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Prisons

My Lords, I shall do my best. This debate of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, could not be more timely or important and I thank him for it. The state of our prisons today is a tragedy for those imprisoned. The overcrowding is now 9,000 over the maximum capacity and rising, and the necessary regimes and services to provide for their needs are thus seriously undermined. Evidence abounds of severe cuts in training, education and mental health services and of other services being unable to meet the ever-growing need—I have had the most terrible briefing from the BMA on its concern—and suicides are rising. The catalogue is frightening. It is a tragedy for the prison staff who have to work in these conditions, where it is a miracle that things have not already collapsed, and it is impossible for them to do their job as they should and could. It is a tragedy for the families outside, where tens of thousands of children lose a parent to prison every year and become more likely as a result to become involved in the criminal justice system. And it is a tragedy for each and every one of us in society today, where reoffending is between two-thirds and three-quarters, where people do not feel safe or confident in our prisons or the criminal justice system, and where we are all being diminished as a society in the process. Extraordinarily, while we imprison more people than any other country in Europe, and criminalise young offenders in particular, the Government response is to commission more of the same at a cost of billions. This includes $2.3 billion for the Titan prisons, which all the evidence shows are the antithesis of what should be done to create a humane, effective prison system. The Government pay lip service to the importance and effectiveness of community penalties while requiring cuts over three years in the budget of the Probation Service, which manages these offenders in the community. The £40 million allocated earlier this year to the service is matched by these budgetary cuts, thus making the government support a chimera. I chair a £4 million initiative called Rethinking Crime and Punishment which has for seven years been looking in depth at the uses of custody and its alternatives. Our manifesto, which is launched here next week, strongly supports, on the evidence, community penalties for all but the most violent, dangerous and prolific offenders, for whom prison is clearly necessary. This means reallocating those billions to community alternatives where reoffending is significantly lower, damage is reduced, prisons can do their job and, above all, society is safer. I entirely support the call of the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, for a royal commission on prisons. It would give an opportunity to stand back from an issue that has become so politicised and distorted, so driven by events and short-term advantage and concerns about appearing soft on crime, and instead to look dispassionately at what we really want from our criminal justice system. It could make recommendations in a strictly evidence-based, thoroughly researched and thoughtful way at arm’s length from government. Some noble Lords may remember a precedent; it has already been referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Low. It was not exactly a royal commission but an advisory council on the treatment of offenders which was set up in 1966 and produced some seminal reports. Its members included the great Baronesses, Lady Serota and Lady Wootton. It gave rise, inter alia, to community service, which was carefully implemented through pilot schemes. Sentencers and the community were both involved before the scheme was rolled out nationally. A royal commission should, of course, carefully select its expert members and have a well focused remit. We would all benefit from such an exercise. In the midst of all the detailed argument, I want to bring us back to the fundamental thinking which we need now by quoting the inimitably eloquent words of a Liberal Churchill in 1910. He said: "““The mood and temper of the public in regard to the treatment of crime and criminals is one of the most unfailing tests of the civilisation of any country. A calm and dispassionate recognition of the rights of the accused against the state, and even of convicted criminals against the state, a constant heart-searching by all charged with the duty of punishment, a desire and eagerness to rehabilitate in the world of industry all those who have paid their dues in the hard coinage of punishment, tireless efforts towards the discovery of curative and regenerating processes, and an unfaltering faith that there is a treasure, if only you can find it, in the heart of every man—these are the symbols which in the treatment of crime and criminals mark and measure the stored-up strength of a nation, and are the sign and proof of the living virtue in it””." The quality of our civilisation, the strength of our nation and the living virtue in it are indeed being put to the test. We must not fail it.