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People in prison and life after release
A guide for donors and funders
New Philanthropy Capital • October 2005
New Philanthropy Capital
3 Downstream 1 London Bridge London SE1 9BG
October 2005
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
We do this through a combination of published research and
tailored advice. Our research identifies charities, large or small,
that are tackling problems in communities, education and
healthcare in the UK, and achieving excellent results. Our
advice for donors guides them on how to ensure their money
has high impact. In all of this, we focus on the long-term
benefits for the people that the charities serve.
Inside and out: People in prison and life after release
New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) is a charity that advises all
types of donors on how to give more effectively. Our aim is to
increase the quantity and quality of resources available to the
charitable sector.
Inside
and out
Inside
and out
People in prison and life after release
A guide for donors and funders
Other publications
Community
• Ordinary lives: Disabled children and their families (2005)
• Grey matters: Growing older in deprived areas (2004)
• Side by side: Young people in divided communities (2004)
• Local action changing lives: Community organisations tackling poverty and social exclusion (2004)
• Charity begins at home: Domestic violence (2003)
Education
• School’s out?: Truancy and exclusion (2005)
• Making sense of SEN: Special educational needs (2004)
Health
• Valuing short lives: Children with terminal conditions (2005)
• Out of the shadows: HIV/AIDS in Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda (2005)
• The hidden assassin: Cancer in the UK (2004)
• Caring about dying: Palliative care and support for the terminally ill (2004)
• Rhetoric to action: HIV/AIDS in South Africa (2003)
Other research
• Surer funding: Improving government funding of the voluntary sector (2004, published by acevo)
• Full cost recovery: A guide and toolkit on cost allocation (2004, published by acevo)
• Just the ticket: Understanding charity fundraising events (2003)
• Funding our future II: A manual to understand and allocate costs (2002, published by acevo)
Forthcoming publications
• Education overview (2005)
• Refugees and asylum seekers (2006)
• Unaccompanied asylum seeking children (2006)
• Mental health (2006)
• Child abuse (2006)
• Autism (2006)
• Out of school hours (2006)
• Advocacy and systemic change (2006)
Our research produces evidence-based analysis and guidance on individual charities, sectors and themes,
shedding light on where and how funds can be targeted. To date, the main focus of our research has been in
the UK.
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Executive
summary
Crime has high social and economic
costs for everyone it affects—victims,
witnesses, society, perpetrators and
their families. Prisons are an essential
component of the Criminal Justice
System, necessary to protect the public
from serious offenders. However, if
people are to lead full and law-abiding
lives in custody and on release,
rehabilitation is essential.
Understanding people
in prison
In 2005, the prison population reached
an all-time high of over 76,000. Most
prisoners have a history of poverty and
social exclusion. Prisoners are 13 times
more likely than the general population
to have been unemployed and 13 times
more likely to have been taken into care
as a child. They tend to have poor
literacy and numeracy skills (65% have
numeracy levels equivalent to an 11
year-old child), 70% have used illegal
drugs in the year prior to imprisonment,
and 70% have two or more mental
health problems. There are also
concerns that imprisonment can
increase the risk of reoffending because
of factors such as the breakdown of
family ties, unemployment and the loss
of accommodation. People in prison,
therefore, face a wide range of problems
that must be addressed to reduce the
social and economic consequences
of crime.
Prison is not turning a
majority of ex-offenders
away from crime
The stated duty of the Prison Service is
to look after people in prison with
humanity and help them lead lawabiding and useful lives in custody and
after release. However, prison has a
poor record for preventing reoffending.
Of the prisoners released in 1997, 58%
were reconvicted and 38% were back
inside on another prison sentence within
two years. Maintaining the prison estate
and providing adequate security is
costly, leaving limited resources available
for rehabilitation. Although the Prison
Service has made progress in some
areas, such as the assessment and
treatment of drug misusers, many
prisoners’ needs fall through the gaps of
statutory provision.
A compelling need for
charitable activity
Given the shortcomings of the Prison
and Probation Services, there is a
compelling need for charitable activity.
There are approximately 900 charities
working with people in prisons
throughout England and Wales, and
many more working with people on
release. Charities contribute to most
aspects of prison life. Some are
contracted by the government to deliver
several of the prisons’ main
programmes, such as the Prison
Service’s drug strategy. Others are reliant
on support from donors and funders to
undertake activities on which prisoners
and their families depend, for which there
is little, or no, statutory provision.
Positive results of
charitable activity
NPC’s research found that charities
make a significant impact, achieving one
or more of the following results: 1)
improved rehabilitation, reducing the
likelihood of reoffending; 2) improved
quality of life for people in custody and
for prisoners’ families; 3) improved
public policy and statutory provision;
and 4) improved ability of charities to
address the needs of prisoners and
their families through, for example,
enhanced relationships between
charities and prisons.
Charity recommendations
NPC has identified a number of high
impact charities that help reduce the
social and economic costs of crime.
Donors and funders interested in
supporting work with prisoners and their
families are encouraged to contact NPC
for detailed charity recommendations.
Photograph supplied by Sarah Ainslie/Clean Break
Contents
1
Executive summary
70 Conclusion and recommendations
3
Contents
72 Appendices
4
Introduction
6
Section 1: Understanding people
in prison
72
Appendix 1: Acknowledgements
74
Appendix 2: Research methodology
75
Appendix 3: The Prison and Probation
Services
77
Appendix 4: Categories of prisons for
adults
78
23 Section 3: Exploring prisoners'
problems and charitable solutions
Appendix 5: Prison Service Key
Performance Indicators 2004-2005
79
Appendix 6: Challenges faced by charities
24
3.1: Families
82
29
3.2: Education and pathways
to employment
Appendix 7: Types of mental health
problems
34
3.3: Attitudes and self control
37
3.4: Housing, debt and benefits
41
3.5: Mental health, self-harm and suicide
47
3.6: Drug and alcohol addiction
50
3.7: Physical health and disabilities
52
3.8: Women
56
3.9: Black and minority ethnic groups
59
3.10: Citizenship, community and
restorative justice
64
3.11: Public policy and public awareness
67
3.12: The arts
14 Section 2: Charities working with
prisoners and their families
83 References
3
Inside and out
Introduction
Introduction
Crime is a highly political and emotive issue which affects us all.
Understandably, most people’s primary concern is the
damaging impact it has on the ten million victims of crime each
year.1 Many see less reason to worry about the negative effects
on perpetrators and their families. Yet if we fail to address the
needs of, and issues faced by, prisoners, we miss an
opportunity to reduce the huge economic and social costs
of reoffending.
Prison is clearly needed to protect the public from serious
offenders. However, it can be ineffective and unnecessary for
those who have committed less serious offences. The stated
purpose of prison is to look after people with humanity and
help them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and after
release. However, there are real concerns about the degree to
which the current system achieves this. Repeat offending is
endemic, indicating that prison has a poor record of reducing
reoffending.
A 2002 report by the government’s Social Exclusion Unit,
Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, states: ‘Too often a
prison sentence does not cure the causes of crime, but
aggravates them. Instead of helping prisoners to connect with
jobs and become included in society again, it can take away the
employment, housing and family links, and leave prisoners
virtually destitute, on the road back to prison even as they
leave it.’2
By exploring the needs of, and issues faced by, people in prison
we are better placed to understand how to reduce the likelihood
of reoffending and improve the well-being of all those affected
by crime.
The majority of prisoners come from disadvantaged
backgrounds. Prisons and charities working with prisoners face
a daunting task of addressing the consequences of poverty and
social exclusion, the failings of public institutions (such as
schools and other social services) and the negative
consequences of imprisonment. Two simple examples can
illustrate this. Most prisoners have literacy and numeracy
problems and little experience of the workplace, which severely
restricts their employment potential. Consequently, ex-prisoners
can be left without the skills to reintegrate successfully into
society, increasing the risk of reoffending. After entering prison,
45% of prisoners say they have lost contact with their family, yet
the maintenance of family ties can reduce the likelihood of
reoffending. Supporting education and family visits is not only
humanitarian, but makes sense from a hard-headed cost-benefit
perspective because it can reduce the costs of crime.
NPC poses the following questions: Given the scale, scope and
effectiveness of statutory support, what charitable activities are
necessary to address the needs of people in prison and upon
their release? Which charitable activities need funding from
donors and grant-makers?
4
Researching prisons and the role of charities is both dispiriting
and inspiring. NPC met with a tide of despair and desperately
inadequate statutory provision. Security remains a prime
concern for the Prison Service. With such large numbers of
people in prison and worries about overcrowding, resources are
tight. Although there have been significant improvements in
statutory provision in areas such as drug treatment, rehabilitative
services remain inadequate and statutory support for charitable
activity is limited.
Faced with these barriers, some would question whether
charities can truly make a difference to the lives of prisoners and
their families, and ultimately reduce the social and economic
consequences of crime. NPC has, however, been inspired by
the work and results of the charities it has visited. Charities are
involved in practically all aspects of prison life and support given
to people on release. The range of charitable activity includes
running visitors’ centres to helping maintain family ties, tackling
drug and alcohol addictions, encouraging education and using
the arts to address behavioural problems. Charities have a
significant track record of improving people’s lives and
contributing to a reduction in reoffending rates. Many charities
also seek to change the status quo through research and
campaigning to increase the effectiveness of the penal system.
Charitable funds can enhance all these roles.
This report outlines a critical role for charities, identifying where
funders and donors can make a difference. It spells out the
range of activities provided by charities and the supportive roles
that should be played by the prison authorities. While
recognising legitimate concerns about where statutory provision
does (or should) end and the need for charitable giving begins,
the report takes a pragmatic approach based on the current
context and the experiences of charities.
