The largest single privatisation programme in the history of the prison service in England and Wales was announced last week. Until this spring, the handing over of an existing public prison to the private sector was seen as a nut too hard to crack. Birmingham was the first and its transition to G4S has begun. Nine more prisons may follow.
Many of the arguments around "private good and public bad" remain uninformed and ideological. Private prisons have been built on greenfield sites and comparisons with inner-city Victorian edifices are futile. Instead, we should be asking what kind of prisons we need and whether competition will improve the quality and efficiency of the prison service and deliver the rehabilitation revolution the government has promised.
In 2003, early in my tenure as governor of Brixton jail, the then prisons minister Paul Boateng, frustrated by a series of disasters at the south London jail, invited bids from the private sector. Companies declined to tender; Brixton's infrastructure had seen no investment for years and was deemed too hard and too expensive to turn around. But over three years we did turn it around, through what is now called localism – staff working with the local community and the third sector for mutual benefit – not through a brutal and demoralising competition process.
The justice secretary, Kenneth Clarke, should learn from these examples and demand innovation. Tender specifications have begun to embrace payment-by-results but the emphasis has been on size and cost: build them big and run them cheaply. Innovation has been driven out by risk aversion and restrictions in the commissioning process. The last series of bids, for example, demanded adoption of the state sector's "core day" – which means no activities on Friday afternoons, a cost-saving measure. This goes against Clarke's advocacy of real work and introduces unnecessary restrictions.
Rehabilitation must be at the heart of new tenders. For example, prisons need to do more to tackle the serious digital exclusion of prisoners, which is vital if we want people to obtain employment on release. It is estimated that 8 million people in England and Wales are digitally excluded: that includes every prisoner.
Homes, jobs, education and positive relationships all reduce reoffending. We search and apply for jobs online. We look for homes online. We learn online. We keep in touch with family and friends by email, text and social media. Yet prisoners have to do all of this by pen and paper, with stamps and envelopes – that's if they can read and write. The official line is that digital inclusion threatens security. This is a false premise. Security is there to be managed, not hidden behind. Given the thousands of mobile phones that are found in prisons, many with internet access, it is likely there is nefarious digital inclusion going on. Better to make the case for why it is so important and manage it.
Strategy should include secure colleges, treatment and training centres where prisoners can turn their lives around. It must break from the bureaucratic inertia that has dogged progress.
The government also needs to understand that good prisons do not run on coercion. We incarcerate 85,000 people on the basis of relationships and co-operation between prison staff and prisoners. The current emphasis is on size and cost – which usually means driving down staffing levels – against a backdrop of redundancies and worsening terms and conditions. This does not augur well for relationships or safety. Prison staff do a job that is little understood, and even less appreciated, and is low paid with little training.
Put further pressure on a demotivated workforce, a prisoner population with little hope on the inside and even less on release, and we should not be surprised if serious problems arise. Clarke has an chance to inject new approaches to an archaic system of incarceration. The prize could be a 21st-century prison system that serves us all better.
• John Podmore was governor of Brixton prison 2003-06. He is now director of operations at the charity User Voice.
by John Podmore taken from http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jul/19/kenneth-clarke-prisons-reform-john-podmore
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