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Crime: Reoffending

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for bringing this subject to the attention of the House. I have a nagging suspicion that there will be a degree of agreement in this debate which probably will not reach the level of conflict and disagreement usually required to get a debate going. There is great consensus in this field about the fact that, unless we do something to stop the cycle of reoffending, we cannot build enough prisons—not until we have taken away rather more of the green belt than is planned for housing. We do not seem to be able to stop it. Governments get tough to deal with problems or perceived problems. They flex their muscles; they shout at the judiciary; the judiciary puts a few more people in prison; the papers then decide to run a few more scare stories; and the cycle goes on. We must look at why the same people are going through the system more quickly, which is what we are trying to address. I turn my attention to a component of the prison population: the number of dyslexics. Almost everyone in the debate will agree that many prisoners have few qualifications and skills and little training capacity. This is particularly common among repeat offenders. The Minister may sigh inwardly as I go into this subject again, as I have mentioned it in the past. He is nodding: well, thanks. A new study was just brought to my attention. It was undertaken by Jackie Hewitt-Main at Chelmsford Prison, where a new approach has been taken. The study found that 53 per cent of prisoners going through that prison had dyslexia or dyslexic tendencies—a high enough figure to cause alarm and draw attention, anyway. The main problem was how to access support and help. Jackie Hewitt-Main went on to note that six out of 10 people were not accessing support, and that most of them were dyslexic. She found that the process of studying and support for someone who has failed in the classroom was a problem. Such people do not like the classroom, because they have been told in their childhood that they are a failure, and, indeed, that their brain is no good, because everyone knows that the measure of intelligence is the ability to master reading and writing. Their dislike is probably understandable. The group gained access to studying through mentoring. Initially, Jackie herself acted as a mentor to people by explaining the problem to them and then encouraging them to enter the system. But one person, no matter how inspiring, has limitations. The real revelation here was successfully training other inmates to be mentors and getting them to speak to other prisoners so that they could enter the education system, too. A system like this deserves careful study, because it does not have the usual fallback of throwing more resources at the problem. The basic component of the exercise is prisoners. Prisoners are told that they can help someone else because they have the same type of condition and so can understand the problem and explain it to others. This seems to be working. It is a new project, and has to be studied long-term. Will the Government give an undertaking to consider such a self-help system? The fact that you can bring people to the point where they will access the help provided must be a great step forward. If six out of 10 prisoners would rather be in their cells than take classes, is that not a condemnation of what is going on now? People who are unemployable, and who will therefore always be at the bottom of the economic pile with very little respect and very little stake in society, are almost guaranteed to reoffend or at least be at great risk of reoffending. If the Government could indicate to me that they are prepared to consider this type of self-help scheme, I would be very grateful and interested to see how it goes. Unless we take a slightly more sideways approach, we get into an argument in which the Government have to be tough on crime and build a few more prisons, but we say, ““No, you must throw more resources at it””. Surely this is one way in which we can square a circle.