Everyone has a stake in what happens in prisons. Crime affects
everyone on a personal, social and economic level. NPC
therefore urges funders to support charities that are making an
important contribution to improving society.
‘
Too often a prison sentence does not
cure the causes of crime, but aggravates
them. Instead of helping prisoners to
connect with jobs and become included
in society again, it can take away the
employment, housing and family links, and
leave prisoners virtually destitute, on the
road back to prison even as they leave it.
‘
Prisons: failing prisoners, failing society
Social Exclusion Unit
Inside and out
Scope, content and structure of this report
The primary questions addressed in this report are:
• Given the scale and scope of statutory provision for people in
prison and on release, what is the need for, and what are the
results of, charitable activity?
• What is the need for charitable funding?
These questions are addressed first by exploring the profile of
people in prison and the role and impact of the Prison and
Probation Services. The first half of the report (Sections 1 and 2)
introduces: the characteristics and experiences of people in prison;
the role and effectiveness of the Prison and Probation Services;
and the role and impact of the charitable sector. Section 3
explores the needs of, and issues faced by, people in prison in
more detail, highlighting examples of charitable activity. The report
concludes in Section 4 with an overview of why and where private
funding is needed. The analysis focuses on adults in prisons in
England and Wales, although some charities reviewed also work in
Scotland.
Introduction
NPC’s research
enables donors
and funders
to target
resources
effectively
and maximise
impact.
The findings in this report build on desk research and on
discussions with charities, statutory agencies, grant-making trusts,
academics and other experts in the field. The research
methodology is described in Appendix 2.
Clearly, working with adult prisoners is only one aspect of the
broader need to tackle crime and its causes. For example, this
report does not address the needs of young offenders in custody.
The report also does not address alternatives to prison (such as
community sentences), the needs of victims or witnesses of crime,
or miscarriages of justice. Such matters may be addressed in
future NPC reports. Existing NPC reports do, however, address
factors that can contribute to crime prevention, such as: Local
action changing lives: Community organisations tackling poverty
and social exclusion, Side by side (which explores building bridges
between young people in divided communities), and School’s
out?, which explores truancy and exclusion from school.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
NPC is grateful to the individuals and organisations that
contributed to the development of this report, listed in Appendix 1.
5
Understanding people in prison
The UK
imprisons more
people per
head of
population than
any other nation
in Western
Europe.
The prison
population in
England and
Wales hit an all
time high in
2005 when it
reached over
76,000.
Analysis of
crime statistics
indicates that
the growth in
the prison
population has
not been fuelled
by escalating
crime rates.
6
1
Summary
The rising prison population
Crime can have a damaging impact on all
those affected—victims, witnesses,
communities, perpetrators and their
families. For example, victims may suffer
from post-traumatic stress and
communities can be blighted by fear.
The UK imprisons more people per head of
population that any other nation in Western
Europe.4 The prison population in England and
Wales hit an all-time high in 2005 when it
reached over 76,000, of whom around 17%
were on remand, 6% were women and 4%
were under 18.5 These figures represent a
55% increase (138% in the case of women)
compared to 1994 figures.6 Men represent
95% of the prison population. According to
Home Office statistics, further growth of 28%
to 54% can be expected. This could increase
the prison population to a minimum of 91,400
and a maximum of 109,600 by 2009.7
Imprisonment is the most severe sentence
that a court can apply to those who have
committed an offence. Prisons are an
essential component of the Criminal Justice
System, necessary to protect the public
from serious offenders. However, prison has
a poor record of reducing reoffending. Of
the prisoners released in 1997, within two
years 58% were reconvicted of another
crime and 38% were back inside on another
prison sentence.
International analysis suggests that welldesigned, well-run and well-targeted
rehabilitation programmes can reduce
reconviction rates by 5–10%.3 Although the
Prison and Probation Services have
improved their focus on rehabilitation, the
current balance of resources, which is
skewed towards maintaining the prison
estate and security, does not allow for
adequate provision of activities that can
reduce reoffending.
Only by understanding the profile of the
people in prison, the experience of prison,
and life after release, can appropriate
rehabilitative programmes be designed to
reduce the social and economic costs of
crime. Many prisoners have experienced a
lifetime of poverty and social exclusion,
including high levels of educational, health
and family problems and poor job
prospects. This presents significant
difficulties for people in prison and on
release. People in prison and those they
‘leave behind’ often find imprisonment a
traumatic experience, involving isolation
from family and friends, shock, shame,
insecurity, powerlessness, fear, and the
loss of self-confidence. There is good
reason to be troubled by the high suicide
rate of people in prison and by the
behavioural problems in prisoners’ children
that can result from imprisonment.
There are currently 139 prisons in England and
Wales, 12 of them run under contract by
private companies. Appendix 3 provides an
overview of the Prison and Probation Services
and Appendix 4 describes the differences in
the prison estate and associated risk
categories for prisoners.
Analysis of crime statistics indicates that the
growth in the prison population has not been
fuelled by escalating crime rates, and there
has not been an increase in the number of
offenders appearing in front of the courts. The
2004/2005 British Crime Survey states that
after peaking in 1995, crime has fallen 44%
and violent crime has dropped by 43%. The
same report states that the risk of becoming a
victim of crime has fallen from 40% in 1995 to
24% in 2004/2005, representing almost six
million fewer victims. Although the British
Crime Survey, which is deemed to show a
more real picture of crime, reports that violent
crime has decreased by 11% since
2003/2004, recorded crime statistics reveal a
7% increase in violent crime during the same
period. The rise in recorded crime only shows
crimes that the police know about and partly
reflects the effect of recording changes. This
data on the rise in recorded violent crime does
not explain the increase in the number of
people imprisoned. The number of offenders
found guilty of indictable offences of violence
against the person has fallen from 67,000 in
1991 to 55,000 in 2001.8
The Prison Reform Trust and other experts
believe that longer prison sentences are now
imposed for serious crimes and offenders are
more likely to be imprisoned whereas ten years
ago they would have received lesser
penalties.9 Martin Narey, the then head of the
Prison and Probation Services recently stated:
“Ten years ago there were 129 shoplifters in
prison. We’ve got 1,400 now”.10 First time
Inside and out
domestic burglars are almost twice as likely to
receive a custodial sentence today as they
were eight years ago.11 Lord Carter’s review of
correctional services proposed several reasons
for the increasing use of prison:
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
Figure 1: Sentenced population by offence type (November 2003)
100
90
Other
• changes in legislation and in sentencing
guidelines (for example, the maximum
sentence for death by dangerous driving
has increased);
80
• decreased confidence on the part of judges
and magistrates in less severe sentences
(for example, 30% of fines are not paid); and
60
• the interplay between public perception, the
media, politicians and sentencers, which has
driven up the severity of sentencing.12
Criminal justice is a hot political issue which is
influenced by the media and public opinion.
40
Sexual offences
30
Violence against the person
Figure 1 suggests there are people in prison
whose behaviour presents a serious risk to the
safety of our society, including many of the
19,000 people who have committed violent or
sexual offences. However, there is growing
expert consensus among practitioners and
policy-makers that too many people are in
prison who should not be there, including those
who have committed less serious offences.
Many experts believe that rehabilitation would
be enhanced for those on short-term sentences
if they were offered rigorous community
sentences (described in Appendix 3).
The high costs of crime,
reoffending and reimprisonment
The economic and social costs of crime and
reoffending are immense. The Home Office
estimates that the total cost of crime in Britain
each year is £59.9bn, which includes spending
on security to prevent crime, the cost of
treating victims in hospital, lost wages and the
cost of running the Criminal Justice System.13
The consequences of recorded crime
committed by ex-prisoners costs the Criminal
Justice System at least £11bn per year. Exprisoners are responsible for about one in five
of all recorded crimes. Each reconvicted exprisoner costs the Criminal Justice System an
average of £65,000 to get to the point of reimprisonment14. Thereafter it costs
approximately £37,000 a year to send one
person to prison.15 The Government Spending
Review in 2000 estimated that preventing an
offender from reoffending in any one year
produced a saving of approximately £31,000.16
Crime also has significant financial and
emotional costs for the victims of crime, the
offenders themselves, their families and
communities. Home Office research on the
annual total of victim-related costs, such as
time away from home due to injury caused by
crime and the costs of victim support services,
is approximately £18bn17 (30% of the total cost
of crime in Britain). Many deprived communities
Motoring offences
70
Drug offences
Burglary/robbery/theft
and handling
50
Fraud and Forgery
20
10
0
Male
Female
suffer disproportionately from high crime rates.
There is therefore a strong economic driver for
ensuring that taxes are applied in a manner
that is most likely to reduce the social and
economic consequences of crime.
Prison is not turning a majority of
offenders away from crime
Recorded crime
committed by
ex-prisoners
costs £11 bn
per year.
The stated duty of the Prison Service is to look
after people in prison with humanity and help
them lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody
and after release. However, of those prisoners
released in 1997, 58% were convicted of another
crime and 36% were back inside on another
prison sentence within two years. Of those
reconvicted in the two years following release,
each will have received three further convictions
on average. For each reconviction it is estimated
that five recorded offences are committed.
Released prisoners are responsible for at least
one million of recorded crimes per year.18
Successes in reducing reoffending have been
limited. Drawing on the 2002 Social Exclusion
Unit’s report Reducing re-offending by exprisoners, the reasons for this include overuse
of prison (for example, too many people with
severe mental illness are in prison rather than
in secure treatment facilities), inadequate and
insufficient programmes to rehabilitate
prisoners, the lack of accountability for the
outcomes of sentences or the rehabilitation
process, and poor transition between services
provided in prison and services outside of
prison (see Appendix 3). To address many of
these shortcomings, the Prison and Probation
Services have been merged into the new
National Offender Management Service (see
Appendix 3). However, it may take years
before the success of the new system can
be judged.
