COURAGE to overhaul the criminal justice system is required, to cope with the UK’s overcrowded prisons, bishops told the House of Lords on Wednesday.
Opening the penultimate day of debate on the King’s Speech, the brand new Minister for Prisons, Lord Timpson, said that prisons were essential “as a punishment and a deterrent”, but currently weren’t fit for his or her purpose: “They create higher criminals, not higher residents.”
Employing ex-offenders was a “win-win” for the country, he said: it boosted the economy and lowered reoffending rates. Lord Timpson formerly chaired the Prison Reform Trust, and, until his appointment to the House of Lords, was chief executive of the Timpson retail chain.
In the primary days of the brand new Government, the Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, announced that, to release overcrowding, about 5500 prisoners can be released early.
“If we fail to act now, we face the prospect of a complete breakdown of law and order,” she said, and, on Wednesday, Lord Timpson repeated an announcement that Ms Mahmood had made within the House of Commons, wherein she described the situation as a “ticking time bomb”.
The Bishop of Gloucester, the Rt Revd Rachel Treweek, who’s the Bishop to Prisons, asked Lord Timpson about ambitions to alter the general public narrative about incarceration, and suggested that a “whole-systems approach” was needed relatively than a narrow give attention to increasing prison places.
“New prison places are essential, and we’ll construct more prisons — prisons we’re happy with,” Lord Timpson said in reply.
Changing the narrative took time, but was possible, he suggested: 20 years ago, when he had began recruiting ex-offenders, “nobody thought it was an excellent idea,” he but now it was widely accepted nearly as good business practice.
In the talk on the King’s Speech, Bishop Treweek addressed the query of culture and system change. “The narrative that our streets will likely be safer if we lock more people up and for longer shouldn’t be supported by the evidence, and easily results in doing more of the identical thing,” she said; and blaming the previous government for not constructing more prisons was “missing the purpose”.
She continued: “We need a whole-community approach, and the difficulty of relationship is vital. We need to have a look at the massive picture, including upstream. We need that long-overdue review of sentencing.
“We need courage to determine alternatives to the revolving prison door and the repeated pattern of fractured relationship, and this must include community-based alternatives in addition to the presumption against short sentences, not least with their disproportionate impact on women.”
The former Archbishop of York, Lord Sentamu, called for fundamental change. Recalling his work as a jail chaplain within the Nineteen Eighties, he said: “Building recent prisons must go hand in hand with increased funding for the courts system; legal aid; the rehabilitation and education of offenders; a completely funded and renewed Probation Service; an everyday training review of all prison officers; a rigorous refreshing of the workings of the Crown Prosecution Service; and the renewal of restorative justice.”
The Bishop of Manchester, Dr David Walker, began his speech with an invite to Lord Timpson, to dine with him on the Clink restaurant at HM Prison Styal. The restaurant is staffed by inmates.
Dr Walker welcomed the Government’s pledge to introduce a “duty of candour” for public officials, fulfilling a advice from the previous Bishop of Liverpool, the Rt Revd James Jones, in his report on the Hillsborough disaster (News, 2 November 2017).
Dr Walker also “applauded” the ending of the Rwanda scheme, each on moral grounds, and since the previous government couldn’t confirm that it was fully compliant with international law.
He urged the brand new Government to think about allowing those waiting for asylum decisions to take paid employment, and signalled his support for a ban on conversion therapy. “I and others stand able to help frame a law that may outlaw these disgraceful practices while not criminalising medical practitioners and registered therapists, or private non-coercive prayer,” he said.
The only ordained member of the brand new Government also spoke on Wednesday. Baroness Sherlock, a Minister within the Department for Work and Pensions and an Anglican priest (Back Page Interview, 24 June), answered questions on the Household Support Fund.
Dr Walker asked about use of the fund for providing food for kids during school holidays. “Can now we have any hope that the Government will take a look at a more strategic way of helping children deal with hunger in the course of the school holidays?” he asked.
Baroness Sherlock said that this may be considered by the newly created Child Poverty Taskforce.
