Ranby Report shows need for Improvement in Inspection as well as Prisons

A month after his disturbing assessment of the state of the prison system was cavalierly dismissed by Chris Grayling, Chief Inspector Nick Hardwick has produced a shocking report on Ranby , the category C prison in Nottinghamshire which has seen four suicides in the last year.

The high levels of violence and poor response to self-harm are sadly not in themselves unusual. What is troubling is how far  the prison has deteriorated since the last inspection two years ago. In 2012 Ranby was found to be reasonably good at providing purposeful activity and resettlement work but outcomes in terms of safety and respect were not sufficiently good.

The decline in performance is perhaps not surprising given the cuts in resources which Ranby , and indeed all prisons have had to face . The Independent Monitoring Board asked the Prisons Minister in their 2012-13 report how he can “approve a reduction in the level of staff and expect to provide all those who work and live in HMP Ranby a safe and secure establishment?” 

Given the further reductions in resources expected in the next few years, this is surely an issue that the Inspectorate themselves must  address more directly. Providing a factual summary of trends in staff numbers in each of their reports would be a start.

The Ranby report also suggests the need for a different kind of inspection regime. When Ofsted finds schools to be inadequate they can give a notice to improve if they think the management capable of bringing about change or place it in special measures if not. A similar approach is being introduced in health and social care.

 In the case of Ofsted, schools with serious weaknesses can be prevented from taking on newly qualified teachers.  Inspectors visit once or twice a term to check that an action plan is on course.  Providing this closer level of attention to how prisons are run is going to be necessary if the Inspectorate is to help bring about improvement rather  than simply document failure.

Crowding Out the Truth.

Today’s publication of the latest World Pre-Trial Imprisonment List from the International Centre for Prison Studies puts UK jail problems in perspective. Its data shows how prisons in the poorest countries and those emerging from conflict largely are involved in locking up people on remand. In Bolivia, Libya and DR Congo more than four fifths of prisoners are awaiting trial. Many stay in detention for years in congested conditions where corruption, violence and disease can be life threatening.

Remand detainees represent less than 15% of prisoners on any one day in England and Wales, a low rate due to a comparatively efficient criminal justice process, and relatively generous provisions for bail pending trial.  The conditions in which they are held are immeasurably better than those in most low income countries. But can the prison conditions in which British prisoners are held be fairly described as overcrowded?

Earlier this week the UK Parliament heard Justice Secretary respond to an urgent question from the Opposition by asserting that “we do not have a prison overcrowding crisis”.  Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan accused him of breath taking complacency, quoting Wandsworth prison in his constituency, “which should have 943 inmates, currently has 1,597” and has been asked to provide even more spaces.

The politicians were not for the first time talking at cross purposes. Khan is right that the Certified Normal Accommodation (CNA) -the number it was designed to hold- in Wandsworth is 943. But for more than twenty years, the prison service has measured overcrowding not in relation to CNA but to what they call Operational Capacity. By deciding that most single cells could accommodate two prisoners, prison capacity was at a stroke almost doubled- in Wandsworth it is currently 1628.  Grayling could therefore claim that pressures on the prison estate are little more than business as usual.

It is that business as usual which is the greater scandal , not that more doubling up may be needed until new prison places come on stream. There is an underlying acceptance by the political class that large scale overcrowding and enforced cell sharing is inevitable. Almost a quarter of prisoners –half in local prisons- are held in accommodation units intended for fewer prisoners. Not only does this impact on the quality of life of prisoners, but it limits the prison system’s ability to respond to unanticipated pressures as seems to be happening now.

The Conservatives recognised the problem when in opposition, arguing that “overcrowding has dramatic consequences both for prisoners and for the operation of prisons. Living and working conditions, the ability of prison officers to work effectively, inmates’ access to educational and training programmes, the success of and access to mental health, drug and other vital rehabilitative programmes, are all affected”. Plans to take total capacity to over 100,000, significantly reducing overcrowding and formally ending it by 2016, were  scaled back even before the 2010 election.  After it Kenneth Clarke’s efforts to reduce demand for prison places were also ditched when he was, producing the political and policy failure highlighted by the Chief Inspector of Prisons at the weekend.