Preventing an
offender from
reoffending in
any one year
can produce a
saving of
around
£31,000.
7
Inside and out
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
Most of the
prison
population have
experienced a
lifetime of
poverty and
social exclusion.
The shortcomings of the Prison and Probation
Services are not unfamiliar to policy-makers
and practitioners. Indeed, many public officials
are working hard to improve the Prison Service
and Probation Services and the focus on
reducing reoffending has improved. There are
also examples of effective rehabilitative
activities across the prison estate. However, the
balance of resources does not enable prisons
to deliver adequate rehabilitation programmes
such as education, drug and mental health
treatment to anywhere near the number of
people who need them. There are limited
resources for rehabilitation. Moreover, the
Prison Service is an old and vast institution,
with a deeply embedded culture, making it
difficult to introduce and implement change.
A profile of people entering prison
In order to explore how reoffending can be
reduced, it is essential to understand the
profile of people in prison, the experience of
imprisonment and life after release.
Most of the 76,000-strong prison population
have experienced a lifetime of poverty and
social exclusion. The 2002 Social Exclusion
Unit report tells us that compared with the
general population, prisoners are, ‘thirteen
times as likely to have been taken into care as
a child, thirteen times as likely to be
unemployed, ten times as likely to be a regular
truant, and two and a half times as likely to
have had a family member convicted of a
criminal offence’.
The report goes on to say: ‘Despite high levels
of need, many prisoners have effectively been
excluded from access to public services in the
past. It is estimated that around half the
prisoners had no GP before they came into
custody; prisoners are over 20 times more
likely than the general population to have been
excluded from school; and one prison drugs
project found that although 70% of those
entering had a drug misuse problem, 80% of
these had never had any contact with drug
treatment services.’19 Many women in prison
have histories of domestic or physical violence,
and one third have a history of sexual abuse.
Black and minority ethnic groups are
disproportionately represented in prison.
Table 1 further illustrates some key
characteristics of people in prison compared
to the general population.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
In 1517, Sir Thomas More wrote: ‘Until you put
right social injustice, you’re not entitled to boast
of the justice meted out to thieves, for it’s a
justice more specious than socially desirable.
You allow these people to be brought up in the
worst possible way, and systematically
corrupted from their earliest years. Finally, when
they grow up and commit the crimes they were
obviously destined to commit, ever since they
were children, you start punishing them. In
other words, you create thieves and then
punish them for stealing’.
8
The patterns of inequality and disadvantage
set out in Table 1 do not necessarily equate to
causation of, nor do they excuse, criminal
acts. Personal choice is a critical factor when
crimes are committed. However, the data
raises serious concerns about the relationship
between crime, poverty and social exclusion,
suggesting that the Criminal Justice System
alone will not deter people from crime. Many
people entering prison have experienced a
lifetime of failure on the part of social and
public services.
Inside and out
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
Table 1: Characteristics of people in prison
Characteristic
General Population
Prisoners
Taken into care as a child
2%
27% (those who had been in
care also had longer criminal
careers on average)
Have a family member
convicted of a criminal offence
16%
43% (35% had actually been
in prison)
Lone parenthood
9% living alone with
dependent children
21% women prisoners living
alone with dependent children
at the time of imprisonment
Numeracy at or below Level 1
(the level expected of an 11
year-old)
23%
65%
Reading ability at or below
Level 1
21–23%
48%
Have no qualifications
15%
52% of men and 71% of
women
Attended a special school
1%
23% of male and 11% of
female sentenced prisoners
Left school at 16 or younger
32%
89% of men and 84% of
women
Regularly truanted from school
3%
30%
Unemployed
5%
67% in the four weeks before
imprisonment
Suffer from two or more
mental health disorders
5% men
2% women
72% male sentenced prisoners
Drug use in previous year
13% men
8% women
66% male sentenced prisoners
38% men
15% women
66% male sentenced prisoners
Long-standing illness or
disability
29% men aged 18–49
46% of sentenced male
prisoners aged 18-49
Debt
10% of households with
difficult or multiple debts
48% with a history of debt
Homelessness
0.9% of households assessed
to be statutorily homeless
each year
32% of prisoners not living in
permanent accommodation
prior to imprisonment.
Hazardous drinking
70% female sentenced
prisoners
55% female sentenced
prisoners (in year before
imprisonment)
55% of female sentenced
prisoners (in year before
imprisonment)
9
Inside and out
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
The experience of people in prison
For the general public, the closest many get to
understanding life in prison and the challenges
faced by people on release is through the
media. Long-standing television programmes,
such as ‘The Bill’, comedies like ‘Porridge’ and
dramas such as ‘Bad Girls’ all influence our
perceptions of the Criminal Justice System.
The images of old Victorian prisons are
familiar—stark environments, steel bars and
long corridors. However, media images do not
help us to truly understand the human
experience of prison and its consequences.
Shedding light on the effects of prison on
individuals is a difficult task, because the only
real experts are those who ‘live’ and work there.
People’s experiences in prison obviously differ
from one person to the next. Nevertheless,
some common symptoms of prison include:
• Isolation from friends and family. The
2001 Woolf report states: ‘The disruption of
the inmate’s position within the family unit
represents one of the most distressing
aspects of imprisonment. … Enabling
inmates, so far as possible, to stay in close
and meaningful contact with the family is
therefore an essential part of humane
treatment.’ Despite the rise in the prison
population, the number of prison visits has
declined by 30% in the past five years.
Prisoners are often held many miles away
from their homes, making it difficult for
friends and family to visit. Separation from
family is especially traumatic for women in
prison due to their childcare responsibilities.
• Fear and insecurity. Many will be
unfamiliar with prison procedures and the
environment, which can be aggressive and
unpredictable. During time in custody
people may face bullying and racism. Home
Office research has also found that
prisoners face a one in five chance of being
assaulted, and a one in three chance of
being a victim of theft.20 Few can be certain
about what life on release will hold.
• The removal from one’s community and
from familiar social or cultural networks.
This can be especially distressing for
foreign national prisoners who are unable to
communicate with prison staff or other
prisoners because of language barriers.
Many are held thousands of miles away
from home, perhaps separated from their
children who may be vulnerable to rape,
poverty and recruitment to crime. Black
and minority ethnic (BME) prisoners, who
are disproportionately represented in the
prison population, also suffer from being
unable to access support that reflects their
distinctive needs. Some BME prisoners risk
being ostracised from their communities as
a result of imprisonment.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
• Loss of autonomy, liberty and privacy.
For example, prisoners have to share cells
and have limited control over the pattern of
their daily lives. Removing day-to-day
responsibilities, such as cooking, managing
finances and family commitments, can lead
to ‘learned helplessness’, making it difficult
to manage life on release.
10
The first days in custody are particularly
distressing for many prisoners, especially for
those new to the prison system. More than a
quarter of prison suicides occur within a
person’s first week in the prison and more than
two fifths within the first month.21 During the
2005 Mother’s Day weekend, 41 women
attempted suicide in one prison alone. In
2004, there were 95 suicides.22 The suicide
rate in prison is approximately seven times
higher than it is among the general population.
Inside and out
Accessing appropriate rehabilitative programmes
presents a challenge for many prisoners. As
illustrated in Table 1, many people enter prison
with significant problems that need to be
overcome if they are to increase their chances of
leading full and law abiding lives in prison and on
release. However, those serving short-term
sentences of under 12 months receive little, or
no, practical support because it is believed that
the length of their sentence is insufficient for any
programmes to benefit them. Yet short-term
prisoners have the highest reoffending rates.
Only 50% of prisons holding medium risk
prisoners have a drug treatment programme.24
Even though 50% of violent crime is committed
by an intoxicated person, only one in 69 prisons
have a dedicated alcohol strategy. Just under a
third of prisoners attend education classes at
any one time and only one in five prisoners gain
a qualification while in custody. Rather than
accessing tailored support, which reflects the
needs of prisoners so that the likelihood of
reoffending can be reduced, access to
rehabilitative programmes depends on what
happens to be available in any given prison.
It is not uncommon for people to be moved
around from one prison to another during their
sentence because of overcrowding or
progression to different category prisons (see
Appendix 4). Transferring from one prison to
another can be disruptive, because prisoners
can be moved at short notice with incomplete
files and half-finished treatments or courses.
Courses may only be completed if the
receiving prison has similar provision and a
vacancy. Transfers can also make it harder to
maintain family ties. Case studies in Box 1
illustrate the experience of life inside.
Box 1: Experiences of life inside
Anita’s story
25
‘I felt that any world I had was falling apart and disintegrating in front of me. I had
continued on medication for depression for years but the doctor changed this to
Prozac and sleeping tablets. I was referred to a psychiatrist; I was a mess, mixed up
and at the age of 33 had to give up work.
I had never been mixed up in anything illegal or done anything wrong before but my
children needed things and because I couldn’t work, I couldn’t afford to buy them
treats. It was hard enough to keep food on the table and a roof over our heads. One
day some chaps came to the house with stolen credit cards and chequebooks and
asked me if I wanted stuff for me and the kids. I jumped at the chance, I got away
with it, I even got a buzz out of doing it. I went with them to the shops and within no
time the kids had all they wanted and I was reaping the profits of my crime. I soon
began taking crack and heroin and anything else that was offered, I was well out of
control. I was eventually caught by the police and I told them everything besides who
gave me the cards …
… I am now in prison to pay for the crimes I have committed and I am ashamed to
tell people that I was on drugs. I took the drugs to cut out the pain I was having from
all the heartache I had suffered over the years. I broke down when the judge passed
a two year sentence and my only thought was for my children and my mother who
is now disabled. Writing and telling her was the hardest thing I have ever had to do
in my life. I was taken to Brockhill prison to start my sentence; I tried to end my life
and ended up on a suicide watch. I eventually settled down and accepted that this
was how it was going to be for a while when a bunch of girls came into my cell and
asked me for my tea pack. I said ‘no’ and then one of the girls called me a ‘Paki’ and
punched me in the eyes. I had a nosebleed. She told me that if I told anyone then she
would kill me, and she said the other girls wouldn’t grass me up as they’re my mates.
