The Anonymous Widower

Clarke Gets Tough On Prisons

It would appear from the BBC, that Kenneth Clarke is going to get tough on the costs of prisons.

In a speech later, he will say he is amazed at the growth in the prison population and he will demand a radical new approach to cut re-offending.

It will involve paying private firms and voluntary groups according to how many prisoners they rehabilitate.

Prisons must focus on “education, hard work and change,” Mr Clarke will add.

He is absolutely right, as it is not humane in this day and age to just lock so many people up and do nothing to stop their pattern of reoffending.

I have for many years advocated an on-line database of all prisoners, that can be read on-line.  It would obviously not identify individual prisoners, but it would enable serious research to be done.  We must reduce the cost of criminal justice and punishment.

For instance, the database might contain things like :-

• Sex
• Age Group – 25-35 etc.
• Nationality
• Country of Birth
• Literacy
• Health State
• Smoker/Non-Smoker
• Has father been to jail?
• Married/Single/Children

• Drug User/Clean
• Last Crime
• Sentence
• Number of times in custody

Whether you put race and religion in would be very controversial and would probably be best left out, as people like the BNP would use it to their advantage.

But the database must be able to answer questions like how many of those serving over 20 years in jail have conditions like Alzheimer’s.  According to David Ramsbotham’s excellent book, Prisongate, there are a large number and they are a large drain on resources of the Prison Service. Surely, they should be somewhere else.

i also live near a large prison and in the local area, those who keep large numbers of horses also complain they can’t get staff to do manual work, so many bring in temporary workers from all sorts of places outside the EU.  Couldn’t some of the inmates fill this gap?  This has been done successfully before in places like New York State.

additionally, why not use prisoners to pick seasonal produce and other jobs for which there are a shortage of workers? Any money earned would go to their victims or to support their own families. Remember that supporting prisoner’s families is quite a drain on benefits and if they are not supported in some way, we’re just creating the conditions for a whole new generation of career criminals.

June 30, 2010 - Posted by AnonW | News | Law, Prison