PRISON REFORM

HL Deb 12 June 1974 vol 352 cc491-502

3.16 p.m.

THE EARL OF LONGFORD

rose to call attention to the prison situation and the need for reform; and to move for Papers. The noble Earl said: My Lords, I shall try to be relatively brief as there is a distinguished list of speakers to follow, and we shall be looking forward with special pleasure to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples. I am sorry that we shall not hear from the noble Lord, Lord Donaldson of Kingsbridge, because no one has done more for prisoners and ex-prisoners in the last 10 years than he has done. No one will accuse him of having opted out of this difficult field in order to do something a bit softer. In a sense, I wish that everyone could speak, because I am also sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Brooke of Cumnor, who took such tremendous trouble ar Home Secretary, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, who probably came closer in his relatively short period as Home Secretary to individual prisoners than any Home Secretary in my time, are not with us to-day. I am sorry that these and other noble Lords are not able to speak, but we have a very Good list.

Coming down to the House I was handed a telegram which said, "Bristol R.A.P." In case anybody does not know what that means, it means Radical Alternatives to Prison. It went on: Bristol R.A.P. urges you to follow in Wilberforce's footsteps and demand abolition of prisons, not reform in the Lords' debate. I should be proud and happy if I could honestly deliver that message to the House to-day. Nearly 20 years ago, I initiated the first debate ever held in this House on prisons. Since then I cannot remember any kind word I have ever said about the prison arrangements in this country. Prison, as I have said more than once—and many others would agree—is a rotten answer. But I cannot in conscience urge the Home Secretary, and the noble Lord who speaks for him, to get rid of prison totally until I and others can tell him, with our hands on our hearts, that we have something better to put in its place in all cases.

Sir Isaiah Berlin, in a famous lecture on Tolstoy, drew a distinction between the fox who knows many little things and the hedgehog who knows one big thing. I shall seek to emulate the hedgehog today, rather than the fox. Anyone who has been involved with prisons and prisoners—and that applies to many in this House—for a number of years is bound to have a great many individual cases of criticism and suggestions in his mind, and many issues that he would like to raise if time is available. By definition, life in prison contains elements of painfulness. There is something wrong with someone who actually enjoys incarceration. But prison is all too often more painful than it need be, to the frailty of those who organise it.

The great writer, Solzhenitsyn, after long experience of captivity, has announced, and I am quoting his words, "Prison was not all bad." Indeed, he actually blesses the prison. Again, these are his words, "for having been part of my life." But he hastens to add that he hears voices from the grave saying, "It is all right for you to talk. You have survived". Most prisoners are cast in a very different mould from Solzhenitsyn, as indeed most of us are. Prisoners need much more help than the average person, and they too often fail to receive it in spite of much dedicated labour and deep concern among many members of the Prison Service. There are whole areas of discussion which if time were available I should like to raise. Perhaps some other noble Lords will touch on some of them.

To take only a few examples, I would mention first the low hours of work. At 28 hours per week they are higher than they were, but in many cases they are very much lower than that. Then there are the depressing rates of pay. There have been recent rises which I hope counteract the rise in the cost of living, but even now in men's prisons the maximum pay is little more than £2 a week. In women's prisons—as the noble Baroness, Lady Summerskill, will know, because her daughter is handling these matters—the pay is less than half that of the men. There is the inadequate scale of organisation of psychiatric facilities and other questions which are really beyond counting. I personally doubt, for example, whether women's prisons ought to continue as separate entities, and there is the not at all unimportant question of whether something should be done to recognise prisoners' organisations, such as P.R.O.P. At least the possibility should be gone into now, in view of the interesting ideas that they are bringing forward.

In The Times to-day Mr. Martin Wright, a very able Secretary of the Howard League, supplied a powerful article demanding much more information about what goes on in prison and much freer communication between prisoners and the outside world. With those sentiments, most of us here would surely agree. I can go on like this forever, but my approach to-day will be different and simpler. I wish to submit a single urgent line of argument, in the hope that the House as a whole will throw its weight behind it. This line should appeal in principle to the Home Secretary, to judge by his recent keynote speech. That speech may prove to have been the most notable made by the Home Secretary since Sir Winston Churchill's proclamations in about 1908, although Lord Butler's inaugural in 1957 will always be remembered with gratitude.