I never said anything, but at lock-in, I grabbed an HMP bag and sat behind the
wardrobe and tried to suffocate myself. Unfortunately the officers came in and got
me, this made me resentful as I just wanted them to leave me to get on with it and
leave me there to die …’
Extract from ‘The Godot Complex’
26
‘Eventually I calmed down. They let me out of the cage, I said I was sorry about all
the noise and the swearing and they said it was ok. When I got to the prison remand
wing it was like looking at a great mechanism made with meat and metal. Everything
was men and steel. The sound of the metal was like the sound of something alive.
Like blood people were coursing along the catwalk veins of [a] huge monster.
Distorted voices and clanging iron gave the scene a sharp edge. It felt dangerous.
Unhinged. I felt close to dying on the floor. It was like all this prison thing was going
to need a highly educated person to get any good out of it. I wasn’t educated. I never
had to write something or add up some numbers. That kind of educated stuff was
beyond me.’
‘
‘
Ninety per cent of prisoners have a mental
health problem. Although prisoners are entitled
to receive the same range and level of
healthcare they would in the community, most
prisoners with mental health problems are not
receiving adequate care. Research suggests
that prisoners are twice as likely to be refused
treatment for mental health problems inside
prison than people outside.23 Many people in
prison have serious, undiagnosed problems,
which untreated, can be made worse by
imprisonment. As many as three quarters of
mental health illnesses go unnoticed on
reception into custody and high numbers of
people remain in prison who should be diverted
to psychiatric services. The availability of illegal
drugs in prison (in 2003/2004, 12.3% of
prisoners were found to be using drugs), limited
family support; enforced solitude can have a
profound negative effect on mental health.
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
We are the forgotten people – we are
actually doing the sentence as well,
but we’re doing it probably in a harder
way
Sally, partner of a prisoner
11
Inside and out
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
Box 2: Impact of imprisonment on families 30
“We are the forgotten people—we are actually doing the sentence as well, but we’re
doing it probably in a harder way!” (Sally, partner of prisoner)
“I used to be so happy-go-lucky, had a lot of friends, loved the career I had and now
I’ve become a recluse, depressed, socially phobic, I’ve got no confidence whatsoever.
I’ve lost a lot of self respect”. (Anna, partner of prisoner)
“We used to be quite well off, now we’re back on income support and I have to
support him too”. (Claire, partner of prisoner)
“She was on remand for six months before she went to court. I didn’t go to court
because I wasn’t allowed, because I was too young. I thought I should know all about
it because I was closest to mum. It would have been a support for mum. I felt they
thought it had nothing to do with me—I wasn’t considered.” (16 year old girl, mother
in prison)
Box 3: Leaving prison: contrasting attitudes
Anita32
“I miss my children like crazy, I love them deeply and I know that I will be with them
soon. I now look forward to my future, setting up a new home with my children; I lost
my home and everything else. I know that prison isn’t a place for women and will
never come back. I also know that I have made some stupid mistakes and can only
look forward to a wonderful future on release. I have learned a lot in prison and have
met people from all walks of life, people who, like me, have many different problems
and have learned to cope and readjust for the future.”
Erwin James33
The experience of those
‘left behind’
12
The experience of people upon
release from prison
Each year about 90,000 people are released
from prison in England and Wales.31 Some
people, such as Anita, whose story is
described in Box 3, have high hopes for
release as a fresh start. However, many
prisoners display alarm at the prospect of
reintegration into their community from which
they have been excluded for a period of a few
months to 20 or more years. Learning to
‘survive’ beyond the prison gate can be just as
difficult as ‘surviving’ inside.
The 2002 Social Exclusion Report identifies nine
related factors that influence reoffending, which
are explored further throughout Section 3:
• Education
• Employment
• Drug and alcohol misuse
9 September 2004: ‘I remember once seeing a young man being released from a
category C, medium-security prison in Cambridgeshire when I worked there as the
reception orderly. He had only been in a couple of years, yet he told me he was scared
to death of going back out. I made him a mug of sweet tea to try to calm his nerves
as we sat together in the glass-panelled holding room during his final half hour.
“The crazy thing is,” he said, “I'm just as terrified of being in here.” I didn't fancy
his chances.’
Due to mental
health
problems, weak
family links or a
history of
exclusion from
school, many
ex-prisoners
find it difficult to
cope on
release.
of a parent is experienced more as a relief than
a loss. This may be especially the case when
family members are imprisoned for domestic
or sexual abuse. One woman interviewed by
OCFT stated: “Before, he was thieving my
grocery money, stealing my jewellery, selling
the kids’ videos [for drugs money]” (Jean).
Imprisonment can hurt those ‘left behind’:
husbands, wives, partners, parents and children.
Before their imprisonment, 55% of men and
35% of women in prison describe themselves as
living with a husband or partner. Approximately
150,000 children have a parent in prison27 and
7% of children experience the imprisonment of a
father during their time at school.28
The imprisonment of a relative or partner can
be traumatic, isolating and stressful for
prisoners’ families. They can feel anger,
embarrassment, sadness, anxiety and fear. It
can hit them financially, threaten relationships
and result in the loss of self-esteem and selfconfidence. The parent or carer is left to try to
explain the situation to the children, whose
behaviour can be negatively affected and can
result in mental health problems. Sometimes
they choose to shield them from the truth. The
quotations in Box 2 illustrate some of the
negative effects imprisonment has on families.
Research undertaken by the Ormiston
Children and Families Trust29 (OCFT) also
shows that for a few families the imprisonment
• Mental and physical health
• Attitudes and self control
• Institutionalisation and life-skills
• Housing
• Financial support and debt
• Family networks
There is considerable risk that a prison
sentence might actually make the factors
associated with reoffending worse. For
example, 45% of prisoners say they have lost
contact with their family after entering prison
and the government allocates little funding to
this issue. However, the maintenance of family
ties can help reduce reoffending. Employment
on release from prison reduces the risk of
reoffending between a third and a half, but
two-thirds of prisoners lose their job while in
prison. In 2003, only a quarter of prisoners had
a paid job arranged after release. A further 5%
had a training or educational place arranged.
For a third of prisoners, existing debt problems
worsen during their time in custody.34
Inside and out
Prisoners who are homeless are 20% more
likely to be reconvicted, yet up to a third lose
their homes during custody (as illustrated in
Box 3). Only half the prisons in England and
Wales offer a housing advice and support
service. Securing accommodation is especially
difficult for those with mental health problems
or addictions. One study found that 49% of
people with mental health problems and 63%
of those with a drug problem had nowhere to
go on release. Not having stable
accommodation on release makes access to
public services, such as healthcare or drug
treatment especially difficult and it is harder to
find and keep a job with no fixed address.
Ex-prisoners with a permanent home are three
times more likely to be in work. Not having
accommodation arranged on release leaves
many people moving from friend to friend, in a
bed and breakfast, or on the streets.35 Of
people leaving prison, 37% plan to stay in a
hostel or short-term accommodation, and a
further 6% (around 5,400 people) have nothing
temporary arranged.36 Of short-term, repeat
prisoners, 10% say they had slept rough when
they left custody the last time.37 Box 4
illustrates the challenge of securing housing.
The gap between support offered inside and
outside prison can also cause problems (as
illustrated in Box 5). When released, public
agencies are far from proactive in identifying exprisoners who need assistance. There is even
evidence that prisoners are actively deprioritised.38 Prisoners sentenced to less than
12 months do not require supervision by the
Probation Service and are therefore released
without any support (in 2006 the Probation
Service will supervise all people released from
prison). Much of the positive drugs work started
in prison is not sustained on release, so many
ex-prisoners resort to old habits. An adult
prisoner stated: “I’ve been on and off drugs for
years … mostly heroin. I pretty much get myself
clean whenever I’m in here … but somehow I
always get back into it when I’m out”.39
Many people leave prison with no money
except their discharge grant of between £47
and £94, making it extremely hard to reestablish life outside without slipping back into
crime. Not having money is likely to increase
the risk of reoffending within the first few weeks
after release, yet ex-prisoners have to wait a
number of weeks before receiving benefit.
Box 4: Losing accommodation as a result of imprisonment
Annette lost her accommodation as a result of entering prison. No one had talked to
her when she arrived or during the following months about how she could keep her
house or what she could do to ensure she had somewhere to live on release.
Annette’s rent arrears continued to grow while she was in prison and she was
evicted. Her early release under curfew was rejected because of the absence of an
approved address. On release, her local authority refused to rehouse her because of
her rent arrears.
Source: (2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, Social Exclusion Unit
Box 5: The gap between support offered inside and outside
of prison
Matthew has used heroin and cocaine for the past five years and has been in prison
twice before. During his latest sentence his drug use was assessed and when he
arrived in prison he successfully completed a detoxification programme. He gained
basic skills qualifications and staff helped him to set up a college interview on
release. Matthew accepted that he would need to complete a drug treatment
programme to avoid using drugs in the future, but on release he was told that he
would have to wait four months to get on a programme. Matthew found that he had
no one to help him to organise the support he needed.
Source: (2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, Social Exclusion Unit
The Social Exclusion Unit argues that people
leaving prison need better life skills than most
to cope with the barriers they are likely to face.
