LONG-TERM PRISON SENTENCES

HL Deb 17 February 1971 vol 315 cc591-604

3.0 p.m.

THE LORD BISHOP OF DURHAM rose to call attention to the problems raised for both prisons and prisoners by long-term prison sentences, and in particular to the conditions under which such sentences are served; and to move for Papers. The right reverend Prelate said: My Lords, as I begin to speak to the Motion in my name on the Order Paper, may I express the hope that the distance at which this debate follows the one initiated by the noble Lord, Lord Stonham, last December is a proper measure of the respect, albeit affectionate respect, and admiration which we all have for the noble Lord's concern with prisoners and their reform. At the same time, I hope that by focusing on a particular area of concern it will be a useful supplement to his debate in which, unfortunately, I could not join because I was in Jamaica. I need hardly say that I bring to this debate no long experience, no long years of study in this subject; but I should like at the outset to acknowledge my gratitude to the Governor and staff of Durham Prison for the facilities which they offered me and for their patience with my inquiries.

Why did I put down this Motion for debate? The answer is simple. It was because I realised that following our decision on hanging we are likely to have a far greater number of long-term prisoners than heretofore. The abolition of hanging, like all moral reforms, brings with it consequential moral problems, problems not to be ignored but to be faced all the more resolutely. What are we doing about the increasing number of prisoners who now receive long-term sentences? The matter is more urgent when we note, as was pointed out in a recent article in New Society, the increasing tendency of judges to incorporate in their sentences 'recommendations' for a minimum term of anything up to 30 years. (The cases of Harry Roberts and the Kray brothers are just well-known examples).

The article continued: …fixed sentences of over 14 years are increasing (the train robbers, the Richardson gang)"—

to take no other examples. So, The 40,000 prisoners now in English jails include a rapidly growing number of men who face very long sentences.

There were altogether about 1,100 prisoners in 1969 serving sentences of 10 years or more. To gain some idea of the growing problem—we may talk about "humps" and "plateaus" and the rest if we wish to be more particular—we may recall that at the end of 1958, 139 prisoners were serving life sentences; by 1963 there were 329 and by 1968 there were almost 600.

What, now, are the problems for prisons and prisoners that these long-term sentences involve? Under what conditions do they serve these sentences? For the sake of clarity we must recall that my phrase "long-term prisoners" covers prisoners in what are known as categories A and B. Category A prisoners are prisoners whose escape would be highly dangerous to the public or to the police or to the security of the state.

I am quoting from the publication, People in Prison. These number somewhat under half of those with whom this Motion is concerned. To quote further from that same publication: Almost all convicted category A prisoners are serving sentences of 10 years and over, and about 40 per cent. are serving life sentences. They are not a homogeneous group in other respects. They include one or two spies, and a considerable number of professional criminals, most with violent records, some of whom have associates outside who might be willing to help an escape. About one-third are dangerous sexual offenders whose escape would endanger the public but who present no particular threat while in custody.

Category B are prisoners for whom the very highest conditions of security are not necessary but for whom escape must be made very difficult. Of these two categories I shall be rather more concerned with category A, but most of my remarks will apply to both.

What, then, are the problems of these men? The basic difficulty is psychological, personal and spiritual, or all three according to taste. How do we, in the words of the well-known Rule 1 of the Prison Rules 1964 … encourage and assist them to lead a good and useful life"?

Common to all these prisoners is their fear of deterioration. A specific case was quoted by two members of a research project, Stanley Cohen and Laurie Taylor, writing in New Society, in the article to which I have already referred: Roy recalls how some screws tried to reassure him on these grounds when he arrived in the wing to start his 25 year sentence: Look at Jones', they said, pointing to the top landing, 'He's been in for nearly 20 years and he's perfectly content.' Roy would not accept this consolation: 'How could I know if he was content? Anyway, what is he content about?'. Like other long-term prisoners, Roy had a continuous fear of psychological deterioration—a deterioration which was particularly appalling because it would creep up on him without his awareness, to become apparent when he was released. The long-term prisoners all feel like this. One evening they all sat discussing the future programme for the class. The regular group was trying to decide when would be the best date for the class. 'Well, Stan's here on Friday', said Paul. 'Monday', said Roy; To-day's Friday, you're going.' I'm not—anybody could make that mistake. My mother gets the days mixed. There's nothing special about that.' The incident is trivial, but it is enough to indicate the continual watching for deterioration, and the concern about not becoming obsessional—about not becoming like the old sex offender who spends hours merely cleaning and filling the teapot.' This problem of a man's deterioration is one which standard psychological tests do little to reveal: it is something rather concerned with the thoughts and fears that men have inwardly, as we would say.

