Cameron's Prison Reforms

[agchristie]

What do you think?

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/feb/08/cameron-give-more-power-governors-prisons-shakeup

[agchristie]

Cheers Sandy.

[sevenOP]

Cameron's speech

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/prison-reform-prime-ministers-speech

one analysis of it

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/02/david-camerons-prisons-speech-could-be-start-something-good

[EDDIE51]

How many of you who answered this thread have actually worked inside a jail as I have? Prison does not work !!. 75% of ALL prisoners even those on very short sentences NEVER work again , so strong is the bias against 'ex-cons'.
The Tories have spent years putting in ever more and more 'strict' ministers to supervise prisons. Only to see them 'Go Native' and demand reforms as soon as they have been in the job a few months and see the prison system for the catastrophic failure it is.
As many as 40% of prisoners are actually suffering from mental health problems and should be receiving treatment rather than being locked up. But of course it is so much cheaper just to lock them up !.
At least 50% of prisoners are either totally illiterate or so lacking in basic literacy that they are unemployable. Many are both mentally ill and illiterate . I was a tutor in adult literacy inside a prison.I have actually had 'hard' men weep when someone finally understood their problem and tried to help them read and write!
Do not condemn something you know little or nothing about!
Cameron went to visit a prison to see for himself what the problems were , he changed his attitude due to that visit and is now in favour of the reforms the successions of prison ministers have been telling him were desperately needed!

[agchristie]

Interesting stats and insight there Eddie.

What do we do about those who have been radicalised and should those convicted be kept together to prevent other vulnerable inmates?

[EDDIE51]

The main problem with prisons is the overcrowding. Prisoners living locked up 23 hours a day with 3 or even 4 men in a cell made for one. Prisons constructed 100 or 150 years ago with over double the number of inmates they were built to hold. Education almost eliminated in many prisons, due not to lack of tutors but to lack of warders to supervise them. Disgruntled prison staff forced to work many hours of overtime with booked leave cancelled at short notice due to staff shortages is another major problem.

[sevenOP]

Overcrowding - you got it on the head Eddie

"Chris Grayling closed 18 prisons and wings, reallocating the population into the shrunk estate. He cut prison staff by more than a third in each prison. " - from Spectator link, but not a mention or it as a contemporary problem of long standing in Cameron's speech.

A new prison building programme to replace all old prisons not built for modern era and those built with designed expansion and contraction capabilities is key to initiating solutions.

[EDDIE51]

^^ Yes exactly. The prisons closed were so bad they were condemned as unfit for use.
There was supposed to be a building program to replace them, but spending cuts saw that scrapped.