However, because of mental health problems,
weak family links, or a history of exclusion from
school, many ex-prisoners find it difficult to
cope. Removing their liberty has often deprived
them of responsibility or control of their lives.40
Having lived in a prison environment that is
relatively ‘safe’ that removes day-to-day
responsibilities, some ex-prisoners even want
to be back inside after release.
Many people leave prison no better equipped
to lead full and crime-free lives than when they
entered it. In fact, some prisoners will leave it a
good deal worse off. The 2002 Social
Exclusion Unit’s report states: ‘Instead of
helping prisoners to connect with jobs and
become included in society again, it can take
away the employment, housing and family
links, and leave prisoners virtually destitute, on
the road back to prison even as they leave it.’41
High reoffending rates are hardly surprising.
‘
Instead of helping
prisoners to
connect with jobs
and become
included in society
again, it can take
away the
employment,
housing and family
links, and leave
prisoners virtually
destitute, on the
road back to
prison even as
they leave it.
‘
The stigma associated with being labelled an
ex-prisoner can cause difficulties in the
reintegration into family, community and work
life. Employer discrimination is one of the
biggest factors that reduces the likelihood of
ex-prisoners securing employment.
Understanding people in prison/Section 1
Social Exclusion Unit
13
Charities working with prisoners and
their families
‘
I do not believe
that the public at
large realises just
how much it owes
to the voluntary
sector, for what it
does in prison,
both in terms of
what the public
purse would
otherwise have to
provide, or in
terms of what
would be removed
from the treatment
and conditions of
prison.
Summary
This section provides an overview of the
activities and results of charitable activity
supporting prisoners and their families,
during and after custody.
Given the shortcomings of the Prison and
Probation Services and the distinctive skills
of the charitable sector, there is a
compelling case for charitable activity.
Since the late 1990s, the Prison Service
has increasingly recognised the positive
contribution that charities make.
This recognition coincides with the
government’s view of the charitable sector
as an important means of achieving
government objectives.
Charities are no longer just drawn in on the
margins of activities, but also help to
deliver some of the prisons’ main
programmes, such as the Prison Service’s
drug strategy. In fact, charities contribute
to all aspects of prison life with the
exception of security, control and
discipline.42 The former Chief Inspector of
Prisons, Lord David Ramsbotham, wrote:
‘I do not believe that the public at large
realises just how much it owes to the
voluntary sector, for what it does in prison,
both in terms of what the public purse
would otherwise have to provide, or in
terms of what would be removed from
the treatment and conditions of prison.’
‘
There are approximately 900 charities
working with people in prison and many
more working with people on release.
The scope of charitable activity includes:
service provision; enabling peer support;
research; advocacy and raising public
awareness; and infrastructure and capacity
building. NPC’s research found that
charitable activity achieves one or more of
the following results:
• improved rehabilitation, contributing to
a reduced likelihood of reoffending;
• improved quality of life for people in
custody and for prisoners’ families;
• improved public policy, statutory
provision and public awareness; and
• improved capabilities of charities to
address the needs of beneficiaries.
14
2
The challenges charities face in achieving
their goals are significant. For example,
financial insecurity is endemic among
organisations working in this field. Although
some charities obtain statutory support for
their work, many charitable activities fall
outside the scope of government support
and are therefore dependent upon
charitable giving.
The distinctive need for and
advantages of charitable activity
The stated purpose of prison is to look after
people in prison with humanity and help them
lead law-abiding and useful lives in custody and
after release. However, the Prison Service alone
does not have the necessary resources or skills
to be able to fulfil this objective. This is
suggested by the high reoffending rates and the
inadequacy of statutory rehabilitative activities.
Priorities for statutory services are indicated by
the Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) listed in
Appendix 5, which include security,
overcrowding, drug testing, suicides, education
and resettlement. Although important, these
priorities do not address the full range of
problems faced by people in prison, as
illustrated in Section 1 and throughout section 3.
Given the limitations of statutory services,
there is a compelling case for charitable
activity. Information gathered from NPC’s
interviews, from materials produced by the
Home Office and from charities such as Clinks
(an umbrella agency for charities working with
prisoners) suggests that charitable activity is
necessary for the following reasons:
• Charities provide skills and expertise that the
Prison Service does not have. For example,
in some cases prisoners feel more
comfortable working with people who do
not represent the establishment. It can be
hard for prison staff to switch between
maintaining discipline and providing support.
• Charities offer an extended range of services
for which there is little or no statutory
provision (for example, facilities for visitors
and families, as explored further in Section
3). Charities are client-focused and able to
respond quickly to policy changes.
• Charities provide prisoners and the Prison
Service with an independent source of
advice, which can lead to penal reform.
Inside and out
• Charities can improve the quality of existing
statutory services. For example, the
involvement of prison staff with creative and
interesting projects can inspire improved
statutory provision.
• Charitable work can be innovative as a
result of flexibility and less bureaucracy. For
example, the provision of drug treatment
programmes by small drug agencies, which
were the trailblazers during the 1980s,
resulted in the mainstreaming of such
services in statutory provision today.
• Charities offer access to external sources of
funding. Although this is a contentious
issue, the government does not allocate
adequate resources to address all the
needs of people while in prison and upon
their release. Many prisoners and their
families therefore depend on charities that
are supported by donors and funders.
• Charities provide a critical link between
prisons and the community, both for the
prisoners themselves, and for the wider
public. Charities are often the only bridge
between prisons and the community and
therefore play an important role in raising
community awareness about prison and
prisoners. Some charities offer an important
source of continuity between support given in
prison and upon release, and offer prisoners
the opportunity to develop their skills and
contribute to society through volunteering.
The Prison Service and Clinks also agree that
the charities help prisons deliver: decency,
purposeful activity, basic skills, diversity,
resettlement and prevention of reoffending,
and maintenance of family and social ties.
The scale and scope of charities
working with prisoners and
ex-prisoners
HM Prison Service estimates there are 900
charities delivering at least 2,000 projects
operating in this field, and many more that
support people on release from custody.43 At
one end of the spectrum there are a small
number of large organisations such as Nacro,
which operates at a national level, principally
with statutory contracts, and with an annual
turnover of around £52m. However,
approximately 90% of organisations working
with people in prison and upon their release
are smaller, community groups, working with a
maximum of three prisons44, whose budgets
may not exceed £150,000 per year. Some of
the small organisations depend entirely on
volunteers (the Home Office estimates there
may be over 12,000 individuals volunteering
with the penal system).
The range of activities undertaken by charities is
diverse, but can roughly be divided as follows:
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Service provision
Many charities provide services in areas such
as employment, housing, health, education
and mental health. Charitable activity also
includes counselling in areas such as suicide
prevention, family relationships and sexual
abuse. Services are also offered to the families
of people in prison. Befriending programmes
and the provision of information and advice is
a key component to much charitable work.
Enabling peer support
Charities have played an important role in the
development of peer support schemes that
enable prisoners to support one another. Such
activities include the Samaritans’ Listeners
scheme and programmes that give prisoners
opportunities to help each other improve their
reading and numeracy skills.
Research
Some charities undertake high quality research
that can disseminate good practice, raise
awareness about particular problems (such as
the distinctive needs of women in prison), or
improve public policy.
Given the
shortcomings of
the Prison and
Probation
Services, there
is a compelling
case for
charitable
activity to help
reduce the
social and
economic costs
of crime.
Advocacy and raising
public awareness
Such activities involve advocating and
campaigning for change in public policy or for
improvements in existing statutory provision.
Charities also seek to influence public opinion
or the media. Advocacy is also undertaken on
behalf of individual prisoners to secure their
rights or access to services.
Infrastructure and
capacity building
Such activities involve: systematically gathering
data about charities operating in this field;
strengthening the relationships between
prisons and charities; training for staff and
trustees; and enabling the exchange of
experience and lessons learned between
charities to scale up good practice.
Although the scope of charitable activity is
wide, distribution of charitable activity across
the prison estate is unequal. The availability of
charitable activity in each prison is dependent
on the presence of local charities, the
accessibility of the prison (both in terms of
location and the stance of the prison towards
charitable activity) and the availability of funds.
There is likely to be more charitable activity in
prisons located in urban areas.
This report focuses on charities whose
principle target groups are adult prisoners, exprisoners and their families. It is, however,
important to note that there are many charities
that work with prisoners through their
mainstream programmes, such as the
Citizens’ Advice Bureaux or Relate.
15
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Charitable
activities can
enhance
rehabilitation
and reduce the
likelihood of reoffending.
Understanding the results of
charitable activity
Generally speaking, NPC’s analysis suggests
that charities try to achieve one or more of the
following four positive results, which are
explored further throughout Section 3.
Improved rehabilitation,
contributing to a reduced
likelihood of reoffending.
In recent years, the Prison Service has actively
embraced the need to address the
rehabilitative needs of prisoners in order to
reduce reoffending rates. Drawing on
information from the Social Exclusion Unit’s
2002 report Reducing re-offending of exprisoners, Figure 2 illustrates desirable results
of activities that can lead to a reduction in
reoffending. Evidence that underpins this
analysis includes the following facts: people
who do not take part in education or training in
prison are three times as likely to reoffend than
those who participate; avoiding homelessness
on release can reduce reoffending by 20%;
intensive drug rehabilitation programmes can
reduce reoffending by 11%; and ex-prisoners
are less likely to reoffend if family ties are
maintained.
release. People in poor quality or temporary
housing are more likely to experience adverse
mental health than those living in better, more
stable conditions. In addition, mental health
and family ties are linked because, for
example, people with poor mental health are
likely to withdraw from contact with their
families. On the other hand, one might assume
that good mental health puts less strain on
relationships, and helps families to stay
together through difficult times. People who
maintain healthy family relationships are more
likely to have somewhere to go on release and
to have help and support for securing
permanent accommodation. Prisoners who
hope to be the main carers of children on
release are more likely to be able to do this if
their housing situation is stable.
