the reality of prisons

Question 1

The reality of life within our prisons

Answer 1

Calls for Justice overhaul as new figures reveal scale of overcrowding” Left Foot Forward, 13th January 2020
 “Winchester Prison: Report highlights rise in violence and self harm.” BBC, 7th January 2020
 “Bedford prison ‘100%’ to blame for officer death, says father.” 2nd Jan 2020
 “HMP Berwyn: Systemic failure in prison spice death.” BBC, November 2020
 “Prison conditions ‘most disturbing ever seen’ with staff now accustomed to jails not fit for 21st century, watchdog says.” The Independent, July 2018
 “Men’s prison conditions so ‘degrading’ inmates ‘crunch cockroaches underfoot’ warns watchdog.” The Independent, July 2017
 “Are prisons in England and Wales facing a meltdown?” The Guardian, 17th February 2018

Question 2

Prison Reform Trust

Answer 2

‘The state of our prisons is a fair measure of our society.’

Question 3

How did we get here? Economic failings

Answer 3

• An obvious place to begin when considering the prison crisis, is the impact of austerity and the reduction of budget
• In 2010, the newly coalition government were desperate for places to save money – and very quickly the CJS became an obvious target
• Since 2010/11, the Justice budget, encompassing prisons, probation and the legal system has seen cuts of 40%
• The monetary value of this has been huge, with a budget of £9.3bn in 2010/11 to £5.6bn in 2019/2020
• Prisons themselves have seen cuts of 22% within this time, with more significant budget cuts within the next two years planned
• Justice has seen the most brutal cuts within the last decade, with analysts suggesting that without an input of some money the prisons sector will move from “repeated crisis to a full blown emergency.”

Question 4

How did we get here? Political failings

Answer 4

• Politics and prison have a long and complicated history with current politics focusing on the idea of making prisons more secure, increasing sentences for those with gang links or those convicted of specific offences
• David Gauke and Rory Stewart, while having admirable efforts and ideals towards prisons (Stewart especially) have fallen into the trap of ‘back to basics.” prisons

Question 5

Repackaged ‘making prison work’

Answer 5

• The idea of ‘back to basics’ focuses predominately on the old idas of ‘prison works’
• This rhetoric focuses on deterrence and punishment – that being imprisoned, and the removal of liberty is enough to deter others from offending
• We know this isn’t sufficient and that efforts should be placed into education, healthcare and rehabilitation – and yet, there has been no money for this but £14m for a ‘gang crackdown’…

Question 6

How did we get here? Legal failings

Answer 6

• To understand how we got here, a concept of moral panic requires understanding
• First coined by the sociologist Stanley Cohen, it refers to something or someone being perceived as a threat to social norms and the interests of social cohesion
• Following this perception, media symbolic use spreads this to society using representation of the threat and the authorities respond to the threat, legitimatizing it = moral panic (simply)

Question 7

How did a three-year-old lead to a rise in prison overcrowding?

Answer 7

• In 1993, James Bulger was tortured and murdered by two-10- year old boys, and the resulting outcry goes some way to understanding the current situation we face within the justice system
• Despite child homicide being a rare occurrence, the reporting and hysteria followed revealed an underlying fear in our communities and influenced sentencing

Question 8

Sentencing

Answer 8

• Moving from the concept of moral panic, the way in which we sentence has seen dramatic change and therefore impacted the way in which our prisons are required to operate
• in 2017, the amount of people dealt with by the courts was the lowest since 1970, but the amount of people convicted for indictable offences and the length of sentences incresed
• First time offenders are now far more likely (52%) to be convicted than cautioned, whereas only 22% would have been convicted 22 years ago

Question 9

Why has this happened?

Answer 9

• The rise in the average sentences has happened in part due to more people being charged with historic sexual offences which drives up the average
• But with the use of prison as a first resort (rather than a last resort for the most serious offences) demonstrates the attitudes of judges to imprison first
• Consider the use of community sentences and whether they are available, funded or applicable to the crime?

Question 10

Who is in prison?

