Why has the government junked the prison bit of the Prison
and Courts Bill? There seem to be three main possibilities.
The first is that with big issues like the purpose of
prisons and the role of the Secretary of State in running them due to be determined, ministers didn’t fancy depending
on mavericks like Philip Davies MP let alone the DUP to get their way. The Tory
party has always had its Michael Howards as well as Douglas Hurds and the risk
of being held to ransom by hardliners – and having to rely on Labour votes to
get their way- simply wasn’t worth the candle. Besides, the key to sorting out prisons-so this theory goes- doesn’t
lie in a new legal frameworks but putting staff boots back on the ground as the new
Justice Secretary told us in his open letter today.
Theory two is that when Theresa May and her people asked
what was in the bill, they were told that inspectors would get greater powers and
ministers would have to respond to their criticisms. To which came the reply why
on earth are we making another rod for our own backs? More transparency and
accountability are the last thing we need just now.
Option three is that Mrs May is simply no prison reformer or
at least not in the grandiose Cameron/Gove mould which gave shape to the thinking
behind the Bill. She may be an instinctive hardliner herself but her record on social
issues defies that simple characterisation. More likely in her weakened state she has realised
that as far as the public is concerned, there are no, or few votes in prisons.
With crime rising once again and what
maybe a growing threat and reality of terrorist violence, reform and
rehabilitation of prisoners is unlikely to help her government’s popularity in
the country.
Whatever the reason- and it may be a bit of all three- within
18 months prison reform has been marched to the top of the hill and back down
again. Mr Lidington’s letter promises that the work of making prisons places of
safety and rehabilitation goes on. Maybe that is better done away from
parliamentary and public gaze. But it feels, as the Chief Inspector of Prisons has said, a missed opportunity.
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