There are a wide range of statutory, private
and charitable agencies involved in trying to
achieve the desired results in Figure 2. The
Key Performance Indicators listed in Appendix
5 illustrate the focus of statutory funding. Table
2 illustrates the range of charitable activities,
most of which fall outside the scope of
statutory funding and are therefore dependent
on donors and funders.
As suggested by Figure 2, the needs of people
in prison are interlinked and must all be
addressed if reoffending rates are to be
reduced. Take housing, positive mental health
and maintenance of family ties to illustrate this.
Those with mental health problems are less
likely than others to have secure housing for
Figure 2: Desired results of activities contributing to reduced reoffending
Reduced
financial and
social costs of
crime for
society
Better quality
of life for
ex-prisoner
Reduced
re-offending
Increased
More
Maintenance
More
confidence
selfof family
qualifications
Financial Security
and
awareness
ties Secure housing
Increased and skills
coping
and
employability
skills
empathy
16
Improved health
Reduced
addiction
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Table 2: Examples and desired results of charitable activity linked to reducing reoffending
Support services during custody
Desired results, linked to reduced reoffending
Debt, benefits and financial
management advice
• Increased financial security for prisoner and family
• Better financial management skills
• Increased likelihood of maintaining a tenancy/keeping up
mortgage repayments on release
Mental health advocacy
• Faster and more responsive treatment
• Patient calmer and empowered
• More appropriate sentencing
Education and training
programmes
• Increased skills for learning/the workplace
Offending behaviour
programmes
• Remorse/empathy for victims
• Increased chance of employment on release
• Increased motivation to address practical and behavioural
problems
• Better coping skills for dealing with difficult situations, more
constructive handling of strong emotions
Family support activities
• Maintenance of family ties
Support services outside of prison
Desired results, linked to reduced reoffending
Brokering employment
opportunities
• Improved financial situation
• Better chance of securing permanent accommodation
• Increased skills and workplace experience
Assistance with accessing
financial services
• Ability to access financial resources, such as benefits or
pay or secure accommodation through a mortgage
Follow-up treatment for
addictions
• Maintenance of learning from prison
• Less frequent relapses
• Increased self-awareness and improved coping skills
Sheltered accommodation
• Reduced anxiety due to gradual transition to greater
responsibilities
• Improved practical and coping skills
There are a number of charities that address
multiple needs through one or a combination of
activities. For example, Bristol Mind can help
prisoners with mental health problems obtain
appropriate treatment and documentation of
their vulnerable status for housing on release.
The St. Giles’ Trust can help short-term
prisoners’ from losing their tenancies, and
support others to search for accommodation
after release. The Ormiston Children and
Families Trust can provide support for families
when visiting people in prison and information
and advice on factors such as benefits, thus
improving the well-being of all parties.
The Prison and Probation Services view
reducing reoffending as a ‘gold standard’ for
measuring success. Although this emphasis is
understandable, the measure has limitations.
There is a humanitarian or human rights case
for addressing the needs of prisoners that may
or may not result in reduced reoffending.
Prisoners do not cease to be human beings
who need contact with their family or
treatment for an addiction. Also, the measure
fails to capture important information about
the progress of individuals. For example,
progress has been made if an ex-prisoner
commits a minor offence such as shoplifting
upon release if they were originally imprisoned
for a violent offence.
Reoffending rates alone do not capture the
impact of charitable activities, for two reasons.
Sometimes charities are only one of many
influences on an individual’s behaviour. As
illustrated in Figure 2, one intervention alone,
such as helping a prisoner access appropriate
mental health treatment, is unlikely to prevent
someone from reoffending. Secondly,
contributing to a reduction in reoffending rates
is not the primary focus of all charitable
activity. Therefore, success can also be
understood through three other means:
17
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Improved quality of life for
people in custody and for
prisoners’ families.
As illustrated in Section 1, being in prison can be
distressing for many people, especially for those
who are new to the prison system. A particularly
alarming fact is that more than a quarter of
prison suicides occur within a person’s first week
in the prison and more than two fifths within the
45
first month Section 1 also illustrates that the
imprisonment of a family member can have
severe consequences for the children and
families left behind.
There is a range of charitable activity whose
primary aim is to improve the quality of life for
prisoners (illustrated in Table 3 and Figure 3) and
their families during custody. Many of these
activities depend on support from donors and
funders. While a key purpose of prison is
punishment, the well-being of people in custody
must also be considered, not least because the
stated purpose of prison is to look after people
with humanity. Negative experiences in prison
can increase self-harm, and can reduce the
ability of prisoners to take up rehabilitative work.
Charitable
activity can
improve public
policy, statutory
provision and
public
awareness.
People in prison may have access to charitable
activity that improves their quality of life at
differing points during their time in custody. For
example, high levels of stress and anxiety for
those entering prison for the first time can be
overcome by charities such as Action for
Prisoners’ Families or the Prison Reform
Trust which provide advice and information
about life in prison. Schemes such as ‘First
Night in Custody’ of the Prison Advice and
Care Trust can reduce the likelihood of selfharm or suicide during the early stages of
custody. Visitors’ centres can help maintain
family ties throughout a prison sentence. Advice
and information given to prisoners’ families can
also improve the quality of life for prisoners and
their families and can help maintain family ties.
Figure 3: Desired results of charitable activity linked to improving the
quality of life of people in custody
Improved
quality of
life in custody
Reduced
racism or
discrimination
Increased
awareness of
prisoner
rights
Increased
awareness of
the prison
service
18
Increased
coping
skills and
reduced
isolation
Reduced
likelihood of
self harm or
suicide
Enhanced
communication
with family
and friends
Improved
health
Improved
quality of and
access to
appropriate
services
Increased
access to
purposeful
activities
At any point during their time in custody, a
prisoner may wish to access emotional
support from someone they can trust, such
as a Samaritans’ Listener. Such peer support
programmes can also help overcome feelings
of isolation and loneliness. Prisoners may need
support from charities, such as the Prisoners’
Advice Service, in securing their rights,
or obtaining appropriate equipment for
disabled prisoners.
The primary result of many of these activities
relate to an improved quality of life while in
prison, but some also contribute to a reduced
likelihood of reoffending after release. For
example, arts programmes such as those
undertaken by Clean Break can result in
improved self-confidence and behaviour, which
can benefit a person while in custody and
upon release.
Improved public policy, statutory
provision and public awareness.
Charities play an important role in undertaking
research, advocacy and informing public
opinion, explored further in Section 3.11. This
type of activity can make fundamental, systemic
improvements to all agencies involved in the
Criminal Justice System, as illustrated in Table
4. It can also enhance the potential of charitable
activity to reduce reoffending and improve the
well-being of prisoners and their families.
The potential scope and impact of such
activities is great. For example, the Prison
Reform Trust’s (PRT) research and advocacy on
‘growing old in prison’ prompted the
Department of Health to develop a health policy
for older prisoners. Also, PRT’s research on
prisoners’ views on prison education has
provided the backbone for the Department for
Education and Skills’ curriculum review. This will
lead to improved education in prison so exprisoners are better equipped to access
employment. In 2004, PRT also helped secure a
Treasury spending review commitment to ‘invest
in radical new approaches to reduce women’s
offending’. The Treasury has earmarked £9.1m
to develop women’s support and supervision
centres in the community.
It is not possible to generalise about the
degree of risk involved in supporting services
for individuals or activities that lead to systemic
change, because both approaches carry
uncertainties. For example, support given to
improve the educational attainment of an
individual may not lead to employment if the
ex-prisoner faces discrimination when seeking
work. It may also take years to change the
hearts and minds of the general public
towards alternatives to prison. However,
charities such as PRT and the Howard
League for Penal Reform have an impressive
track record of improving the penal system.
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Table 3: Examples of charitable activity and desired results linked to the well-being of
prisoners and their families
Support and services offered to
prisoners in custody
Desired results
Provision of advice and
information (including booklets,
one-to-one support and
helplines)
• Reduced anxiety and stress
Advocacy for prisoners’ rights
(see Section 3.11)
• Secured rights
Provision of emotional support
(including Listener Schemes
and First Night in Custody
programmes)
• Improved coping skills
Peer support schemes
(see Section 3.10)
• Reduced isolation or sense of loneliness
Health care programmes
(see Section 3.7)
• Improved access to appropriate treatment leading to
improved health care
Arts programmes
(see Section 3.12)
• Behaviour change
• Improved knowledge of the prison system and what to
expect from life inside
• Reduced likelihood of self-harm and suicide
• Reduced isolation
• Increased ability of prisoners to help one another
• Reduced tendency to self-harm
• Improved quality of life
Support and services offered to
prisoners’ families
Desired results
Emotional support
• Improved coping skills for prisoners’ partners and children
Advice and information
• Maintenance of family ties, reducing loneliness and isolation
Running visitors centres
Creative means of prisoners
keeping in touch with their
children
Table 4: Examples of charitable activity and desired results linked to improved public policy,
statutory provision and public awareness
Type of activity
Target groups
Desired results
Research, advocacy, provision
of independent advice and
information
Policy-makers, political
parties, experts, practitioners,
charities, statutory agencies,
political parties, academics
• Improved public policy,
legislation and statutory
services
• Improved Prison and
Probation systems
• Enhanced understanding of
the effectiveness of
alternatives to prison.
• The possibility of scaling-up
/mainstreaming effective
charitable activities
Watchdog activities
Statutory agencies
(including prisons)
• Improved accountability of
statutory agencies and of
government
Public awareness campaigns
General public, media
• Enhanced public awareness
and reduced prejudices
which can lead to improved
public policy
19
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Improved capabilities of
charities to address the needs
of beneficiaries.