Answer 10

• Last week we touched on the idea that a significant proportion for those currently incarcerated are there following multiple convictions
• Regardless of the opinions of reformers, current sentencing data shows that 70% of sentences are for those with 7+ convictions
• Therefore, our changes to sentencing would result in removing or changing our attitude to how we treat prolific offenders

Question 11

Are prolific offenders dangerous

Answer 11

• When considering changing the amount and type of people we imprison requires a discussion on the type of person we ‘want’ within our society (a problematic conversation within itself)
• The offenders who make up our prolific offenders are typically nonviolent offenders
• Offenders who have committed the most serious offences, considered to be 15 or less within this study account for the majority of the violent or sexual offences

Question 12

Should prison be for the violent?

Answer 12

• If we align ourselves with some popular aims of prison, we typically fall on the idea that custody should be protectional
• Of the 59,000 people sentenced to prison within 2018, 69% of those had committed a non-violent crime
• The majority of our prisoners are there for non violent crimes, for petty crimes and for repeat offending
• Which crimes should result in custody?

Question 13

A quick not on reoffending

Answer 13

• Prison is evidently not working – for adult males, the reoffending rate is 48%, for women 58%, and for children 65% all within a year of release
• If short sentences are used, then the rates of reoffending rise dramatically – to 64%, 73% and 70% respectively
• The use of short sentences > community orders is disastrous, with Community order being far more effective at reducing reoffending

Question 14

The main issues

Answer 14

• Drugs
• Self Harm
• Self Inflicted Deaths
• Mental Health
• Physical Conditions
• Violence
• Understaffing
• Overcrowding

Question 15

How bad is it really?

Answer 15

• Between 2012/2013 – 2017/2018, when using random drugs tests, the rate of positive tests rose to 50% from between 7-10%
• These tests were also used for ‘traditional’ drugs such as opiates and cannabis
• However, the issues we’re seeing the majority of the time are focused on two areas
• Psychoactive substances
• Drugs getting into prisons

Question 16

• Modern psychoactive substances (MPS)

Answer 16

• More commonly known as Spice, Mamba etc these are new substances which are meant to mimic the effects of traditional drugs have absolutely swamped UK prisons
  • Spice has recently become the drug of choice within prisons, accounting for around 60-90% of drug use within (Centre for Social Justice, 2015, HMIP)
  • The most persistent reasons for the use of synthetic cannaboids in prisons are boredom, escapism, relaxation and additions

Question 17

The prison regime and use of spice

Answer 17

• Walker, 2015 concluded that motivations for the use of cannabinoids within prisons included to ‘clear their mind’ ‘manipulate time’ and ‘escape the confines of prison life’
• A huge concern with the use of MPS, is the effect it then has on both the regime and safety within the prison
• For the first time, the 2014/2015 prison report from HMIP recognized the link between consumption and a rise in serious assaults - either through influence or bullying

Question 18

MPS and mental health

Answer 18

• Synthetic cannabinoids have been known to trigger mental health issues within those who use it – either triggering existing MH issues or causing new ones
• The effects of MPS within the regime are pronounced with both Castellanos et al (20011) and prison guards reporting that prisoners exert acts of violence, self harm and hallucinations
• This has included prisoners stabbing officers with a key, and officers reporting that “psychologically, they’ve changed these lads.”

Question 19

The effect on resources

Answer 19

• As well as the psychological effect that witnessing these events can have on officers, with officers stating that they do feel concerned about what could happen that day
• The medical effects and the impact on the regime can also be debilitating – multiple guards attending events and therefore reducing the amount of stability to the regime
• HMIP Annual Report 2016 noted that the use of MPS impacted security, education, training and therefore rehabilitation

Question 20

The epidemic of self harm

Answer 20

• Rates of self harm are the highest which have ever been recorded
• 2012: 23, 158 incidents
• 2014: 25, 843 incidents
• 2016: 40, 160 incidents
• 2018: 55, 598 incidents
• From 267 incidents per 1000 prisoners to 667 per 1000 incidents

Question 21

What is self harm

Answer 21

• HMPSS define self harm as:

- “any act where a prisoner deliberately harms themselves irrespective of the method, intent or severity of any injury”