I well realise that at this point some (not of your Lordships but perhaps some outside) will say, "But this is surely what prisons ought to be like." Further, let the deplorable and appalling conditions in prisons be publicised outside as much as possible; posters outside banks and outside football grounds"—a correspondent in The Times said as much some months ago. "Here would be a wonderful deterrent". My own view, as your Lordships may guess, is utterly opposed to that attitude. I agree with what is said in the publication People in Prison: The deterrent effect of imprisonment lies in the loss of liberty it involves, and in the restrictions inherent in any prison régime. There is no reason to suppose that it would be made more effective by reverting to such barbarities as the treadmill. On the contrary, measures designed to preserve and enhance a man's dignity and self-respect are most likely to assist in his rehabilitation. In other words, prisons themselves, in restricting liberty, effect their punishment; that being secured, there must then be every opportunity to help a man to preserve his dignity and self-respect.

The same two requirements, the same two variables in the one function, are mentioned in the introduction to an account of our first psychiatric prison—Grendon Underwood—published in a hook called The Frying-Pan by Tony Parker. We read: Small maximum-security units, in remote and inaccessible parts of the country, from which the inmates cannot and do not escape"—

the one necessity; and then they: … can therefore allow a humane and permissive régime within. That is the other feature. As a background to this view I would refer briefly to Sir Walter Moberly, who argues in his book, The Ethics of Punishment, that punishment cannot rid itself of an ethical element which, he says—to my mind rightly—it must "symbolise". Only then does punishment cease to be a mere menace: Its moral quality—that which raises it out of the category of mere menace and makes it truly 'punishment'—lies just in that symbolic reference. When there is wrongdoing there is moral deterioration in the wrongdoer himself; and from the moral standpoint of society that evil-doing of one of its members calls for a counter activity. But society cannot rightly remain indifferent or inactive. For that reason punishment comes to have restrictive and reformatory overtones. In brief, what we do in our prisons must reflect both our opposition to crime on the one hand and our moral evaluation of personality on the other.

There was a day when, I regret to say, even with the support of theology, prisons were intended, by their conditions of silence and oppression, to bring about penitence for wrongdoing. The cell was supposed to be a cubicle providing the very conditions in which men got rid of what would have been called their moral disease so as to be fit again for a normal life. As the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, remarked in that earlier debate: It is significant that there appears to be nobody wishing … to voice the old view that one should make prisons as uncomfortable and as horrible as possible because that would deter people from ever risking coming back to them. That is a view, current in the 19th century, which has now been rejected. It was found that the effect of that kind of régime was to brutalise rather than to deter."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2/12/70, col. 576.]

What we must recognise, my Lords, is that the earlier view was both too naïve and also too negative a view of humanity; and, if I may say so, of the Christian Gospel as well. What we have to do is to provide prisons with the security that they must have to restrict the freedom of serious offenders; and then, secondly, with conditions inside which reflect the evaluation of personality which characterises society at its best. People are sent to prison as a punishment, not for punishment. They are sent to prison for restoration. And so in the case of long-term prisoners we come back to the problem: how do we express both the disapproval—the moral judgment—of society on the crime and also the moral ideal which society has for humanity?

My Lords, I make no apology whatever for bringing together in this way the law and morality, for those who object to this link—to what perhaps they would call a moralistic view of punishment—do not, I believe, reject the moral appraisal which I have given, though they do reject what they would regard as outdated moral views. And what now, in practice, matches these background reflections? How far do they illuminate the problem which prisons and prisoners have with long-term sentences? First, in the matter of prison buildings and prison staffs undoubtedly there must be security. The publication, People in Prison, shows one security control centre with closed circuit television; but it prompted one reader at least—myself—to ask, "But how many more prisons have that amenity?". For I should guess that many prisons are woefully out of date regarding making use of modern technical developments in this field.