The line I am submitting is in general harmony with the recent Report of the Home Office Advisory Council. That Report dealt specifically with young adults between 17 and 21 but its principles, I submit, could be extended far more widely. The Howard League has just produced a powerful document called III-Founded Premises, with which I am in strong sympathy; so for once I seem to be propounding a popular or fashionable doctrine. My line of argument is simple enough. It is that there are far too many people in prison, even with the present high rate of crime, and we must never tire of trying to reduce their number. We are sending many people to prison, minor offenders in particular, and those awaiting trial who should not be there at all. And having got them there we keep them there far too long.

There is nothing novel in making such a statement. In a similar debate in 1955—the first we held here on the subject—it was forcibly stated by Lord Temple-wood, a former Home Secretary and at that time President of the Howard League as is the noble and learned Lord, Lord Gardiner who I am so glad is speaking to-clay, that a first priority should be placed on a reduction of the number of prisoners. That was nearly 20 years ago and at that time there were about 21,000 people in prison when to-day, despite some reductions at the end of last year, there are about 35,000 prisoners. Lord Templewood said then that a great many of those men and women would be much better working outside. So in saying this I am not producing some esoteric doctrine which has hitherto escaped notice. This has been said repeatedly by every kind of penal reformer and many other well-meaning persons, high and low. But now, at last, we have a Home Secretary, Mr. Roy Jenkins, who has come out strongly in favour of this emphasis. I say respectfully, and not in any spirit of pessimism, that Home Secretaries do not last for ever. They have a way of being distracted by their other manifold duties. I submit to the noble Lord, Lord Harris of Greenwich, and to the Home Secretary, that it is now ornever if this tide is to be caught at the flood.

Here, my Lords, it becomes necessary to ask why this view is so obviously correct. It has made such little headway. In the last 20 years, of course, there has been a large increase in crime. The proportion of those found guilty of indictable offences and sent to prison has been considerably reduced, as the Home Secretary explained in his recent speech. But, certainly since 1960, and I should imagine over the whole period, there has been a noticeable increase in the average sentence. According to Mr. Wright's article, in the Netherlands to-day 2 per cent. of prison sentences exceed one year; in England and Wales the figure is 29 per cent.. I do not think that anyone who has looked into the matter feels that the Netherlands are the losers as a result. Looking at the whole picture we are still dragging our feet.

One reason why the general public, and even the enlightened public, outside the relatively small specialised circles have not been converted to this doctrine is that too often it has been presented in purely negative terms. I agree that there is a good negative case, even apart from the case of sheer economy, but I hope we can assume that we are not trying to cut down total expenditure on penal treatment. It can fairly be said that if we can substantially reduce the number of convicted persons inside prisons, we can mitigate the overcrowding and under-staffing and generally attend more effectively to the wellbeing and moral welfare of those who remain inside. That is perfectly true and it cannot be said too often. But it is not the whole truth. There are other important aspects. After all, people are not sent to prison out of malice or by idiots; they are sent there because they have broken the law, often quite seriously, and in such instances judges and magistrates decide there is no adequate alternative to prison. I do not for a moment assume that most judges or magistrates like sending people to prison. They regard it as their duty and decide that there is nothing else to do` with offenders. In this attitude they may he reflecting public opinion which is, on the whole, backward in regard to penal matters, but which is, in the last resort, the master.

However, the case for not sending men and women to prison becomes much stronger when new constructive alternatives are acceptable. Here in 1974 we seem to be entering a new and welcome phase of enlightenment. Following the earlier valuable reports, to which more than one Member of this House has contributed, including the noble Baroness, Lady Wootton, a number of people who would otherwise have been sent to prison are being sentenced to perform activities in the community; that is to say, outside prisons. There are various manifestations of this, but I will deal with only one.

Last week I spent an afternoon at one of the new day training centres. Delinquents who would otherwise be sent to prison go there for three months and undertake a course of full-time training devised by probation officers, with assistance from other social workers. They work full-time during the day and go home at night. The ratio of staff to participants—I was inclined to call them "inmates", but I believe that is now a rather dirty word; "participants" is the word which I prefer—is very high. In that centre there were 14 full-time staff, plus other part-time people, as against 24 participants. Even so, the cost per head is less than that of imprisonment.

