Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 12:00 am on 20 December 1976.
We are coming to the end of a fairly long night. I do not intend to keep the House for very long on the subject of prisons, although I happen to think that the subject is too little discussed in the House, and, when points are raised, it seems that it is discussed with some reluctance.
As a Member representing a constituency with no fewer than three prison establishments within it, and at one time threatened with a fourth, I should like to air a few points this morning. I did not realise that I would have as much ammunition when I decided to seek this debate. I have with me a series of articles by Mr. Peter Evans which appeared in The Times only last week. Peter Evans is that newspaper's home affairs correspondent.
I should like to start by quoting from his first article, published on Monday 13th December, because it sums up very succinctly—much better than I could possibly do—the crisis that is now hitting our prison system.
The prison system is having to contain increasing numbers of highly dangerous men for longer periods in a population that will remain at crisis level into the 1980s. Yet the resources essential for reducing unprecedented pressures that the prisons were never designed to handle are being so drastically cut that there is now no prospect of real relief.
The prison service is being reduced to living on its wits from day to day with less and less room for manoeuvre and margin of safety.
During the earlier debate on Spandau, it was going through my mind that here was a place with goodness knows how many people looking after one poor 82-year-old incarcerated within. If only we could have Spandau moved in some way or if we could make use of the facilities there, it might be of great relief to our prison system. That could not possibly happen. However, there was the great luxury of this thing in Berlin. It is
a terrible thing, and I believe that it is wrong that the man is still there, but there is this enormous attention being given to one man when we are at our wits' end in having to deal with our own rising prison population.
Most of the headings in Class IX vote 7 in the Supply Estimates show various increases of costs, presumably mainly due to inflation and wage rises, but on page 183, Section A, on prisons, we see a decrease in provision of £5,800,000. So, my first question is: Why such a sharp cutback, and what does this mean in practice? With our prison population at a record level of over 42,000, and unfortunately increasing, what is the Government's policy to be for the future?
I suggest that those in the service and those living in close proximity to maximum security prisons—and we have two—are entitled to know, and to know rather more than is released to them at present.
What, for instance, is the shortfall in the establishment of the prison service? How is security now affected by that? We hear rumours of cutbacks, for instance, in dog patrols around the perimeters of prisons. We hear of fewer staff on duty during recreational periods keeping an eye on the prisoners, and of prisoners themselves having to spend longer in their cells than is normal or is good for them.
I accept that in regard to Albany Prison and Parkhurst Prison on the Isle of Wight substantial sums have been expended and are being further expended on security. Following the break-out last summer, a new security fence is being erected around Parkhurst. A great deal of money has been spent on the interior at Albany, which is one of our modern prisons, built within the last 15 years. Why was it chosen to be upgraded from a Category C prison, the original intention for that establishment, to a Category B prison in the first place? That has caused great problems.
Is the supervision within that establishment now sufficiently improved following the structural alterations? That was one of the problems following the recent IRA disturbances within that prison.
In his series of penetrating articles in The Times last week, Peter Evans highlighted many more of the present problems, in particular, doubts about treat- ment that now abound. Is Parkhurst still considered to be a prison, or is it a psychiatric hospital? What consultations are taking place between the Home Office and the Department of Health and Social Security about greater provision of midway secure establishments where first offenders with convictions for serious crimes can receive the right sort of attention without having to be committed to Broadmoor? This is important, because there is dire shortage of such establishments. They just do not seem to exist, and one suspects that there are many inmates of Broadmoor—I have experience of this, having had two cases of this type—who probably should never have been there at all and who could give way to those now in penal institutions who ought possibly to be at Broad-moor.
What is to be the future policy about long-term IRA prisoners in our prisons who are claiming political status? They are causing problems wherever they go, and we could well do without those who are on the Isle of Wight.
