State of Emergency

Should we think of prison officers as emergency workers? This week’s new law creating tougher penalties for assaults on such workers certainly does so. The categorisation seemed a bit odd to me- what about probation staff or youth workers who don’t make the list? They get thumped – or worse- from time to time- I got a head butt from a lad on Intermediate Treatment back in the 80's. Anyway, I concluded that philosophically, it might be quite helpful to think of imprisonment as an emergency – an abnormal and harmful situation which we should do everything possible to prevent, minimise and help sufferers to recover from.  

This week’s warning letter from the Chief Inspector of Prisons about HMP Bedford describes a more straightforward emergency in terms of immediate risks to health, life and property. The horror stories include a prisoner luring rats into his cell and killing them- an amputee trying to stay clean by splashing water on himself from the sink- and frightened or incompetent staff unwilling to intervene with one group of rowdy prisoners or acceding to unreasonable demands from another to get them back into their cells.  Peter Clarke found attacks on staff – some serious- taking place at least every other day and even more frequent incidents of self-harm among prisoners.  It's little surprise that this has proved a last straw for the Prison Officers Association who have flirted with illegality to organise a national protest.   

In his response to the industrial action Prison Minister Rory Stewart claimed that “we are taking the action that needs to be taken.”  But are they? Alongside harsher penalties for violent prisoners, body worn cameras, ‘police-style’ handcuffs and restraints, incapacitant spray and patrol dogs on landings look like a narrow and lopsided remedy. Stewart must recognise this; in Parliament, he described as “a very reasonable proposal” Labour’s idea for an emergency plan, with new Treasury funds, to end overcrowding and end under staffing.  

What should such a plan look like? There’s certainly a need to revise upward the target for recruiting new prison staff. Current plans will not lead to the necessary ratios  But action is needed on the demand side too.

Given the concentration of the worst difficulties in local prisons, the government should move immediately on their proposal to reduce the use of short sentences. We don’t know the makeup of Bedford’s population today but when inspectors last went in 2016, a fifth of prisoners were serving sentences of less than 12 months. Cutting these numbers would free up not only space but officer time in receiving and releasing petty offenders every day.  

Rory Stewart may be right that “something as serious as changing our entire sentencing policy would require primary legislation and a lot of discussion in the House” but while getting that process going, his boss David Gauke, the Lord Chief Justice and new Chair of the Sentencing Council should find ways of encouraging courts to suspend more short prison sentences or convert them into community orders.  

One way might be to introduce a new national presumption against the use of short custodial sentences, recommended yet again this week in a thoughtful report from CREST Advisory. Another might be to reinstate the principle that courts should take overcrowding and other painful realities of prison life into account when determining the punitive weight of a sentence. 

Before sending people off to HMP Bedford, judges from Luton and St Albans Crown Courts and surrounding Magistrates’ Courts ought surely to reflect on the conditions there and the fact that one prisoner in five say they acquire a drug habit after arrival. Local consultation arrangements involving police, prosecutors, courts, probation and prisons - such as those introduced after the Woolf Report into the Strangways riot- need to be reinvigorated.   

Ensuring such arrangements between justice agencies are in place across the country could also help to limit the numbers on remand – over a quarter of prisoners at Bedford in 2016 -and those recalled  for breaching orders- 10% in Bedford .  

There are many longer term measures that need to be taken to stabilise prisons such as providing an opportunity for prisoners to earn earlier – maybe much earlier- release. Rightly or wrongly, too many prisoners feel they have little to gain by abiding by the rules. Again, while legislation would be needed in the long term, some measures along these lines might be introduced without it. Constitutional purists might quibble, but the whole point of a state of emergency is that it requires governments to do things that normally aren’t permitted.