What is the alternative? It is the locking, unlocking and locking again of innumerable doors, with the chains to which the keys are attached clanging against the very metal of the doors. The image, for prisoner or visitor, is inevitably of people being caged in. My experience, such as it is, supports the authors of the New Society article when they say that top security wings are "relatively clean, warm and well-equipped"; though it is only fair to say that they add, "by British standards anyway". But some provisions for security can undoubtedly be psychologically oppressive. The exercise yard may have a most inviting tennis court painted on the tarmac; but if it is small, the players are more likely to be overwhelmed by the outer high brick wall and the inner chain link fence with coiled barbed wire at the top. I assure you, my Lords, that that would not be the easiest environment in which to experience the self-releasing thrill of a game of tennis.

Secondly, the other view of what prisons were for was matched by the view which the prison officers took of their jobs; which was largely that of keeping a constant or suspicious eye on the prisoner. But as our views of prisons and punishment change, so our view of the work of a prison officer must change; and we should expect them, as many do, to begin to see the social significance of their work and the need to help, and not only to inspect, the prisoner. At the same time, we must recognise, with a sympathetic understanding of the prison officer's difficulties, that there is almost inevitably a tension between these different attitudes and approaches. When, for some reason, that tension becomes unbearable fear can predominate, and we have prison officers uniting unanimously in resolutions against hanging. Let it be granted that the immediate physical conditions of category A prisoners are far better than those of other prisoners. That, of course, is to say very little; but let it be granted that their single rooms can be intrinsically attractive. But the wider context is often one of extreme restriction. When I saw in one prison room two budgerigars in a cage, I dared not ask whether the birds were ever allowed the freedom to fly around the room. It was almost significant that the birds never sang.

So we come to the prisoners themselves. If we are to prevent their present dissolution, if there is to be any chance of rehabilitation and restoration, two conditions are surely necessary: first, they must have the opportunity to learn creative relations with other people, and, second, they must be helped to find themselves. They must rediscover their identity. In this matter the profession of religious beliefs or the acceptance of some dominant ideal will be of great help. But what, in the event, do we find?

First, a word about visitors. A prisoner in a security wing commented that even when they have the satisfaction of work, if there are no visitors, "some part of you is missing." "Visitors," he said, "keep you human." But there are extraordinary difficulties about visiting. I recognise that from the nature of the case many of the visitors themselves will have criminal records and tendencies, but does that mean we are to deprive prisoners of the only friends they have? The wife of a prisoner, who was herself serving a prison sentence, was unable to visit her husband in custody, because, ironically it seems to me, she was not serving a long enough prison sentence. Further, I can appreciate what lies behind the requirement of photographs and the various precautions before visits are agreed. But it would seem that there is a head-on conflict between security requirements and the welfare of the prisoners, and the sooner security is reliably provided so that regulations can be relaxed, the better it will be all round. Ought not someone to take a long, cool look at visiting arrangements?

Secondly, there are problems arising from relations with fellow prisoners. Top security wings in a general prison do not make for a good atmosphere in the prison as a whole; the inmates are the aristocracy, and they are known to be so. But among long-term prisoners themselves there are fundamental difficulties. Take the case of those who have committed offences against children. I quote from a recent article in the TV Times about such a prisoner. If he's never been inside before, he knows he's in for it from that first cup of cocoa. Two hours before the judge had given him 14 years for an offence against a child. And there he was in the prison reception with 13 years 364 days and 22 hours stretching ahead of him like a great black smog. Had he been lucky he might have been taken to a special unit at a place like Grendon Hall or Shepton Mallet. If he's lucky later on—maybe in a year or 18 months—he might still get there. But right now he is in an ordinary prison with ordinary criminals. The article continues: He might as well be a skinned rabbit flung into a pool of piranha fish. If he hasn't already had a sly kick in the groin in the van that brought him and the others from the court-house, he'll know his fate when he gets that first cup of cocoa. There will almost certainly be salt in it, or someone's spittle. A taste of what they think of him, and what they are going to do to him, a surly overture to 14 years of viciousness and degradation during which a group of human beings can purge their own misery by taking it out on him. Even when things are quiet, when there is no immediate physical persecution, the child offender is totally ostracised. He can't ask anyone to play him a game of draughts, for example. If he tries to strike up a chat with someone they'll spit in his face and turn their backs. The article continues: The only hope they have is the prison chaplain or priest. He is about the only type of person they can approach for some kind of human response. And it concludes: To put sexual offenders in ordinary prisons is about the worst running torture that man can devise against another. Especially as they are not really criminals. They are sick men and should be treated as such.

