Your trenchant editorial calling for prison reform was timely. Unfortunately, the secretary of state for justice refused to acknowledge the problem or the solution when questioned in Parliament two days later. Contrary to the evidence, ministers claim that overcrowding and violence are not a problem; apparently deaths in prison fluctuate regardless, and they seem to think prisoners are getting education. I don't know if they being deliberately disingenuous or are being poorly advised.
Some 23,000 men are forced to share cells the size of a small bathroom with an open toilet and no ventilation. They are locked up sometimes for 22 hours a day, for weeks on end – no wonder the young men come out fighting. The death rate has increased and so far this year 50 men, women and teenagers have taken their own lives.
HM chief inspector of prisons and public watchdogs relate a miserable story of cockroaches, filth, inertia and violence.
Ironically, financial austerity presented an opportunity to create a thoughtful dialogue with the public about reducing the unnecessary use of prison and investing in what was a very successful and cost-effective probation service. Instead, in the past couple of years ministers have overseen an explosion in overcrowding and a prison crisis while dismantling probation.
This is not civilised. This is not helping people to turn their lives round so they can lead a good and useful life. This is not helping victims. This creates more crime and mayhem when people are dumped back on the streets. This is expensive for the taxpayer.
Frances Crook
Chief executive, the Howard League for Penal Reform
London N1
The prison population in this country is high because a lot of people commit crimes that cause them to end up being rightly imprisoned. The claim that "10,000 women a year go to prison ... eight out of 10 have committed a non-violent offence. They shouldn't be in jail" is utopian. If you actually investigated the individual cases, it would become obvious that custody was wholly justified.
As for your faith in community sentences, it is completely misplaced. Most of the 10,000 women you mention will have been given community sentences as an alternative to custody but either failed to complete them or offended while on them. What are the courts supposed to do then? Send them a strongly worded letter?
The justice system bends over backwards to avoid sending people to prison. Adult restorative disposals, fixed-penalty tickets, cautions, conditional cautions, fines, discharges, conditional discharges, community orders, drug treatment orders, suspended sentences – all are designed as an alternative to custody.
PC 3000 Trevor Williams
Neighbourhood south team Slough police station
There can rarely be a more apposite leader than that you publish condemning our present prison system as a stain on our society. Above all, we must heed the finding in his annual report of Nick Harding, the chief inspector: "The quantity and quality of purposeful activity in which prisoners are engaged have plummeted, the worst outcome in six years."
It is specifically to tackle this that Prisons Learning TV has been set up in the last two years, with an initial small lottery grant, its aim being to deliver a multi-platform TV channel to prisoners in-cell across the country providing educational programmes that support re-settlement, reduce re-offending, improve employability and increase literacy, numeracy and life-skills.
Yet whilst more than £3 billion is spent annually on prisons, our completely ground-breaking initiative, which is intended to do what government should be doing, receives no state funding; a pittance of this sum would enable us to start to transform the rehabilitative role of our prisons.
Terry Waite CBE, Benedict Birnberg and Antonio Ferrara
Chair, deputy chair and CEO, Prisons Video Trust
London EC4
