.png)
3 hours ago
9
The independent review of prisons led by Amber Rudd is right to confront the drugs, violence, overcrowding and deteriorating conditions affecting our prisons (Drugs, drones and heat: Amber Rudd and David Lammy begin search for answers to prisons crisis. 12 July). It is critical that the review does not lose sight of its remit to strengthen rehabilitation and reduce the likelihood of people returning to prison after release.
Education is one of the most effective tools available. A recent Ministry of Justice analysis of more than 4,500 prison learners found that those who studied with The Open University were 22% less likely to reoffend within a year of release than comparable prisoners who did not study. They also committed 37% fewer offences.
That means fewer victims, safer communities and lower costs to the public purse. Yet overcrowding, staff shortages and long periods spent locked in cells make it increasingly difficult for prisoners to learn. Access to digital educational materials remains limited, while restrictions on student finance prevent many prisoners from beginning higher education until they are within six years of release.
The review should put rehabilitation through education at the heart of its recommendations. This means protecting time for all forms of education, expanding secure digital access, widening access for prisoners on remand, removing unnecessary student finance restrictions and ensuring that learners can continue their studies after release.
Prison education works. At a time when reoffending is costing the country billions of pounds and prisons are under intolerable pressure, we cannot afford to treat it as an optional extra.
Prof Ian Pickup
Pro-vice-chancellor (students), The Open University
The deputy prime minister and justice secretary, David Lammy, wrote in a letter in 2021 that the failure to abolish the imprisonment for public protection (IPP) prison sentence retrospectively was “a grave injustice”. He was right.
Yet as Lammy continues the search for long-term solutions for the Prison Service, drawing up policies aimed at tackling underlying problems such as drugs, weapons and gang activity, he, like many other politicians who have come before him, is neglecting the unresolved scandal of IPP sentences.
More than a decade after IPP sentences were abolished, thousands remain subject to a sentence deemed as “irredeemably flawed” by the Commons justice committee and as “the greatest single stain on our criminal justice system” by the former supreme court justice Lord Brown.
A prison review worthy of the name cannot ignore the most glaring unresolved injustice in the system. If ministers believe that the continued operation of IPP sentences is unjust, and also want to reform prisons, they should consider a resentencing exercise for IPP prisoners.
The question is not whether the injustice exists. David Lammy has already answered that. The question is whether this government is prepared to do something about it.
Henry Rossi
Bristol
Frances Crook (Letters, 13 July) makes clear three good reasons for earlier release from prison. A fourth should be added – obvious but not to be ignored. Earlier release makes some small difference to the grim effect of prison overcrowding. Prison overcrowding is very damaging to the safety of prisoners and prison staff, to any attempts within prison to prepare prisoners for release, to the morale of prison staff and prisoners and their families, and to the public purse. Frances Crook offers to help government find the radical change which is needed. Her offer should be accepted.
Andrew RC McLellan
Former HM chief inspector of prisons for Scotland
Building more prisons to solve the prisons crisis is a sad and totally inadequate response to complicated problems. Amber Rudd says she will take lessons from success stories elsewhere, but as long as prisons themselves set the parameters of the policy, they are likely to fail. A wiser approach can be found in the advice of Julius Tandler, a Jewish academic associated with the imaginative social developments in 1930s Red Vienna: “He who builds children’s palaces tears down prison walls.” It is complicated, but the truths in those words are too easily forgotten.
Dr Rod Earle
Associate fellow, school of health, wellbeing and social care, the Open University