Here is another nest of problems, and apart from the need for closer analysis it would seem that there will be no solution until we have faced searching questions about the best distribution of prisoners, a major reorganisation of our prisons and fundamental rethinking about the size of our prisons and their physical construction. How far, I ask, when prisons are built are there roundtable conferences between architects, prison staffs, social workers and the rest?

Thirdly, undoubtedly the possibility of doing satisfying work in prison is of immense help in keeping a man from deterioration. But here, too, the matter is not without its problems. From what I can judge from talking to prisoners there is little that is satisfying about mailbag work. More satisfying work is handicraft, decorative iron-work, cooking, the study of symbolic logic, and not least a service for society in providing Braille books. But the more satisfaction the work gives and can give, the more the question occurred to me: how does this fit into a planned programme for the man? Here is a man studying symbolic logic, who can draw the specific of an article. I was bound to wonder, to what purpose? Is it part of a planned career for this man's future? Is there a planned programme? More important, does the plan work out?

Merely to offer a man constant changes of work, making them more akin to a temporary hobby, and even changes of prison, within the context of a sentence which in his mind is entirely indeterminate, is in itself unsettling and, far from helping to strengthen his moral fibre, tends to weaken it. A long-term prisoner told me just that, though he was appreciative of the work given to him and of the help it gave him.

We have noted earlier how significant a profession of faith can be in the circumstances of a prison and how the sheer loneliness of a man can often be helped by the chaplain's ministry. Should not a much more explicit provision be made for prison worship in top security wings? Of course, chaplains visit security wings. But, so far as I am aware—though I may well be wrong—there are no services held there. Prisoners cannot leave the security wing to attend religious services. But I wonder how impossible this is as a security risk. Could not those who wished it go, say, in tight custody once a month? Alternatively, could there not be a chapel in the security wing? Durham prison used once to have its security wing chapel, but when it was smashed up by the men themselves it was never refurnished. I have made the suggestion to the Governor that the prisoners who wish for a chapel might be encouraged to furnish it themselves. Let not past errors make impossible a different view!

Speaking more generally, if long-term prisoners are to be helped, must we not recognise the need to look at them individually? Two men with the same record, the same crime and the same sentence may react utterly differently to a life sentence. I realise that there is already a classification exercise at the start of a prisoner's career. But I should like to suggest that this reception interview needs to be far more thorough and far wider in its range, which should embrace remedial teaching and vocational training with an eye to present needs and future expectations, keeping a man from deteriorating inside prison, and equipping him for life outside. This naturally means that we need far more people to do this diagnostic work. Yet without this, how can we ever be sure that we are in fact encouraging a prisoner, in the words of Rule 1, to lead a good and useful life?

Not only are systems of parole vital for all prisoners, they are, I suggest, of the highest possible importance for long-term prisoners who need a proportionately long, slow and progressive return to the outside world. I once myself experienced a period of eight months in hospital and I can still recall what a profound shock it was for the first few weeks to return to the normal interchange of common life. How much more shock to a man after 10 years in prison? Do we not need, in the case of long-term prisoners, more novel pre-release schemes, extending over years, which will help people to adjust to the many problems which lie before them when they leave prisons? Is it not in this context that the question of marital intercourse can best be arranged? For let us recognise that of a sample taken of 45 prisoners, only one marriage, it would seem, had lasted beyond these years of separation. Do we not need to extend the hostel scheme? Could there not be half-way houses, perhaps quarter-way houses or even eighth-way houses, to be used as guidance centres? I recall that the Prison Department in Chicago as part of its prerelease schemes takes accommodation in the Y.M.C.A. The next question I address to myself. Is there here possibly a use for large redundant vicarages? I am sure that my colleagues on this Bench can take up this question. If we are not prepared to make these experiments, or say that we cannot afford them, do we not ourselves stand condemned by the very prisoners whom we have sentenced? Punishment must never itself fail when judged by the same moral criteria on which it is based.

I should like to conclude with four broad reflections and suggestions. First of all, like all of us, I am well aware that there is an immense need for educating public opinion, and fresh evidence of that need will no doubt come in the letters of abuse that some of us will receive when the postal strike is over. There must be a change of attitude towards prisons as there has already been towards schools and hospitals. If not all of us, many of us recall the days when schools were places of segregation. When I think of my own primary school, woe betide the parent who dared cross the threshold! It was worse for her or him than for the boys or girls. In hospitals, patients were incarcerated; and the old comparison between mental hospitals and prisons is too painfully familiar to need development.

