Nick Cohen raises a number of important issues regarding the inhumanity of super prisons (“Super-jails are the inhumane mark of ignorant politicians”, Comment). However, he misses two important points. First, despite the apparent U-turn on the super-prison for women, the upward trend in Scotland’s prison population indicates that there is a serious issue with penal policy in the country. The population rose from 116 per 100,000 of the population in 2000 to 155 per 100,000 in 2012.
Despite the dip to 147 per 100,000 in October 2014, there are questions to be asked about sentencing policy. Even if smaller prisons are built, they will be quickly filled by the poor, and the powerless; corporate criminals are rarely, if ever, in the frame.
The fact is that too many people are sent to prison in Scotland and in the UK in general. This policy offers little public protection and little satisfaction to the victims of crime. It also makes no economic sense, given that re-offending in Scotland is estimated to cost £3bn a year.
Penal policy has been dominated by a hypocritical, offensive mantra from politicians, built on the insidious assertion that those who criticise their policies are pro-crime and anti-victim.
This has allowed them to pursue philistine policies which simply do not work, something that is now being recognised even in America, where the demand for more prisons has underpinned the law and order debate for decades with no identifiable, causal impact on the crime rate. This is something that politicians here might consider before building yet more prisons, big or small.
Professor Joe Sim
School of Humanities and Social Science
Liverpool John Moores University
Liverpool
Nick Cohen’s column on large prisons said that since G4S opened HMP Oakwood in 2012 “thousands of men have been damaged or hooked on drugs” and “no one could say with confidence that they had been rehabilitated when they were released to live among us”.
The findings of an independent inspection report in February do not back this up.
After just two years in operation, inspectors praised Oakwood’s “exemplary” programmes to get prisoners off drugs, commended our community resettlement work and voiced confidence in our plans for future development.
The column went on to say: “It’s hard to tell who are the worse criminals: the prisoners on their wings or the G4S executives in their offices.” Since G4S took over management of HMP Birmingham in 2011, government inspectors found that it is a “cleaner, safer and more decent place to be”. In February, our team at HMP Parc in South Wales was recognised with another Butler Trust award – which celebrates the very best practice developed by people working in the criminal justice system – for the second year running.
There should be no suggestion that because we work in the private sector, we are any less motivated to rehabilitate prisoners than our colleagues elsewhere.
Jerry Petherick
Managing director
G4S Custodial and Detention Services
London SW1
Nick Cohen is right to draw attention to the iniquities of super-jails. If prisoners were granted the right to vote, there might be some political second thoughts about mass incarceration, overcrowding, under-staffing, lengthy confinement to cells, etc.
Dr Tricia Cusack
Birmingham
