracle!

It's one of the first topics because it's such an urgent one.

There are major issues with the justice system backing up even further than it already had - years between charges and trials - because there's quite literally nowhere to send convicted criminals.

The entire administration of the nation is engulfed in such a bin fire right now that it just wasn't being given the prominence it should have been in recent months, with so many other critical issues being ignored or promoted (or just profited from by the Tory incumbents).

Prison doesn't work, but then very little of what leads to prison is working either. Check out the low education attainment of those in prison, those who've been let down by the system and have multiple adverse childhood experience, mental health and there's a huge list! However, where's the 'what comes next'? We need homes for those being released, safe options for those whose lives will be impacted by the released, work (I go back to low educational attainment and training). If prisons really focused on upskilling, fixing some ofthe failures, drug and alcohol issues.... Releases need to be supported and not simply to empty the institutions. We also need to get the prison service / probation service back on track and stop this horrendous outsourcing of services. Like so much, I wish they'd focus on some real fixes in society, taking their time, installing robust support systems and prison releases are all well and good, but not without fixing what filled them in the first place!

You'll note though, that it states the figure for transwomen specifically excludes those with a GRC - and that's because they are classed as 'legally' women and therefore counted in the figures for women. So we have a cohort of men, demonstrably committing sexual offences at a rate not just in parity with non-trans-identified men but way above it, and we have no way of knowing how much that 3.3% of the women's statistic may be being affected by them. It could be 0, it could be all 3.3%. We simply don't know, because of a legal fiction created with no benefit to women.

And yet people were made to do workfare just for the crime of being unemployed.

Also, it's not about campaigning and voters agendas is it?

Governing is about what the country needs.

Which is also wrong and why there was quite an outcry about it.

Minor crimes yes, but violent criminals need to be locked away from society.

By all means rehabilitate away while they're in prison, in the hope of reducing the reoffending rate.

Yes, which is why the DBS check system needs significant reform.

*some of the radical changes needed are :,

Teaching people too read in primary school. If phonics isn't working, hey... Try something else!

A huge no of prisoners are either illiterate or have poor literacy.

Let's help to educate youngsters and save them from prison that way.

*very radical.