It is drastically reducing prison numbers through sentencing reform and justice reinvestment that holds the key to a sustainable penal policy. But this must be complemented by specific  legislation to prevent overcrowding. After the 1990 Strangeways riot , Lord Woolf recommended a  new Prison Rule that no establishment should hold more prisoners than its CNA, with provisions for Parliament to be informed if exceptionally there is to be a material departure from that rule. It was not accepted but something similar is required today if we are to avoid the kind of disaster that gave rise to the recommendation.

    

An Inspector Calls

The death was reported today of actor Sam Kelly who played a relatively minor role in TV sitcom Porridge; (the slow and gullible “Bunny” Warren). The show may well have provided the great majority of people in my generation who have never been near a prison, an idea of what life inside is like. It’s misleading of course in all sorts of ways, not least in underplaying the pains of imprisonment – it is a comedy after all. But the sketchy knowledge that the public have about places of detention make it all the more important that we have access to a true and honest picture of the reality of what goes on inside them.

Fortunately we have such a picture in the detailed findings from the Chief Inspector of Prisons, currently Nick Hardwick, who regularly visits and reports on all of our prisons. And we are lucky too that we have a government, which according to its website at any rate attaches great importance to the Chief Inspector’s role “in order to provide the public, parliament and government with an objective and authoritative assessment of the conditions in prisons”.  

There our luck runs out. This morning, Radio 4 Today programme listeners were treated to a cavalier dismissal of Nick Hardwick’s views by the Justice Secretary. Chris Grayling went on to make highly misleading statements about the degree of overcrowding in the prison system and the extent to which it provides work opportunities for prisoners.   Grayling then sought to blame any shortfall in resources on prison governors and staff who he suggested happily offered up the cuts in staffing when faced with mass privatisation.

While there may be no votes in prisons, Grayling has a duty of care to prisoners and the very least we can expect from him is what he expects from us- honesty.  The truth is that he has been far too ready to make spending cuts without wanting to cut prison numbers. Thank goodness Nick Hardwick had the courage to say so and  let’s hope he sticks to his guns when he’s hauled in by Grayling on Monday morning and asked to clarify his remarks.

Are the wheels finally coming off at the Ministry of Justice?

Like the Spanish football team, is this the week the wheels came off the coalition administration? It’s one thing for Cabinet ministers to bicker publicly about who is to blame for extremism , another for their departments to fail to carry out their basic responsibilities whether it is monitoring what happens in schools , providing passports or benefits with a modicum of efficiency.

But it may be the Ministry of Justice where things are starting to go wrong most seriously. Litigants no longer able to obtain legal aid are causing problems for the courts, probation officers are struggling to operate a new twin track service and today it is reported that 40 jails , many already overcrowded,  are being required to take yet more prisoners to cope with what we are told is an unexpected surge in numbers.

Just as it seems the Home Office knew full well that passport applications in the UK would rise once   overseas processing centres were shut, so the Ministry of Justice were warned that closing thirteen of its more costly prisons over the last three years could leave it short of capacity. Today’s confirmation that it has done is not only embarrassing for Chris Grayling. The Public Accounts Committee recently concluded that the management of the prison estate is a best practice case example in achieving cost reductions, which HM Treasury should ensure is disseminated widely across Government. Perhaps the other departments’ failings flow from following Margaret Hodge’s foolhardy lesson that you can cut costs without incurring consequences.

The consequences in prisons may be far more dangerous than a missed holiday. The establishments being forced to increase capacity include three which have recently been inspected; at Durham inspectors found virtually every cell holding more prisoners than it should, at Wandsworth too many prisoners required to share a cell and at Leicester a degree of overcrowding they considered unacceptable. These and other prisons are having to face increasing demands while making yet more cuts. The governor told an inquest this week that reduced staffing levels are compromising the safety of prisoners at Woodhill. The Coroner will be writing to Chris Grayling asking him to review those levels in order to prevent further deaths.

