No escape

The prison population continues to rise and reoffending is a problem

BBC Radio 4's Analysis: No Escape is broadcast on Monday 1 June at 20.30 BST.

Read the programme transcript

The government proudly claims that crime has fallen - yet the prison population has almost doubled in the last 20 years.

There are currently more than 80,000 inmates and that figure is expected to rise to 96,000.

Re-offending rates are among the highest in Europe and huge amounts of money are now being spent on the prison system.

In No Escape, Dr Richard Weight asks what is wrong with British prisons and why we seem to be failing where other countries have succeeded.

Altitudes at fault?

Violent offenders are jailed all over the world but some experts think that rates of imprisonment have more to do with attitudes to the disadvantaged and those dealing with drug and alcohol abuse or mental health problems.

"In every country, in every jurisdiction, you'll find that those who commit very serious offences - murder, rape, serious personal violence - are sent to prison," says Professor Anthony Coyle, a former prison governor.

"The differences in prison rates and the difference in use of imprisonment rates is the proportion of people from marginalised groups - mentally disturbed people, people with drug abuse problems, unemployed, homeless people.

"Where that number is high, you'll find that the prison rate is high."

In 1993 Home Secretary Michael Howard declared "prison works"

Reformers point the finger at the outrage over the death of James Bulger in 1993, murdered by two ten year old boys in Bootle.

So, they say, began a criminal justice arms race that is now out of control.

Tony Blair, then shadow home secretary, promised that Labour would be "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime".

And later that same year, Home Secretary Michael Howard famously declared at the Conservative Party Conference that "prison works".

"I do think that prison works," Prisons Minister David Hanson tells the programme.

"I mean prison works on two levels: One, prison, first of all, punishes the individual who has committed a crime.

"Secondly, it protects the public while that individual is in prison, but thirdly we need to look not just at incarceration, not just punishment, but also what we do with that individual when they are in our care."

Other options

Experts from the courthouse to the prison yard offer solutions which many people involved in the criminal justice system seem to agree on.

Kenny MacAskill wants to set minor offenders to work in the community

In her report on women's prisons, Baroness Corston argued most inmates should not be there and in Scotland the Justice Minister, Kenny MacAskill, from the SNP, wants to cap the prison population by setting minor offenders to work in the community instead of sending them to prison for six months or less.

Community payback schemes are also being tried in England and Wales, where offenders are made to wear highly visible fluorescent jackets so that we, the public, can see they are not being given a "soft option".

But the prison population continues to rise and reoffending remains a serious problem.

Can anything be done to get us off this treadmill?

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Contributors:

Jonathan Aitken, former MP and inmate

Professor Andrew Coyle, professor of Prison Studies

Baroness Corston, author of the Corston Report on Women's Prisons

Frances Crook, director, Howard League for Penal Reform

David Hanson MP, Prisons Minister

Kenny MacAskill MSP, Scottish Cabinet Secretary for Justice

Ex-offenders from the Open Book Project, Goldsmith's College

Presenter: Dr Richard Weight

Producer: Mark Savage

Editor: Hugh Levinson

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