Prisons

Question 1

What did legislative and penal policy changes lead to? what strategies did this require?

Answer 1

• more and longer prison sentences
• required adaptive and sovereign state strategies

Question 2

What is the average prison sentence for indictable offences?

Answer 2

2008 - 31.7 months
2023 - 62.4 months

Question 3

What did redefining success do?

Answer 3

• rise of ‘expedient managerialism’ to a ‘central emblematic position’ (Bennet 2016)
• commercialisation of justice: privatisation

Question 4

What is punitive segregation and relocating and redefining responsibilities?

Answer 4

• the new penology (Feeley and Simon 1992)

Question 5

How much did the prison population rise between 1990 and 2020?

Answer 5

70%

Question 6

Key event in 1990

Answer 6

• strange ways riot/woolf report
• ‘expensive way of making bad people worse’

Question 7

Key events from 1995 to 2000

Answer 7

• impact of prison works
• unlawful sacking of DG Lewis
• woodcock and learnt reports

Question 8

Key event from 2004 to 2008

Answer 8

• Impact of CJA 2003

Question 9

Key event of 2012

Answer 9

• impact of August 2011 riots

Question 10

Key event of 2020

Answer 10

• impact of covid 19 on offending and CJS

Question 11

Key event of 2023

Answer 11

• courts working through covid backlog

Question 12

What was the 1980s ‘rolling back the state’?

Answer 12

• political desire to curtail power of trade unions and to import private sector practice and values into public sectors

Question 13

What act privatised prisons?

Answer 13

CJ act 1991 s84 amendment
- 15 to 25 year contracts: ave £4bn
- service level agreements

Question 14

What did the 2003 Carter report to NOMS 2004-2017 do?

Answer 14

• commissioning and contest ability for correctional services
• no public sector prisons built from 1992 until HMP Berwyn 2017
• lack of private sector interest in bidding for some prisons

Question 15

Managerialism of prisons

Answer 15

• performance management and target setting, linked to resourcing
• key performance indicators, key performance targets, weighted scoreboard, star ratings, league tables
• HMIP expectations and inspections, MQPL survey for prisoners and staff, independent monitoring boards, national audit office, internal audits

Question 16

What was the 2013 managerialism quote?

Answer 16

‘new ways of working’

Question 17

Issue of managerialism?

Answer 17

loss of (experienced) operational staff 2010-2017

Question 18

Key issues of privatisation

Answer 18

• allocation vs delivery of punishment
• promotion of competition and innovation: cheaper prisons or just cheaper staff?
• lack of transparency and accountability with the public
• prioritise profit motive over rehabilitation

Question 19

What did key issues of privatisation bring due to the profit motive?

Answer 19

• reduced spending on welfare services such as healthcare
• over-incarceration
• cut costs by providing substandard conditions for inmates and offering lower wages and benefits for staff

Question 20

What did Shaw 1989:51 state?

Answer 20

‘the opponents of privatisation have to be careful not to be defenders of public squalor’

Question 21

Redefining success: Prison works?

Answer 21

reevaluation of the goals and outcomes of the prison system with an emphasis on rehabilitation, reducing recidivism, promoting equity

Question 22

RS: percentage of reoffending if imprisoned for more than 1 year?
percentage of reoffending within 2 months of release?

Answer 22

• 63% if imprisoned for <1yr
• 49% within 2 months

Question 23

RS: estimate of how many prisoners used drugs?

Answer 23

• 1 in 3 set using ‘bird killer’
• links to drug use and violence between prisoners, organised crime and staff corruption

Question 24

RS: did offending behaviour programmes in prisons work?

Answer 24

• Key performance indicator for completion rates
• long term effects are unproven e.g. sex offender treatment

Question 25

RS: KPI abandoned in 2004 but HMIP 2021-22 believed what number of male prisons found it a ‘purposeful activity’

Answer 25

of 20 male prisons:
- none found it ‘good’
- 5 found it ‘reasonably good’

Question 26

RS: how many women self-harmed?

Answer 26

1 in 5 incidents of self-harm

Question 26

RS: how many assaults on staff?

Answer 26

7,229 in 2023: 20 every day

Question 27

RS: What year was KPI abandoned for self-inflicted deaths?

Answer 27

2008

Question 28

RS: how many self-inflicted deaths confirmed in 2023?

Answer 28

89 SIDs

Question 29

What is the punitive segregation sovereign state strategy?

Answer 29

• punish and exclude through lengthy prison sentences

Question 30

What did the new penology give rise to in punitive segregation?

Answer 30

• rise of risk assessment and management
• longer (‘protective’) and especially, indeterminate sentences, with release dependent upon quantifiable reduced risk

Question 31

What is actuarial justice in punitive segregation?

Answer 31

• identifying, classifying and managing ‘dangerous classes’ as aggregates

Question 32

Was there an expectation of rehabilitation in punitive segregation?

Answer 32

• No expectation of rehabilitation: crime made ‘tolerable through systemic coordination’ and incapacitation

Question 33

What does instrumental and expressive punitive segregation mean?

Answer 33

• Prioritising public protection but also allowing for symbolic condemnation, denial and acting out

Question 34

What has penal policy ensured?

Answer 34

• sustained and significant growth in the prison population

Question 35

What did ‘expedient managerialism’ help foster?

Answer 35

• privatisation and continues to ensure the importance of performance management, redefining success of punishment