“Good luck with that” one is tempted to think.  Grayling has long been committed to making prisons cheaper not smaller and is now more bullish still, making "no apology that we are sending more criminals to prison" because "that's what the public want". Public attitudes are actually a good deal less punitive than he makes out and there is surely in any event more to being a Justice Secretary than acceding to populist demands. Providing the resources for the prison system to be run in a safe and constructive way for a start.

Goodnight Probation or Au Revoir?

 Despite the predictions of many (myself included) that the ill thought out and high risk reforms to the probation service would collapse under the weight of their internal contradictions, so far they have not. This week they moved to a new stage with the splitting of the service into two. The majority of staff find themselves working for Community Rehabilitation Companies which are in the process of being sold off. Is the headlong rush to privatised rehabilitation services now a done deal?

Not necessarily. Labour have hinted that that they will undo the changes if they can afford to. But Chris Grayling will be as keen to get the new contracts with private providers signed as soon as he can as was Michael Howard with the controversial Secure Training Centres in the run up to 1997. There are rules about entering commitments too close to an election but if the Coalition stays the course, Grayling probably has nothing to fear.

Except perhaps from his own civil servants. The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) managed to get the Permanent Secretary at the MoJ to commit “to only proceed at each stage of the {TR} programme if it is satisfied it is safe to do so and that value for money will not be jeopardized.” The PAC need to hold the mandarins feet to the fire on this.

They can start on Thursday when they see the Head of the Major Projects Authority. This is the body that oversees high risk governemnt initiatives and periodically publishes a "Delivery Confidence Assessment" (DCA). In its latest report published last month, 19 Ministry of Justice projects are described. Four are rated amber/red which means that “successful delivery of the project is in doubt, with major risks or issues apparent in a number of key areas. Urgent action is needed to ensure these are addressed, and whether resolution is feasible”.

Given what the PAC and Justice Committee have said about the risks in the Probation reforms, one might have expected Transforming Rehabilitation to be one of these. It is not. TR is exempt from a DCA because of possible prejudice to commercial interests. The test for this is the Freedom of Information Act which allows exemptions  if disclosure   would, or would be likely to, prejudice the commercial interests of any person (including the public authority holding the information). Guidance from the Major Projects Authority says that exemption can include time sensitive instances where disclosure would undermine the confidence that investors or suppliers may have in the project or threaten the ability of the government to attract market finance. But exemptions should be made sparingly and reviewed periodically.

It looks very convenient to prevent us knowing what a body designed to reduce financial risk to the taxpayer makes of Grayling’s reforms. After all some basic questions have been raised about their affordability. And if I were a director under an obligation to promote the success of my company, wouldn’t I want to know about the risks too?

Is jailing drug addicts really the way to strengthen community sentences?

I remember many years ago hearing ex prisoner turned probation officer Bob Turney explain the difference in the response to missed probation appointments in the UK and US. In the States, he said, a probation officer would go armed to their errant client’s home and arrest him. In England and Wales, he’d send him a letter. The caricature summed up how probation here was about keeping people out of prisons while in the US it was about getting people into them. 

While dealing with breach has become a lot tougher since then, the British Government is being urged to go further down the American road. Today’s Centre for Social Justice report is the latest to favour a more robust approach to those who fail to comply with community sentences. Threatening Americans on probation with immediate short spells in prison has apparently reduced the numbers not only of those who miss appointments but also who fail drug tests and who re-offend. The mantra of swift and certain punishment is becoming a new orthodoxy in probation, promising to make community sentences both more effective and more credible. As our friends across the pond might say, “What’s not to like?”

Three things actually. First, those with long memories will recall how the fruits of North American research have been touted as the saviour of probation once before. The overblown claims made by proponents of accredited programmes in the early 1990’s took community based supervision down a psychology dominated  road that many have come to regret.  At the very least some British pilots are needed to see whether the admittedly impressive results reported in Hawaii are replicated here and whether it is in fact the deterrent threat of prison which makes the key difference.  

