The appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister is a hopeful signal that Labour plans to take a socially liberal, reformist approach to criminal justice, placing more emphasis on rehabilitation and less on punishment. That would be very welcome. Mr Timpson runs what he calls a “paternalistic family business”, the Timpson group of shoe repair and key-cutting shops. About 10% of his workforce are former prisoners, and Mr Timpson appears eager to get stuck into the huge challenges of overcrowding, high reoffending rates and failed reintegration.
There is no argument about the severity of the current crisis. Jails in England and Wales are 99% full, and release dates have been brought forward repeatedly to relieve pressures. In May, the governor of HMP Wandsworth resigned following a highly critical inspection. Last year a prisoner escaped from Wandsworth; more recently a prison officer was charged with misconduct in public office after a video appeared to show her having sex with a prisoner in a cell.
Not all prisons are in as desperate a state as Wandsworth. But nor do the sector’s problems stop at the prison gates. Delays in the courts have a huge knock-on effect. Currently, about 16,000 of the total prison population of 87,000 are on remand, waiting to be tried. These delays impede justice, and are unfair to defendants as well as victims and witnesses. But if the logjam eases and the volume of cases being heard goes up, prisoner numbers will climb higher still.
Another set of problems relates to what happens when prisoners are released. The probation service has a key role in both rehabilitation and public safety, and the privatisation overseen by Chris Grayling was a disaster. But renationalisation has not led to improvement, with one recent report concluding that the service has “if anything got worse”. Last month, an inquest jury ruled that failures by both the prison and probation services contributed to the brutal murder of Zara Aleena by a prisoner on licence.
Sir Keir Starmer has attacked the last government’s “monumental failure” to provide enough prison places for the record number of people being sent to jail. One proposal to the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, has been for the closure of a women’s prison so that it can be converted for men. In the short term, though, ministers face unpalatable choices, given the shortage of adequate community punishment and supervision options.
Mr Timpson is a role model as an employer. Other businesses could learn from his approach. But the problems facing him and Ms Mahmood go beyond jobs. Some lie outside the remit of the Prison Service, for example failings in mental health and addiction services that are among the causes of crime. But there are internal problems too. Labour has committed to a review of probation, with a view to deciding whether local government should have a greater role. Another challenge is the relationship between the justice ministry and the Prison Service, and the extent to which policymakers are informed by on-the-ground knowledge.
Boosting probation capacity and developing new employment and training options will take time. But unlike building more prison places, these are measures that look beyond the short-term requirement for punishment, and recognise that once jail time has been served, people must be equipped to do something else with their lives.
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