There seems to be overcrowing in all our prisons, as was vividly described by Mr. Evans when writing about Leeds gaol. He said:
Room is so scarce that prisoners have to take turns to stand up and shave. The most squalid part is slopping out the night's dirty water, urine, and faeces.
Prisoners then emerge, drowsy and subdued, after having been confined from 8.15 p.m. to 7.45 a.m., to carry the slops to a recess on a landing after prison officers bang on doors to wake them. As the number of their wing and landing is shouted by an officer, they queue for breakfast … They eat it sitting on beds in their cells because there is not room for all three at the one small table.
That is reminiscent of Dickens and does not read very nicely, particularly when we consider that this is 1976.
Bearing in mind the need for equality of the sexes, Mr. Evans also describes the situation at Holloway. He says:
Many of the people sentenced to prison would be better off elsewhere. Some ought not to be there at all. At Holloway prison, for example, the population includes up to 100 unconvicted on remand (on average 10 per cent. are found not guilty); up to 60 convicted on remand, 80 per cent. of whom get noncustodial sentences; about 30 drug addicts and alcoholics; a further 15 prisoners with an alcohol difficulty; and 12 psychotics, a class of prisoner which it is difficult to find hospitals to take. That is a total of 217 out of Holloway's average population of 380.
There is a queue of patients in prison waiting to go to Broadmoor or one of the other special hospitals run by the Department of Health and Social Security. One experienced medical officer told me that transfers were made more easily when the special hospitals, of which Broadmoor is one, were run by the Home Office.
It appears that many people who are remanded to Holloway ought not to be remanded to that establishment in the first place.
The picture is a disturbing one, and unless some positive decisions are taken soon the morale of the Prison Service, which I suggest is not as high as it should be, to put it mildly, will deteriorate. It is time for new initiatives about the type and length of sentence and consideration whether other forms of punishment which do not involve complete detention should be introduced. We hear about weekend or even overnight stays. I am sure that these things must be brought forward, otherwise we shall have a crisis of almost insoluble problems.
At the third prison in my constituency, Camp Hill, a Category C prison, £315,000 is being spent on a new sports complex. Very little information was given to my constituents about this matter and it caused something of an uproar when it was realised that although there are 110,000 residents on the island they do not have such facilities as are proposed at the prison. There is no indoor heated swimming pool for the local population, nor is there even an indoor sports complex, yet money is being spent at Camp Hill on such facilities. I am not saying that the prison will have a heated swimming pool, but it will have a pretty elaborate sports complex. I do not doubt that it may be highly desirable and that there are good reasons why it is being built.
I have exchanged correspondence with the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister, who knows my constituency. Why cannot these facilities be widened to provide dual provision for the benefit of all concerned? Surely, with a first or second offenders' prison like Camp Hill, such a course would give a movement between the outside world and the inmates, to the benefit of all concerned. Such ideas should be encouraged. If we are to spend that amount of money—and, as I say, no doubt there is a good case for it—on sport and recreational facilities for those whom we are trying to restore as good citizens to public life, can we not have these things discussed more openly, with the plans made public, so that the people concerned know what is going on?
How are the cuts to affect the civilians within the prison staff? I hear rumours of possible redundancies among maintenance men and, in some cases, instructors. The Prison Service seems to be going against Government policy by doing away with direct labour and bringing in outside contractors to do maintenance. The people concerned some of whom have worked in the prisons for many years, are entitled to know. In his concluding article last Thursday Mr. Evans says:
The prison system is suffering from a crisis of faith. People are not so sure as they once were what prisons are for.
It surely it time we tackled the whole problem comprehensively and had the determination to provide sufficient funds to structure a service of which we can be proud, rather than fail to face up to the problem fairly and squarely and risk the backlash that is inevitable unless action is taken.
In the 10 minutes or so that I have spoken I realise that I have only skimmed the surface of the problem, and I realise that it is a complex matter, but I hope that we shall have time in the House for a full-scale debate on the whole Prison Service early in the New Year.