Second in the UK putting people into prison for short periods is generally agreed to be a problem not a solution. This is partly for practical reasons. Intermittent custody was quietly abandoned in 2006 in part because courts were reluctant to use it and in part because the prison service could not manage it. Today’s report seems to envisage failing probationers being held in police cells for several days at a time, a role for which many police stations are simply not equipped.
  
Finally the automatic unleashing of custodial sanctions on people who fail to comply offends both the values and evidence base for probation. It’s true that the European Probation Rules say that where offenders fail to comply with conditions, probation staff should respond actively and promptly. But they go on that “the response shall take full account of the circumstances of the failure to comply”. Swift and certain imprisonment comes close to violating this requirement as well as the rule that in gaining the offenders’ co-operation, probation staff should not rely solely on the prospect of sanctions for non-compliance.

Moreover swift and certain punishment seems to fly in the face of the growing acceptance that giving up drugs and going straight involve a process of desistance. In encouraging desistance, using authority is a crucial part of a probation officer’s role; but effective supervision demands very much more than the policing function envisaged in the simplistic and punitive approach put forward by CSJ.

The Best of Times, The Worst of Times. A Tale of Two Prison Services

 As the Prison service prepares to make more deep cuts in its budget, two sharply contrasting views have emerged about whether the 146 prisons in England and Wales are in a fit state to shed more staff and reduce what they are able to provide for prisoners. Last month, Chief Inspector Nick Hardwick condemned Brinsford Young Offender Institution as the worst prison he has visited since taking up the role in 2010, adding to a growing list of jails unable to provide basic levels of decency and safety. The House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PAC) meanwhile proposed that the government’s management of prisons over the last four years should be disseminated across Whitehall as an example of best practice. Who is right?

Of course not all prisons contain the squalid cells and enforced idleness found at Brinsford. But a range of other prisons have come in for heavy criticism in recent reports – whether for the dilapidated state of the buildings at Pentonville and Winchester, the high levels of violence at Feltham , or the restricted  regimes provided at  the newly opened  private prisons Oakwood and Thameside.

The limitations of these two private prisons feature too in the report by Margaret Hodge and her colleagues which despite noting their poor performance is however a generally positive one. The PAC welcomed the fact that the prison service has achieved significant savings in running costs (which is certainly true) and also reported that improvements are being made in the way offenders' needs are met, allowing more of them to work and stay closer to their homes.

This is a far more questionable claim. In addition to criticising the two new private prisons, the PAC itself quotes Hardwick's findings that the quality and quantity of work, education and training across the prison system had 'plummeted' over the year 2012-3.  What they do not say is that the cost cutting on which they lavish praise is in large part the cause of the poor performance they decry. 

If the PAC had looked at the Brinsford report they would have seen the negative consequences of staff reductions; too many evening and weekend recreational sessions cancelled because officers were redeployed to other areas; inadequate supervision in the health care unit; and significantly in the light of Chris Grayling’s assurances that prisoners do not need books to be sent in to them, inadequate access to the library because of the lack of available prison staff.

The PAC make the point that  additional cost savings could be made if the prison service provided more offender behaviour programmes to help prisoners serving indeterminate sentences to be released at the earliest opportunity. Such savings would be even more substantial if the experience of imprisonment for all prisoners better equipped them for a life back in the community so that they are less likely to end back inside.

But rehabilitation programmes have an upfront cost which the PAC are unwilling to acknowledge. Instead by prioritising economy and efficiency over effectiveness, they are encouraging a further round of cuts rather than sounding a warning siren. Their investigations into the costs of Oakwood prison in particular have been cursory. The prison’s claim to be able to deliver the same regime as other Category C prisons at less than half the average cost has always seemed fanciful. As this level of economy is now being held up as an example for the rest of the prison service to follow, the case for it to be properly scrutinised is overwhelming.

 Earlier in the year the PAC recommended far greater visibility about the private sector’s performance, costs, revenues and profits. The Committee should put the private sector to the test and take a much closer look at whether the much lower budgets in their prisons are genuinely delivering what is required.  Alongside this the Prisons Inspectorate should look much more systematically at the impact of staffing and resource levels on what is happening in the prisons they visit.  These two assessments would help answer the question of whether prisons can sustain any more cutbacks