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Tory prison plans are a pie in the sky

By John Hirst

Tory prison plans are a pie in the sky

Apparently if the Tories get into power, they say they will pay prison governors thousands of pounds in bonuses just for doing their jobs.

"Under the Conservatives' plans, each Governor would be responsible for either a single prison or a 'cluster' of local prisons and would be in charge of "end-to-end" offender management, both in and out of prison".

As it stands prison governors are already legally responsible for a single prison. And Area Managers are legally responsible for clusters of prisons. The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) is already legally responsible for end-to-end management of offenders both in custody and after release.

Part of a prison governor's job is to attempt to cut re-offending rates, and if he or she succeeds then they should be applauded. I fail to see the need to pay bonuses, these should only be for services above and beyond the call of duty. On the other hand, if a prison governor fails to do his or her job then staying in position is untenable.

Resources needed to run a prison should not be based upon whether a released prisoner re-offends within 2 years. If a released prisoner re-offends this is an indication that rehabilitation has failed in his or her case. The case needs to be examined to see if the failure could have been prevented, and what steps need to be taken to ensure that there is not a repeat failure.

NOMS already has "freedom to contract with charities, private companies and public sector organisations to provide pre- and post-release rehabilitation services". Once again the Tories plan to put in place something that already exists.

The government needs to look at the financial cutbacks affecting prisons. This means that prisoners have spent more time locked in their cells, and less time and opportunity to take part in reducing re-offending programmes.

Do we want Titan Prisons which will only serve to be huge human warehouses, or smaller more manageable prisons where rehabilitation is given a chance to work?

Full post as published by prisonlawinsideout on October 07, 2008 (boomark / email).