Thanks, David Hanson, prisons minister, for illustrating so well just what we were trying to tell you in our guest-edited edition of Society. The Guardian, in a brave and innovative move, opened the door for ex-offenders like me to talk, writes Mark Johnson. Instead of listening, your response was to slam the door shut in our faces. It was all too familiar.
We accept that there are a lot of initiatives and good will in the prison service and we said so. We also said that the way you currently hear the voices from the cells isn't working and isn't helping you get nearer the truth. Only the truth is going to help you cut costs and cut crime. A minister who sweeps through the wing one morning with his entourage is going to get the information he wants to hear, not the truth. Inmates with something to gain generally talk to chief inspectors and the truth may not be on their agenda either. Prison councils are a great initiative but it is laughable to call them democratic when every single recommendation they make can be ignored.
I could go on but let's just cut to the main point here. Incarceration is punishment but if you really want to cut the crime rate then help us to change while you've got us inside. We can't do this in jails where phenomenal quantities of drugs seep in through the walls and rehabilitation programmes are rare and often inadequate. We want to work with you on this problem. A planned and widely-implemented system of closed-group, peer-led evaluations will give you the information you need to run a more effective prison service. A thousand condescending, well-meaning but under-evaluated little initiatives will not.
Finally, I thought your parting shot, about hearing the voices of the victims of crime, was a cheapskate way of silencing us. First, because restorative justice is not a universal answer: people who have suffered enough can be re-victimised by restorative justice just to make the offender feel good. Second, those of us who have had the chance to embrace change and move back into society don't live a day without thinking of our victims. Most of the ex-offenders I know who have been through a rehabilitation process work tirelessly for others. We just wish more of us had been given the chance to change.
