§ Mr. George HowarthTo ask the Secretary of State for the Home Department (1) how much time per month since January 1992 was spent by prisoners undergoing rehabilitation aimed at addressing their offending in(a) each prison, (b) each prison type and (c) the whole prison estate; [15988]
(2) how many rehabilitation courses aimed at addressing the causes of prisoners' offending were available in each month since January 1992 in (a) each prison, (b) each prison type and (c) the whole prison estate. [15969]
§ Miss WiddecombeResponsibility for these matters has been delegated to the Director General of the Prison Service, who has been asked to arrange for a reply to be given.
Letter from Richard Tilt to Mr. George Howarth, dated 26 February 1997:
212WThe Home Secretary has asked me to reply to your recent Questions about the availability of offending behaviour courses in prisons.The information you requested on offending behaviour programmes by month and prison is not available. The Service provides core offending behaviour programmes which are designed centrally and delivered across the estate. The national totals of these programmes delivered each year are recorded centrally. The available figures are listed in the attached tables.As well as the core programmes there are other offending behaviour programmes run in prisons according to need and resources. Records of these are not kept centrally and could only be provided at disproportionate cost.The Prison Service has a key performance indicator for the number of prisoners completing offending behaviour programmes which have been accredited as being effective in reducing offending behaviour. The sex offender treatment programme and the cognitive behaviour programmes have been accredited and the numbers of prisoners completing these programmes are being recorded for counting towards the key performance indicator. There is a continuing process of accreditation of offending behaviour programmes and as new programmes achieve accreditation records will become available of the details of these courses and the numbers of prisoners completing them.Additionally, a wide range of educational and vocational courses are run which are designed to increase the skills and job prospects of offenders, thus assisting with their rehabilitation.
Prison service core offending behaviour programmes—completions since 1992–93 Year Number completed Hours per programme Total hours Sex offender treatment (SOTP) core programme—programme revised and extended with effect from April 1995 1992–93 284 80 22,720 1993–94 439 80 35,120 1994–95 554 80 44,320 1995–96 406 180 73,080 SOTP relapse prevention/booster programme—piloted in 1995–96 1995–96 33 56 1,848 Enhanced thinking skills—piloted in 1993–94—revised in April 1996 to 40 hours 1993–94 46 28 1,288 1994–95 241 28 6,748 1995–96 631 28 17,668 Reasoning and rehabilitation—piloted in 1993–94 1993–94 63 70 4,410 1994–95 44 70 3,080 1995–96 115 70 8,050