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Prisons

My Lords, since I became the Bishop to Prisons last October, I have been deeply impressed by the number of people, the range of organisations and the depth of academic research associated with prisons and penal reform. I have also been struck by the amazing degree of agreement about the problems and the possible solutions. It leaves me wondering why there is such little progress in our society in dealing with these well known difficulties. It also leaves me wanting to add my voice to the call of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for a royal commission. People end up in prison as a consequence of a failure to relate to other people justly and properly and a failure to imagine what their actions have done to other people and how they have damaged them. If prison is a place for people who have failed to relate humanely and justly, and is there to reform and restore the offender back to society, it follows that it should be a place where offenders learn how to relate humanely and justly. However, the question that hangs over the debate and all our prisons today is whether the prison experience diminishes or enlarges the offender’s potential to relate humanely and justly to others. Despite the excellent work done in the Prison Service and the third sector, I am afraid that it is simply not possible confidently to answer yes to that question. That is why we need a royal commission. Some of the most effective work that is being done in prison is in restorative justice. A small number of courses are already operating, including some run by the Chaplaincy Service. Restorative justice recognises that the crime does harm to a victim. It acknowledges that crime disrupts the network of duties and responsibilities between the offender, the victim and the community. Most importantly, it makes the offender face their offence, and in the process enables them to discover, or recover, their own humanity. It is where they begin to learn to relate humanely and justly. The weakness of the criminal justice system and the prison experience is that it depersonalises crime. The strength of the restorative justice process is that it repersonalises the crime by making the offender deeply aware of the human impact of their offence. A recent UK study of victims taking part in restorative justice revealed that 90 per cent wanted to tell their offender what impact the crime had had on them; 80 per cent wanted to be given reasons for, and answers about, what had happened; and 73 per cent wanted an apology. Not all victims want to come face to face with their offender. However, when the offender confronts his offence by facing his victim, it becomes a significant step in changing attitudes and behaviour. I hope that a royal commission would examine carefully the place of restorative justice in prisons as a pathway to reducing reoffending, which is a government priority. Well resourced programmes, widely available in all prisons, would ensure that prisons become places where offenders learn how to relate to others. There is little hope of a released offender relating humanely and not reoffending if, while in prison, they have been confirmed in their previous attitudes and patterns of behaviour. If prison diminishes the prisoner’s potential to relate humanely, as I believe it does at the moment, we cannot be surprised at the current rates of reoffending. If, on the other hand, prison were to enlarge the prisoner’s capacity to relate humanely to society, not only would we see a reduction in reoffending, but we could also rename the criminal justice system, much more hopefully, the ““restorative justice system””. I give the warmest support to the call of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for a royal commission.