Question 22

Women and men:self harm

Answer 22

• Women do make up a disproportionate amount of self harm incidents despite only making up 5% of the entire population
• However, within recent years the amount of men engaging in self harm incidents has resulted in an overwhelmingly high amount of incidents committed by men – around 81% in 2018

look at ppt

Question 23

Why do people self harm within prisons

Answer 23

• Asking as to why men and women are self harming is a difficult and important question to be asking when we ‘re looking at prisons
• However, it is important to not look at self harm as an isolated incident and merely relegating it as a ‘side effect’ of pre-existing mental health illnesses does little to aid understanding

Question 24

Why do people self harm

Answer 24

• Pre-Existing MH conditions
• MH conditions which develop throughout custody
• Drug use
• Trauma
• Dangerous and disgusting prison conditions
• Bullying and abuse

Question 25

Self harm and suicide

Answer 25

• Self-harm and self-inflicted deaths are two elements of the current crisis which are commonly conflated as a cause of the other
• However, research in clinical, non-clinical, secure and non secure environments have revealed that partaking in SH behavior is not necessarily a risk factor to self inflicted death
• While both are incredibly important and dangerous elements to the current crisis, they are not and should not be considered to be the same issues, instead representing two separate problems

Question 26

Caring for thos who self harm

Answer 26

• With prisons aware of the rate of SH within them, there are ways in which officers and those in healthcare attempt to help those in distress:
• ACCT: Assesment, Care in Custody and Teamwork
• Panic Buttons
• First Night centres

Question 27

Self inflicted deaths

Answer 27

• Prisons have deteriorated rapidly, and are now far more dangerous places to be than ever before
• There were 87 self inflicted deaths within prison from March 2018 – 2019
• These have been rising for the last ten years, reaching a peak in 2016 of 119 self inflicted deaths
• Writing about self inflicted deaths represents a difficult approach, for there should be no one who leaves prison within a coffin
• However, for those who end their own life – it is of crucial importance that we understand why this happened and use these lessons to actually protect lives within the future
• The rate of self-inflicted deaths within prison is around 6.2 times more likely than the general population

Question 28

Deborah coles, inquest

Answer 28

• “These statistics are more than numbers. They represent real people in extreme distress, leading to preventable deaths and traumatic bereavement for families. As a society we should not accept this endless cycle of systemic neglect and political indifference”

Question 29

Metal health of prisoners

Answer 29

• 26% of women, and 16% of men had received treatment for a MH problem before they entered custody
• 25% of women and 15% of men reported symptoms which were in some way indicative of psychosis – the general rate in the population is 4%
• Nearly 1 in 5 of those diagnosed with a MH problem pre – entry, received NO care from a professional team
• 70% of those who died from self-inflicted means had already been identified with MH issues

Question 30

That 70% statistic

Answer 30

• The fact that 70% of those who died via self – inflicted means had some form of identified MH issues raising huge discussion on two parts:
• 1. Why did the 30% who had no identified MH illness die?
• 2. For those who had an identified illness, why did they die?
• Mental Health treatment is inadequate within prisons, with many men who required MH care waiting too long in 7 out of 10 prisons
• The use of Listeners in prisons represents a lack of appropriate time for those who are trained to be able to do what is necessary

Question 31

Physical conditions of an aging prison

Answer 31

• Our prisons are really, really old - remember the boom of building prisons in the early Victorian era? Many of these prisons remain, and the effects of this aging estate are becoming increasingly common
• Prisons are too hot in summer, too cold in winter and frequently reported as being “the most disturbing ever seen”

Question 32

Conditions

Answer 32

• In some prisons, inspectors have commented that conditions are “disgraceful” and ”should not be accepted within 21st Century Britain citing rat and vermin infestations, dirty conditions and a lack of adequate heat control
• Lavatories are frequently unscreened – with prisoners being required to eat in these same conditions
• While in these conditions, many prisoners are locked up for almost 20 – 23 hours of the day

Question 33

Violence

Answer 33

• Violence in prison is almost an inevitability following the issues I’ve discussed previously, but little can be done to deny the fact that prisons have become increasingly more dangerous in the last decade
• Assaults and Serious Assaults are the highest they’ve ever been
• Serious Assaults are defined as when the victim needs hospital or serious medical intervention

look at ppt

Question 34

Violence amongst prisoners

Answer 34

• Assaults and Serious Assaults (same criteria) are the worst they’ve ever been, jumping dramatically since 2012 onwards
• There have also been jumps in sexual assaults, with 469 recorded assaults in 2018
• The reasons for the level of violence have been attributed to boredom, drugs, mental health and understaffing and overcrowding

