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Penal System

Perhaps one still is. We all know what we went through. I acquired some statistics recently and they trouble me. I asked the Government—I do not blame any particular Government as Governments of all persuasions share this problem—about the average hours during week days spent in cells by young offenders at young offenders institutions. In other words, how long were these people under 21 locked up in their cells? At Deerbolt, 17 hours; Reading, 17.1 hours; Aylesbury, 16 hours; Brinsford, 16 hours. What the hell is going on? Forgive me, Mr. Deputy Speaker. What is going on when we lock our young people up for 16 or 17 hours a day. The average across all young offender institutions is 15 hours a day locked up. We are not talking about an old lag of 50 or 60. We are talking about a young man of 18 or 19, locked up for 15 hours a day on average. That is not good enough. What are we doing about educating our young men in these establishments? Going back to my man who could not pass his driving test because he could not pass the theory test, why are we not making him read and write? Why are we not giving him some hope when he comes out? I checked a year or so ago the average number of hours spent per week on education by young men in each of our young offender institutions. In Glen Parva, it was 6.4 hours per week. What is going on? In Portland it was 7.4 hours per week, in Reading eight hours per week, and in Rochester nine hours per week. Nine, eight, seven or six hours a week is just not good enough. It is time that we realised that in the House.