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Reoffending

As we all know, and as has been acknowledged today, we have a major problem with prison overcrowding. The Government figures that came out today show that there have been 16,000 early releases in just over six months. As has been said, the report released earlier this week by Her Majesty's chief inspector of prisons, which covered a large number of prison service issues, was not, shall we say, very flattering. When I was preparing for the debate, I was struck by one statistic: the number of convictions has remained fairly constant over the past 10 years, but the number of prison sentences handed down by magistrates courts has more than doubled, and the figure has also significantly increased in the Crown courts. The problem, therefore, is not that more people are being convicted, but that more are being sent to prison for offences for which they would not have been sent to prison 10 years ago. We have no evidence that prison actually works. Some 65 per cent. of adult ex-offenders are reconvicted within two years, and the figure rises to 75 per cent. for young adults and juveniles. Nine out of 10 young men who have been sentenced for less than three months end up reoffending within two years. It is clear, therefore, that the idea of a short, sharp shock, which is often promoted in the prison system, simply does not work—in fact, it can have the reverse effect. To borrow an expression from Anne Owers, we are now at a crossroads; we need to look at what we want the criminal justice system to do and how we will achieve it, and then refocus our resources. That means that we will need to look at the complex roots of crime, rather than just tackling the surface issues. As has been said, we need to look at mental health, drug and alcohol treatment and the obstacles that people face when they try to rehabilitate and resettle in the community. The issue breaks down into three different areas: what we can do while people are in prison, what we can do when they leave prison to ensure that they resettle, and what the alternatives to prison are. It is the last of those that is the most important. As has been said, some people in prison simply should not be there, and that includes those with serious mental health problems. As I am sure the Minister is aware, a high proportion of people in prison have mental health problems. According to one estimate, four out of 10 people who are being held in prison health care centres should be in secure NHS accommodation instead, but there are simply not enough mental health beds in the system. Between them, the secure hospitals have about 1,200 beds, and a lot of the court diversion schemes are being held back by a lack of beds for people to take up. The same issues arise in relation to drug and alcohol treatment. The proportion of prisoners who have been convicted of drug offences has risen considerably over the past 10 years, and Home Office research a couple of years ago showed that half of all the offences for which people were in prison were drug related. Again, however, there are only 2,500 residential drug treatment places. Such places cost £6,000 a year less than sending someone to prison. If the underlying causes are tackled, people are much less likely to reoffend and impose a cost on the state. It is therefore a wasted opportunity and a waste of money to put people in prison, rather than tackling the underlying problems. We should therefore invest in drug treatment facilities, rather than new prison places.