• the ability to overcome cultural differences
between the Prison and Probation Services
and charities;
In order to succeed at their work, charities
need multiple skills. These can include:
• the ability to track results; and,
• the ability of staff and volunteers to work
sensitively and effectively with people in
prison and their families;
• the ability to negotiate sound contracts,
grants or working relationships with prisons,
other statutory agencies or funders;
• the ability to communicate and coordinate
activities with other organisations that work
with the same beneficiaries;
• a wider understanding of the policies and
programmes that affect the lives of
beneficiaries.
There are a small number of charities that do
not provide direct services to prisoners and their
families but seek to enhance the capabilities of
charities that do (illustrated in Table 5). Such
charities are often called ‘intermediaries’ or
‘umbrella groups’. These include Clinks and
Action for Prisoners Families. Clinks has a
membership base of charitable organisations
that benefit from their work.
Table 5: Examples of capacity-building activities and desired results
Activity
Desired results
Networking/conferences
• Sharing of good practice to enhance the work and results
of charities
• Possibility of scaling-up good practice
• Improved coordination between statutory and charitable
provision
Training
• Improved skills of charity staff, trustees and volunteers to
address the needs of their beneficiaries
Guides for charities and prisons
about how to work together
• Enhanced co-operation between prisons and charities
leading to better support for prisoners
Strengthening the ability of
charities to work within the
framework of the National
Offenders Management Service
(NOMS)
• Charitable activity maintained for the benefit of prisoners’
and their families
Table 6: Indicative costs of activities and services
20
Activity
Cost
Providing emotional support
and advice to women in prison
(Hibiscus)
£140 per client per year
Research projects (Prison
Reform Trust)
£10,000–£50,000 each
Supporting families of drug
misusing prisoners (Adfam)
£20–£40 per client per year
Advocating for prisoners with
mental health problems (Bristol
Mind)
£310 per client per year
Prison workshops (Inside Out
Trust)
£260 per client per year
Running a visitors’ centre
£10,000–£70,000 per year (dependent on the range of
services provided)
Inside and out
Scaling-up
A critical role of the charitable sector is
undertaking demonstration projects. There is
good reason to wish to scale up charitable
activities that are proven to be effective so that
more people can benefit. Appendix 6
describes four principle means through which
charitable activities can be scaled up: 1)
through disseminating good practice; 2)
through the development of partnerships; 3)
through increasing the scale of a charity; and
4) through mainstreaming charitable activities
in statutory provision. Appendix 6 also outlines
the challenges involved in scaling up good
practice, noting that it may take years before
effective charitable interventions are
mainstreamed in statutory provision.
Indicative costs of
charitable activity
Case studies throughout Section 3 illustrate
the type of work undertaken by charities
working with prisoners and their families,
indicating annual turnovers of between
£100,000 to around £700,000. Although NPC
advises funders to provide unrestricted grants
to charities, Table 6 indicates the costs of
some of the activities undertaken by charities
explored by NPC.
Drawing on the indicative costs illustrated in
Table 6, the provision of emotional support
and advice to women in prison can reduce
anxiety and stress; research can lead to
improved public policy; and running a visitors’
centre can help maintain family ties, which can
reduce the likelihood of reoffending. Due to the
challenges associated with performance
measurement (as detailed in Appendix 6),
desired results cannot always be clearly
attributed to a single charitable intervention.
Take the case of a prisoner who successfully
overcomes their drug addiction. This may have
resulted not only from access to the right
treatment programmes at the correct time
(which may be facilitated by charities such as
Bristol Mind), but by other factors, such as
regular family visits or emotional support.
Comparison between the results of differing
charitable interventions and their cost
effectiveness is not straightforward. For
example, some problems faced by people in
prison or their families may be easily
overcome. However, there are many
individuals who have chronic problems that
may be difficult to resolve. The costs of
supporting such individuals may therefore be
much higher, and evidence of progress or
positive results much harder to ascertain.
Donors and funders should not favour quick
fixes with clearer short-term results over
support to individuals with chronic problems.
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
Despite the challenges of outcome
measurement and attribution, there is a
compelling case for supporting charitable
activity. Not only is this because statutory
provision is inadequate, but there are many
examples of effective charitable interventions
that can reduce the social and economic costs
of crime.
Funding for charitable activity
Existing funding for charities
Funding of charities operating in this field
tends to include a combination of support
from the public sector (including funding from
the European Union) through contracts or
grants, charitable income (principally from
established grant-making trusts) and, to a
lesser extent, income generated from social
enterprises. It is impossible to extrapolate,
either from the Prison Services’ annual
accounts or the accounts of the prison
establishment, the proportion of statutory
funding that supports charities operating in this
field. However, it is known that organisations
such as the Rehabilitation of Prisoners Trust
(RAPt) receive statutory contracts to help
deliver the Prison Services’ drug strategy.
It is suggested that the overwhelming majority
of charitable sector work in prisons is not
funded by the Prison Service. Peter Kilgarriff of
the LankellyChase Foundation estimates that
grant-making trusts (including the Community
Fund), contributed between £10–£12m to
charities operating in this field during the
financial year 2003–2004.
Financial insecurity is endemic in this field; this is
because of uncertainty of securing government
contracts and also an over-reliance upon shortterm and inadequate project funding. This
inhibits the effectiveness of charities. NPC
therefore believes that funders need to engage
with charities in a strategic manner, for example,
by backing effective charities with unrestricted
funds over a longer time frame.
It is essential to see charities working in prisons
as involving four parties: the charity, the funder,
the prison and the prisoners. A funder’s
understanding of the relationship between the
charity and the prison is therefore critical and it
should confirm that the activities proposed by the
charity are welcomed by the prison in question.
21
Inside and out
Charities working with prisoners and their families/Section 2
By supporting
charities,
funders can
make a
significant
improvement to
the lives of
prisoners and
their families
and ultimately to
society as a
whole.
The need for private funding
As with any area of social development in the
UK, there is a tension between where statutory
provision ends, where people think it should
end, and where charitable activity begins.
Some may argue that it should not be the role
of charities to fill the gaps caused by a
curtailment of state provision. For example,
some people may believe that the state should
support all activities that contribute to a
reduction in reoffending rates, such as the
maintenance of family ties. However, as
illustrated throughout Section 3, resources are
currently unavailable for all such activity. Given
the inadequacy of existing statutory provision
and the distinctive nature of charitable activity,
the Prison Service, prisoners and their families
depend on charities and charitable funding to
‘fill the gaps’, enhance existing services and
advocate for penal reform. Even charities that
are contracted by the state fail to secure funds
to cover the full costs of their work, and until
this matter is resolved, there will continue to
be a pragmatic need for charitable funds to
supplement such services.
Although many charities depend on a mix of
statutory and charitable income, some
completely depend on private sources
because of the nature of their work. The most
obvious examples of this are charities that
conduct research or undertake advocacy (as
illustrated in Section 3.11) whose
independence cannot be compromised
because it may affect the quality or
effectiveness of their work.
Everyone has a stake in what happens in
prisons. Crime affects people on a personal
level or at an economic level, whether it is
through taxes to cover the cost of the Criminal
Justice System or through costs to
businesses. As citizens we have a
responsibility for those who work or are
detained in prisons. This report is a guide for
funders and donors who wish to express their
concern about crime and its consequences
through supporting charitable activities.
22
Exploring prisoners'
problems and charitable
solutions
3
Sections 1 and 2 of this report introduced
many of the issues faced by people in
prison and those they leave behind. It
explored the role and effectiveness of
Prison and the Probation Services, and the
need for, and impact of, charitable activity.
The rest of this report explores the different
needs and issues faced by people in prison
in more depth, highlighting charitable
activity and the need for charitable giving.
It also looks at the distinctive needs of
women and BME groups and analyses
areas of activity where charities have an
important role, for example, using the arts
as a means of rehabilitation or influencing
penal reform.
Photograph supplied by Inside Out Trust
Offenders are not a homogeneous group.
They are differentiated by factors such as
their background, age, gender, family
circumstances, the nature of their offence
and category of prison in which they reside.
23
3.1
Families
45% of
sentenced
prisoners say
they have lost
contact with
their family since
entering prison.
Summary and key facts
This chapter explores the consequences of
imprisonment for those ‘left behind’—
husbands, wives, partners, parents and
children. The imprisonment of a loved one
can be highly traumatic, isolating and
stressful for all parties, and can result in
the loss of self-confidence. Imprisonment
can also negatively affect the health and
financial well-being of those left behind.
• It is estimated that 150,000 children have
a parent in prison.46 Seven per cent of
children experience the imprisonment of
their father when they are at school.47
• Over half of male prisoners and a third of
female prisoners describe themselves as
living with a husband or a partner before
imprisonment.48
‘
Martin Narey
‘
• Forty five per cent of sentenced prisoners
say they have lost contact with their
family since entering prison.50 In 2003,
prisoners were held an average of 53
miles away from home.51
The government acknowledges that
maintaining family relationships can help
prevent prisoners reoffending and can assist
them to settle into the community. In 2002,
Martin Narey, the then Director General of
the Prison Service in England and Wales
stated: “I cannot overemphasise the
important role that families play in helping to
achieve effective rehabilitation and reduce
reoffending”.52 Prisoners are less likely to
offend if good family relationships are
maintained throughout their sentence.
However, there is no mainstream statutory
support for families of prisoners.
Responsibility for addressing these issues
largely rests with charities, which depend on
funding from charitable sources.
‘
‘
I cannot
overemphasise
the important
role that families
play in helping
to achieve
effective
rehabilitation
and reduce
reoffending.