My Lords, I was very much impressed, as I think Members of the House would be, by what I saw, but the point I want to make is this. All this is still on a tiny scale. The day-training centre in Camberwell is one of four which exist at the present time, so perhaps 100 men are benefiting at the moment from this new approach. As I say, there are other methods of dealing with people outside prison, but this is one of the leading methods. I shall be told that this is an experiment, that it has only just started. The whole tragedy of penal reform, or the lack of it, in this country is illustrated in the argument if anyone brings it forward. The authorities in this country have never lacked an intellectual or, indeed, a moral concern with new ideas, but they have always been so terrified of making a false move that every innovation is always on far too small a scale and takes years to introduce. The phrase "too little and too late" might have been coined specially to describe the history of penal reform in this country. What we are requesting of the Government this afternoon (and in principle I would hope that our very enlightened Home Secretary might seem to favour it) is to remove not hundreds but thousands of prisoners who are now in custody, and who, we believe, are now in custody against their own interests and those of the nation. To remove a hundred or two hundred and to think we have done something rather clever would be quite unworthy of the Home Secretary, and would be trifling with the problem.

I have given only one example of a rational alternative to prison, and I am the first to agree that even this new method may change as rime goes on. Two or three years from now it may not look the same as now. There may not be 14 staff to 24, or it may not be three months; all these things may be different. But the vital thing is to push on with this and other promising expedients and to push on much faster than we are likely to if past experience is any guide. I have referred to the recent Report of the Advisory Council. The Home Secretary has already said that he "strongly welcomes the broad approach of this Report". Your Lordships will recall that that is the Report dealing with young people of 17 to 21. The basic theme, as the Home Secretary has said, is that there should be a shift in emphasis from treatment in custody to treatment in the community. Among other key points, we can single out the intention of the Council to retain a wider range of young adult offenders under supervision in the community. This would he not just on the basis of probation as we know it, but on the basis of a much closer supervision. So here again we are being presented by this very representative and strong Advisory Council with a new alternative to custodial treatment. For what my opinion is worth, I throw myself enthusiastically behind this Report of the Advisory Council, and I hope we shall have many similar expressions to-day.

Obviously, yet another role, or yet another extention of their habitual role, is being recommended for our much admired Probation Service. I hope and believe that they will respond to the challenge. Clearly their numbers must be increased even faster than has been contemplated hitherto. As the Home Secretary pointed out, they have been expanded from 1,000 in 1956 to over 4,000 at the present time during which time they have become responsible for after-care of prisoners and welfare work in prisons. if we mean business, as I am sure we do, this major expansion of the Probation Service, not just to the degree contemplated but to a degree hitherto not contemplated, is essential; that is, as I say, if we really mean to achieve anything at all.

I am of course aware that the cordial support of the Probation Service must be obtained for these new plans if they are to succeed, and I am sure the Government are already in close touch with them. There may be probation officers—I hope that they will not be dominant—who will tell us that the amount of supervision now called for under these new plans is contrary to the traditions of the Probation Service; it would interfere with the well-established relationship of understanding and friendship between the probation officer and his client. I cannot believe that, on reflection, that will be the opinion of the Probation Service as a whole, and from my contacts in recent times I do not believe that will be their attitude. There was a time some years ago when I myself ventured to criticise the Probation Service for a reluctance to expand themselves as rapidly as the need for their services. Those days seem to be long since past. I do not know whether the Minister will be able to tell us anything about the attitude of the Probation Service, but I hope he will be able to say something of an encouraging nature.

My Lords, I said earlier that my line of argument would be single and simple, and I now come to its simplest aspect. The prison population reached a level of about 40,000 in 1970. That was its peak—a peak of about 40,000 in 1970. By the end of last year, contrary to recent predictions, it had fallen to 35,000. I do not know whether there is anything of a more up-to-date nature for the Minister to tell us to-day. The present prison building programme is proceeding on the assumption that there will be a large rise in the number in prison in the next few years, and that by 1977 to 1978 it will be 45,000; that is, 10,000 more than at present. That is the assumption, I am assured, of the present prison building programme. It is on this assumption of a great increase in the prison population that this vast prison building programme has been drawn up and is being proceeded with.

Now, no-one who is familiar at all with our prisons will disagree with the contention that much more up-to-date accommodation should be provided. There is obviously quite a lot that should be spent there. But once we agree (as I hope this House at least can agree, and as I hope the Government can agree) that there are many people who are in prison now who should not be there at all, once we adopt for the future new criteria as to who is to go to prison and who is to be treated outside, we are entitled to assume that the total number of prison places can be progressively reduced. If this is so, if this is to be the fundamental assumption of all reasonable men to-day, the whole idea of a programme based on the opposite assumption—that the number of prisoners is going to increase greatly—becomes a total nonsense, as Field Marshal Lord Montgomery used to say. In the words of the Howard League: We cannot accept the logic of building more prisons when overcrowding is largely due to the imprisonment of people for whom provision could be and should be made in the community often at lower cost". I join the Howard League in demanding a massive shift of resources from prison building to dealing with the offenders in the community. This is not a decision which can just drift along and settle itself; it is a decision which is either taken or not taken. We either go on with the present building programme or cut it drastically; in principle, there is no middle way.

