Memorandum submitted by The Prison Governors Association

WELSH PRISONERS IN THE PRISON ESTATE

1 Introduction

1.1 The Prison Governors Association is the professional voice of prison governor grades throughout the United Kingdom. Members include almost all in charge Governors and their governor grade deputies and assistants. Above establishment level, 100% of Area Managers choose to be members, as does the Deputy Director General of the Prison Service.

1.2 I, Paul Tidball, have been President of the Association since September 2006, and so it is appropriate that I am the one to present this evidence. Coincidentally, however, I was Governor of HMP Cardiff from July 2003 to October 2006 and, immediately prior to that, Governor of HMP Drake Hall, a womens prison in Staffordshire which housed a significant number of Welsh women. This history qualifies me to speak with particular knowledge and experience of issues relating to Welsh prisoners.

1.3 I have had sight of the NOMS evidence to the Committee.

1.4 Prison Governors are senior civil servants responsible for delivering whatever is Home Office policy for prisons. This we do, responsibly and loyally, and any challenge we make as Governors in prisons is always a matter between us and the Service alone. The PGA however does not restrict itself in this way. Though a responsible and supportive organisation we do have serious concerns about some central issues, and it is not unusual for them to mirror those of the Service. We are glad to have the opportunity to share them with you.

2 Concerns and analysis

2.1 First of these is the population. One of the key assumptions of the Carter Report was that the prison population would be expected to peak at 80000 in 2008. You will know that we are there already, two years before. There may be a number of reasons for that. One, no doubt, is that political parties have identified that there are few votes in being seen to be anything but tough on crime. Successive pieces of legislation mean, each time, more use of imprisonment. Almost all of the press applaud this direction of travel and so presumably therefore do the readers and voters. Sentencers are pilloried only if they are perceived to be too lenient, and media focus is always upon the serious offender who isn't held in prison for long enough. Few are interested or are aware probably that minor offenders occupy a substantial proportion of expensive prison places. (See NOMS breakdown for theft and handling and drugs cases in prison).

2.2 In 1991 when the prison population averaged 66300, the contract for Britain's first privately run prison was signed. Aside from important and continuing argument that deprivation of liberty and powers to punish and coerce are as much the appropriate preserve of directly accountable public servants as policing and national defence, we were warned at the time that, as in USA before us, a powerful commercial lobby with a vested interest in a higher prison population would develop. 15 years on, 10% of British prisoner places (far more in Wales) are in the hands of the private sector, and the population talked up to 80000.

2.3 NOMS is a product of the Carter Report. The PGA fails to perceive its added value. It certainly costs! We do not have a figure for its overall budget, though a PQ on the subject would be pertinent. We do know that its first conference cost £250,000 and that the Regional Offender Managers Offices alone cost somewhere between 12 and 15 million pounds a year (as much as a prison) and the cost of a headquarters with several hundred staff will dwarf that figure. Its main and best product is Offender Management; but, as we have offered elsewhere, Governors and Chief Officers would commit to implementing the same in exchange for the budget for the NOMS bureaucracy, for investment at the front line; just as Prison and Probation Area Managers, Governors and Chief Officers would be able to carry forward the partnership elements of the work (as they were doing rather well pre-NOMS)

2.4 Women prisoners have a greater chance than men of being in prisons an excessive distance from home. This is far from being Wales-specific. For example, a woman from Cornwall is likely to be further from home than any from Wales. It is nonetheless an issue, particularly where women are primary carers and in intact family units; and it is known that success or otherwise of resettlement is an important influence on future conduct. Though some individuals do benefit from the period of comparative stability which prison offers, it makes little sense generally to uproot often minor offenders and disrupt their lives by dispatching them to another region, or country, at considerable cost to the taxpayer. That said, if all Welsh women were housed in and restricted to a Welsh prison, they would be disadvantaged by not having access to the diversity of regime provision offered by the number of English prisons which cater for them currently; a potential issue for women serving long sentences especially.

2.5 Welsh Language Almost inevitably enthusiasm for and commitment to promoting the language is greatest in those prisons holding the most Welsh speaking prisoners. This is likely to be a reflection of parallel representation of staff who speak Welsh. It is reported to us that the Welsh Language Board can be surprisingly unresponsive to our needs and that there is a case for more pro-active support from WLB.

3 Opportunity Wales

3.1 An 80,000 prisoner population means UK is locking up a larger percentage of its population certainly than anywhere else in Europe and we believe a lower percentage only than in USA. This is not a matter for pride; more perhaps an indication of a failing society, and certainly depressing. And the response to the latest population crisis .... is to do more of it. And it's not because crime is going up; the reverse is the case. Toughness on crime has taken precedence. It would be unfair to accuse the Government of having done nothing about the causes of crime, but few would claim what has been achieved is nearly enough. Enough may never happen, and to achieve the sort of changes which will bear down on first-offending will be a long haul. Meanwhile, we have the challenge of reducing the future offending of those already in the system.

3.2 Wales has not nearly enough prison cells to accommodate Welsh men, women and young offenders. The public sector prisons there are take great pride in having led the UK in performance over recent years. Cardiff and Usk have even handed first place back and forth to each other within the past two years. Community chaplaincy and plumber training at Swansea, and SORI Restorative justice at Cardiff are examples of the ground-breaking initiatives being pioneered in Wales The privately-run prison is one of the better performers in its sector (though HM Chief Inspector of Prisons was critical over a broad range of issues earlier this year). We start from a fairly strong base therefore. It is important though not to go overboard with liberal provision of new prison places. Wales has the opportunity to take an alternative approach, and to bring initiative and flair into non-custodial sentences. Drug rehabilitation programmes in prison, where they exist, are successful. If there were more of them outside in the communities, there would be less need to resort to a prison sentence for the heroin addict whose offences are no more heinous than shoplifting or petty fraud committed in an act of desperation to fund a devastating addiction. For women especially, provision in their own communities of hostel or sheltered housing to help them re-establish themselves, and drop-in day centres for the support of the less needy surely would be a better investment than more prisons than we have (or even as many as we do).

3.3 Prison Governors are as firm about protection of the public coming first as are members of the communities we serve; and that commitment to reducing rates of re-offending takes precedence each working day, but we look forward with hope to the return of sanity in sentencing, with imprisonment being reserved for those whose threat is serious enough to justify their removal from society and the rest given enhanced support in their communities and the opportunity and requirement to begin to contribute to them.

3.4 One senses that Wales might have an appetite for devolvement of all criminal justice functions and also for breaking away from traditional, often bankrupt methods; and a devolved Justice Ministry and Commissioner might be the vehicle for Wales to lead the way.

3.5 Meanwhile, when or if a new prison is built in Wales, the PGA seeks your support in assuring that, unlike the last time, the Prison Service is enabled to bid for its management. Construction is for the private sector. Running prisons is for a Service; and one described this week by the Home Office Permanent Secretary as brilliantly managed.

November 2006