I know that there are important differences between prisons and hospitals, as between hospitals and schools. But all three are concerned alike with the well being of man in society. It is high time that projects were mounted for the better education of the public in all matters to do with prisons and prisoners. Walls of security there undoubtedly must be. But there must be no walls preventing understanding, discussion, influence and concern. Here mass media could play an important part, not least one which in the case of long-term prisoners gave the whole question a balanced treatment rather than an atmosphere of exciting notoriety. I need not ask your Lordships what most people know about the County of Durham, or Durham City, in particular. It would not be the cathedral, magnificent though it is; and it would not even be the prison: it would be one part of the prison. Yet in that prison there is a strong group of the Church of England Men's Society. But it stops short of the security wing.

Secondly, I do not doubt that the whole question of staffing, and especially the inter-relationship of the various services, needs a thorough consideration and radical re-thinking, not least the relation between prison officers and probation and welfare officers, if we are ever to integrate, as is wholly desirable, facilities in prison and the outside world. I appreciate the enormous difficulties under which our prison officers work at present. In some ways their unsettlement is only paralleled, so far as I can see, by the unsettlement in the Christian ministry. But I also sense a certain incoherence in our prison structures. Is it too much to hope that this and much else might be the subject of a high-powered inquiry?

Next I make a suggestion that would involve little financial expenditure, though it would not be spectacular and its chief demand would be time. In some ways it links together my first and second broad points. I think it would me invaluable if arrangements could be made for there to be at various centres throughout the country regular meetings of those concerned with the prisons and the welfare of the prisoners—judges, magistrates, lawyers, police, social workers, probation officers, medical officers, prison officers and so on—who would speak quite frankly of the difficulties they find in the present situation and discuss what might be done to meet some of the problems that I have aired and which will be aired in this debate to-day.

I am sure that the Church would do all they could to provide the machinery for bringing such groups together. I am under no apprehension that it would be easy. The writer of The Frying-Pan says quite frankly in Chapter 14 of his book: Almost without exception the doctors and medical staff of Grendon disagreed with my being given permission by the Home Office to go there. The idea of a writer staying day after day, week after week and month after month, and talking to whom he liked about what he wished, was not acceptable; and before my arrival they agreed among themselves they were going to give me neither approval nor co-operation. Fortunately, one doctor was exceptional and he remarked: We perpetually question ourselves, and it's right that other people should perpetually question us.

That, my Lords, is what I am suggesting.

Lastly, as I have thought about the problems of prisons and prisoners, I have come to the conclusion that probably no idea or suggestion in this area would be entirely new. We already have the in-service training of prison officers; there is work for prisoners; there are reception interviews and selection categories; in one prison at least closed-circuit television is used for security. It might be said, "What more do we want? Do not our prisons and prison services give evidence of excellent ideas?" But almost without exception these ideas seem to stop short of practical fulfilment, and seem to be stultified in practice, as when men allotted to training centres in fact never arrive there.

In the earlier debate, a reference was made to "experiments" at Bristol and Norwich. Not being present at the debate, I turned excitedly to Hansard. Here might be some spectacular enterprise. But what did I find? It was this: In 1963, the annual conference of the Prison Officers' Association endorsed a resolution which rejected the 'turnkey' image of the prison officer and called for him to play a positive role in the rehabilitative aspects of a prisoner's treatment and training." —[OFFICIAL REPORT, 2/12/70; col. 631.] This is obviously important, but had we to wait until 1963 for that? Is this obviously desirable and sensible development only an experiment? I could scarcely believe my eyes. I am in no way belittling what is being done. All I am saying is that to an outsider it seems that excellent ideas often lack thoroughness and thrust. One has the feeling that despite all the good ideas—and the many good ideas—there is nobody with sufficient authority, power and incisiveness to ensure their thorough, practical implementation, and I do not think it is always a naughty Treasury.

My Lords, I hope that I have shown some of the concerns that moved me to put this Motion on the Order Paper, and despite the length of this speech I have done no more in this complicated and intricate topic than to peg out the field for debate. I know that I shall be grateful to succeeding speakers who take these and many other problems further in that critical and responsible way which characterises the debates in your Lordships' House. I beg to move for Papers.