I and others, here and elsewhere, have often said that we have been trying to run our prison system on a shoestring, and the same is still more obviously true of our after-care system, about which I will not speak to-day but which is at least as close to my heart. Certainly we shall go on demanding a larger share of national resources for the treatment of offenders in prison and out of it. It is not withdrawing from that position if we point out that the drastic reduction of the building programme will, even within the existing budget, liberate significant sums of money for the alternative remedies, in which I hope we are all coming to believe.

It would be an affectation not to recognise that in the lifetime of most of us, perhaps even in the lifetime of the youngest of us, a considerable number of men—though I hope hardly any women—will continue to go to prison for grave offences, though I hope they will go much less often and for much shorter periods than at present. The Howard League argue that there should be a 10-year ceiling on prison sentences, except for life imprisonment. I certainly endorse their demand that there should be this limit on ordinary prison sentences. As regards prisoners serving life, with whom I have had a great deal of contact, the crucial point, a minimum requirement of humanity, is to give them some hope; anything else is in my eyes positively wicked. They must be given an assurance that eventually the question of their release will be judged not on the heinousness of their original crime but on their present merits and demerits, and they must be assured that these will be assessed by those of the authorities who know them best. The supposed attitude of the general public, often whipped up in most discreditable ways by certain elements in the Press, must not be allowed to interfere with human justice. This human justice will never approximate to the divine, but at least we should make sure that we do not allow it deliberately to fall below that standard.

There is much that I could say about parole which, in my eyes, is the greatest beneficial factor introduced into penal treatment in recent years, and for which the noble and learned Lord, Lord Stow Hill, deserves a great deal of credit. I am aware—no one who is in touch with prisoners could fail to be aware—of the many tensions created by some of the present procedures. Personally, I would say that the parole system is now sufficiently well established in public confidence, partly through the splendid work of the noble Lord, Lord Hunt. who will be speaking shortly, that we could afford to move ahead much faster. But I shall want to hear what the noble Lord, Lord Hunt, and others have to say about this aspect before coming to my own conclusions.

My Lords, I draw to a close. Twenty years ago I spent no small part of my far too long speech outlining a vision of a prison service in which the prison officers performed a function which was less custodial than that of a social service. I regret that I feel disappointed in the progress made in that respect since that time. The prison officers, themselves, have pleaded urgently before now to play a larger part in the reformation of prisoners and, by and large, their request has remained on the table and has been allowed to pass apparently unnoticed by succeeding Governments. I shall go on pressing for a large increase in the number of social workers in prisons that is, social workers in addition to the prison officers. But I am well aware that there are many services which can be rendered by the prison staff and by no one else. Many prisoners look back to the kindly attitude of their landings officer as the most constructive influence they came under. I hope and believe that the present Home Secretary will be able to take much more advantage than hitherto of the positive contributions that lie within the power of the Prison Service at all levels.

Finally, I come to the prisoners themselves. Some people are in prison by accident; some are there, as I have said earlier, when they should not be there at all. But on the whole they are people, whether they ought to be in prison or not, who have gone astray, and we all know from the story of the lost sheep in the Gospel that these are the people who are most in need of our help. It will always be difficult—and we must face this fact if we concern ourselves with public work, and most of all with this issue—to obtain the good will of the general public for special efforts on behalf of prisoners. They will say, "Why should the money not go to people who deserve it more?" The attitude of the elder brother in the story of the Prodigal Son is all too true, and likely to remain true, of average human nature.

However, there are encouraging signs. The latest conclusions of the social scientists, including the criminologists, suggest that enlightened self-interest can reasonably be invoked today on the same side as traditional compassion in recommending reforms to the general public. Whether we be Christians or Humanists, or refrain from giving ourselves any particular label, we can agree as a matter of observation that kindness to prisoners begets kindness; brutality increases brutality. We shall never achieve our ultimate purpose of restoring these wounded human beings by external calculation alone, however enlightened. We shall never really help prisoners, and through them the community, so long as we stay on our pedestals. We shall never really help them if we cannot bring ourselves in our hearts to forgive them, even while we are forced to interfere with their lives. We are not likely to forgive them very successfully if we do not bear in mind that we ourselves will one day need to be forgiven. My Lords, I beg to move for Papers.