Turning laundry rooms into cells, as the justice secretary has proposed, will put even more pressure on our understaffed and overcrowded prisons (Burnham warned running prison capacity near limit is ‘big risk’, 1 September). This will, in turn, make it even less likely that people in prison will be able to access the education and training that will help them to turn their lives around.
Education in prison is proven to reduce reoffending and get more people into work. But we’ve already seen provision slashed by a quarter in prisons this year. Just this week, an inspection of a prison in northern England found that there were not enough places in education and many men were frustrated at the lack of opportunity to progress in their sentence.
Rather than investing in converting offices and laundries into cells, we should be properly funding education so that prisons can focus on rehabilitation. That would enable people to spend their time in prison purposefully and ensure they don’t come back.
Jon Collins
Chief executive, Prisoners’ Education Trust
I have worked in prison-linked charities for over 30 years and am tired of saying that evidence proves that prison does not “work” in respect of preventing repeat offending, except, of course, when the offender is inside. Some offenders clearly need to be taken out of circulation, but building more prisons, at vast public expense, is not the answer to changing the behaviour of the majority of them.
We should be using that money on structured and rigorous programmes, within the community, which promote behavioural change, personal development, literacy and employability, and maintain whatever family and community ties existed.
Andy Burnham should think again. The government should spend the money on numeracy and literacy programmes, vocational and relationship skills, restorative justice, healthy living and keeping people in touch with their communities wherever possible. That way we won’t need to spend precious tax money on ever-more hugely expensive prison places.
Margaret Carey
Hurstpierpoint, West Sussex
Nowhere in the debate about prison overcrowding have I seen any discussion about a blindingly obvious solution: reform of drug policy. Many people in jail are there as a result of the relentless thieving required to support an opiate habit.
So, isn’t it time to get rational, follow the evidence and start treating addiction as the health problem it so obviously is, rather than a moral failing to be punished? Decriminalise drug use as they did in Portugal in 2001 (without triggering societal collapse), and suddenly there would be plenty of room to lock up all the people who actually deserve it. Without building any more prisons. Incidentally, you’d also reduce crime and provide relief to thousands of addicts and their families.
Simon Hamilton
Kington, Herefordshire
Zoe Williams (Why are prisons overcrowded? Because no government will stand up to the tabloids, 31 August) states that “the purpose of prison itself has always been threefold – punishment, public protection and rehabilitation”. Not quite so. There is a fourth major purpose, which is deterrence. If a hard or lengthy sentence can be acknowledged to act as a deterrent, then it follows that a lenient sentence or very early release would have little deterrent effect, if any.
David Evans
Market Harborough, Leicestershire
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