Question 35

Understaffing

Answer 35

• There have been massive reductions in all resources available to the prison estate with the Justice budget being cut in entirety by 40% since Austerity began
• Specifically, HMPPS have suffered real time budget cuts of 20% including cutting frontline operational prison staff by 26% within 2010-2016
• The impact of removing prison officers cannot be understood simply from looking at stats

Question 36

80,000 years of experience

Answer 36

• The loss of 26% of prison officers has been catastrophic, but the reality of what has been lost is more alarming
• When considering the total amount of time served by existing officers in 2010, we had a total of 329, 353 years but in 2018 had a cumulative lot of of 248,000
• This loss of 80,000 is dramatic and debilitating – the experience is not concerning security but the emotional, compassionate and human element is of the biggest concern

Question 37

What does this mean

Answer 37

• Remember that prison officers are the backbone of prison life, and are the ones who see the same men or women every single day
• This loss of experience has led to prisons becoming dangerous and unrewarding with drug use and violence overwhelming new recruits
• Ex prison officers have reflected this, stating “once you’ve got a relationship with them…you’ll get a stable prison.”

Question 38

Influx of experience

Answer 38

• In an effort to try and make better their own mistakes, the government have been desperately attempting to try and raise the amount of officers - incorrectly focusing on recruitment for numbers rather than experience
• This has led to incredibly young and inexperienced people working in an intense role, becoming disillusioned, leaving quickly and leading to a consistently unbalanced prison esate

Question 39

Unlocked graduates

Answer 39

• Set up by the government, allows young people to get a Masters focusing in Leadership, to then lead onto a job within the prison service
• The issue with this is that it’s aimed at 21+ year olds
• We also have some of the lowest training period of any of our EU counterparts – with our training only 18 weeks long compared to 48 weeks in France and up to 2 years in Scandinavia

Question 40

Overcrowding

Answer 40

• As of Friday 17th January, there were 82, 932 prisoners in England and Wales – currently 7,848 over the MoJ own requirements for safety and decency
• There are also some prisons including HMP Birmingham and HMP Wandsowrth which are holding more people than they are certified to do so
• It is of little coincidence that the most overcrowded prisons are equally the most violent ones

Question 41

The perfect storm

Answer 41

• All of the issues I have discussed over this seminar can only be discussed in passing, due to their complexities and the history as to why they exist in current climate
• With overcrowding and understaffing directly impacting upon another, mental health and drug use connected with each other and understaffing and violence and a lack of rehabilitation being affected by all areas – massive reform is needed in all areas

Question 42

Reform?

Answer 42

• There can be no doubt that the destruction of the budget for prisons has significantly contributed to the state we see currently
• However, if the amount taken out of the budget was given back tomorrow - I doubt we’d see balanced and safe prisons
• The current crisis represents a change to shift our opinions on custody, sentencing and rehabilitation for those incarcerated

Question 43

Boris johnsons pledges

Answer 43

• Once made PR, Johnson made various pledges focusing on the idea of ”making prison work”
• These focused on creating 10,000 new prison places and improving security within prisons by bringing in x-ray scanners, metal detectors and phone signal blockers stating that the
• “public must see justice being done, punishment being served and feel protected.”m

Question 44

Who is leading reform

Answer 44

• Rory Stewart: Former prisons minister, realistic on the issues of prison, introduced the ten prisons project while within power
• Howard League for Penal Reform: leading voice on all things penal reform from 10 yr olds +. Combine legal action with charity and political pressure
• Prison Reform Trust: charity working on exposing the reality of prison life, specifically concerning MH, disabilities and rehabilitation
• Timpsons/Greggs/Halfords: Actively encourage employment and training of those leaving custody - offering jobs for those leaving custody and improving the chances of rehabilitation

Question 45

Where now?

Answer 45

• While money is being slowly pumped back into the system, it is nowhere near enough to replace what has been done – let alone make up for the years of trauma as a result of the cuts
• Changes in rehabilitation, and opportunities for those incarcerated have made differences
• The beginning of the ban the box campaign has also made a huge difference within the outcomes for those who have been incarcerated