• Fifty nine per cent of men in prison and
two thirds of women in prison have
dependent children under the age of 18.49
I was really scared on my first visit to see
daddy. When I went with my mummy I saw the
big fences, I was really scared and held my
mummy’s hand tight
24
Nine year-old girl visiting parent in prison
The needs and experiences of
those left behind
Separation from family and friends as a result
of imprisonment can have severe
consequences for all parties, as illustrated in
Section 1. Prisoners are denied support and
advice from families, who can be well placed
to help address the problems they face. The
2001 Woolf report states: ‘The disruption of
the inmate’s position within the family unit
represents one of the most distressing aspects
of imprisonment … Enabling inmates, so far as
possible, to stay in close and meaningful
contact with the family is therefore an essential
part of humane treatment.’
Drawing on the 2002 Social Exclusion Unit
report Reducing re-offending of ex-offenders,
those left behind can suffer the following
consequences from the imprisonment of a
family member:
• Financial problems. Sixty per cent of
prisoners’ families stated that imprisonment
had left them ‘less well off’, which can
result from: the loss of a main source of
household income; or the loss of child
maintenance when the parent liable for
such payments is in prison.
• Health problems. Stress-related
conditions, such as anxiety, depression and
eating disorders have been reported
because of the imprisonment of family
members. Almost three quarters of
spouses, partners and mothers in one
survey attributed health problems directly to
the imprisonment of a family member.53
• Negative impact on children. Imprisonment
of a parent or sibling can be traumatic. It can
result in mental health problems and
potentially lead to behavioural problems or
delinquency54. Such problems are often
compounded by having to cope with the
changes required to meet their new situation,
such as moving home, living with other
relatives, changing school or even being taken
into care. One survey found that 11% of
imprisoned mothers had one or more of their
children taken into care, fostered or adopted.
For children taken into care there is an
increased likelihood of them becoming
offenders themselves (a quarter of those in
prison have been in care at some point).
Older children who have had a parent taken
into prison may find that the responsibility of
taking care of younger siblings falls to them.
Inside and out
Typically, families have no opportunity to
discuss with their partner how they are going
to address childcare, housing and income
issues before they are taken into prison.
For many, the effect of imprisonment on those
left behind appears to be negative. However,
as noted in Section 1, for some, the
imprisonment of a family member is
experienced more as a relief than a loss.
Interviews conducted by the Ormiston
Children and Families Trust with 50 families
of prisoners found that their main needs were:
information for adults and children (for
example, how to go about arranging visits and
how to tell a child that their parent has been
imprisoned); emotional support (for example,
regarding relationship issues); and, familyfriendly visiting conditions.
Families/Section 3.1
changed or even that they have been
transferred to another prison on arrival for a
visit. Also, some visiting halls are unpleasant
and frightening, especially for children.
Commenting on her prison visit, a nine yearold girl states: “I was really scared on my
first visit to see daddy. When I went with my
mummy I saw the big fences, I was really
scared and held my mummy’s hand tight”.57
Prison officers, even those working in
visiting halls, receive no statutory training in
dealing sensitively with the needs and
concerns of families.
Keeping in touch
Challenges faced by families and friends who
wish to visit people in prison include:
• Long distances between the prison and
the location of family. The further
prisoners are held from their home, the
harder it is for family and friends to visit. At
the end of 2003, 26,134 prisoners were
held over 50 miles from their committal
court town and 10,880 were held over 100
miles away. A quarter of prisoners’ families
face round trips of at least five hours.56
• Inappropriateness of visiting hours.
Visiting hours are nearly always during the
day, requiring adults to take time off work
and children to miss school. It can also be
hard for families to find childcare.
• Inadequacy of some visiting
arrangements. For example, many families
have difficulty getting through to the prison
to book a visit. Some families only find out
that a prisoner’s visit entitlement has
Statutory support for the
maintenance of family ties
Although the government acknowledges that
maintaining family ties can help prevent
prisoners reoffending and can assist them to
settle back into the community, there is no
mainstream statutory funding for this field or
related Key Performance Indicator. Statutory
support in this area is therefore wholly
inadequate.
Experts, including the Prison Reform Trust
(PRT) believe that maintaining and
strengthening family ties should be a central
part of Prison Service resettlement strategy.
The director of PRT states: “Far too often
family visits are seen, not as a lifeline for the
prisoner and a valuable way to ensure
successful resettlement, but as an
inconvenience to hard-pressed staff struggling
to run overcrowded prisons. Cutting lines of
support and making contact between
prisoners, their families and friends as hard as
possible is a sure way to increase the risk of
reoffending on release.”58
‘
The disruption of
the inmate’s
position within the
family unit
represents one of
the most
distressing aspects
of imprisonment…
Enabling inmates,
so far as possible,
to stay in close
and meaningful
contact with the
family is therefore
an essential part of
humane treatment.
‘
Convicted prisoners are entitled to one visit
per fortnight. Despite the rise in the prison
population, the number of prison visits has
fallen markedly. Research by the Prison
Reform Trust suggests that the number of
prison visits declined by 30% in the past five
years despite a 20% increase in the prison
population.55 This implies a fall of more than
40% in the number of visits per prisoner. The
Prison Service does not monitor the number of
prison visits nor has it examined the reasons
for the apparent fall in visits.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
Prisoners can keep in touch with their families
through letters and telephone calls. However,
given the low basic skills levels of prisoners,
written correspondence is difficult for a majority.
Visits are therefore an essential means of
prisoners and families maintaining contact.
Lord Woolf
25
Inside and out
Families/Section 3.1
However no one has day to day responsibility
within prisons for ensuring that links between
prisoners and families are maintained, or for
addressing the needs of families left behind.
There is nobody in the prison that the family
can contact for information and there is
generally no one to whom they can pass on
their concerns about a prisoner’s welfare or
mental health.
The Social Exclusion Unit report highlights a
lack of expertise and accountability in
Jobcentre Plus and Housing Benefit local
offices in dealing with prisoners’ families
needs. The report also states that families
have difficulty getting the medical services they
need, and some are even struck off their GP
lists. Teachers are not trained to address the
needs of the children of people in prison.
Statutory funding is limited to support
schemes such as the Assisted Prison Visits
Scheme, which provides financial help to close
relatives and partners of prisoners who are in
receipt of income-related benefits or have
particular health difficulties. Prison governors
also make some funds available at their
discretion to charities running visitors’ centres.
The government’s 2004 National Action Plan
for Reducing Re-offending lists the charitable
sector as its principal partner in tackling the
needs of partners and children left behind.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
There is also evidence that imprisonment of a
family member increases the challenges faced
by people accessing general statutory
services. For example, some families
experience difficulty in getting hold of
information and advice about benefits, which
for many families is the major source of
income, at least in the short-term.
Given the lack of mainstream statutory support
for prisoners’ families or for the maintenance
of family ties, there is a compelling need for
charitable activity. Charities researched by
NPC provide a wide range of practical and
emotional support to help maintain family ties,
as illustrated in Table 7, which can help reduce
the likelihood of reoffending.
Table 7: Examples of charitable activities and desired results
26
Activity
Desired results
Providing advice and
information (including booklets,
one-to-one support and
helplines)
Reduced anxiety and stress resulting from improved
knowledge of the Prison Service and visiting arrangements.
Welfare advice can help families access benefits and improve
financial security.
Providing emotional support
Reduced anxiety resulting from the imprisonment of a family
member. Healthier relationships between prisoners’ and their
families.
Facilitating creative means for
keeping in touch
Improved communication between prisoners’ families and
their children through activities that overcome poor writing
skills.
Running visitors’ centres
Enhanced facilities for adults and children visiting friends and
families in prison; comfortable/relaxed place to wait so visits
less stressful; improved information to visitors; better relations
between visitors and prisons; all of which contribute to the
maintenance and enhancement of family ties.
Training for prison staff
Enhanced understanding on the part of prison staff of the
needs of prisoners’ families and improved visiting facilities.
Research, networking and
advocacy
Assessments of charitable activities can scale-up good
practice and campaigns can raise awareness of the needs of
prisoners’ families. Networking between charities can enable
the exchange of lessons-learned thus spreading good
practice and creating a stronger voice for prisoners’ families.
Inside and out
Action for Prisoners’ Families is the primary
agency in England and Wales that is
developing a network of support services for
prisoners’ families.
Providing information and advice
Families and friends need advice on a wide
range of matters, most notably about how to
arrange prison visits, how to locate the
prisoner, and general information about the
prison system.
Information and advice is a core component of
services provided by charities working with
families. For example, The Prisoners’ Families
Helpline coordinated by Action for Prisoners’
Families (APF) offers non-judgemental support
and a listening ear for anyone who is affected
by the imprisonment of a family member or
friend. SHARP provides advice on entitlements
to benefits and financial support for prison
visits. APF publishes a series of five booklets
that provide practical information about how to
cope with the imprisonment of a partner or
family member. Partners of Prisoners and
Families Group (POPS) have family link
workers to help guide people through the
maze of the prison system.
Providing emotional support
Emotional support is sought by a large number
of people using the Prisoners’ Families
Helpline. It is also provided by many other
charities, such as Hibiscus (described in Box
25) and Adfam, as illustrated in Box 6.
Enabling improved contact and
relationships between people
in prison and their partners
and families
Charities undertake a wide range of activities
to enhance relationships between people in
prison and their family outside, which can
contribute to a reduction in reoffending rates
and improve the well-being of families. Such
activities include:
Managing and improving visitors’ centres
Visitors’ centres play a vital role in improving
family contact and increasing access to the
support available to families of prisoners. They
are located outside prisons and provide an
entry point for all visitors. There is a huge
variation in how visitors’ centres function and
what services they provide. Some simply book
in visitors and offer waiting rooms, while others
provide other services such as child care,
information, refreshments, emotional support
and counselling. Some also facilitate children’s
visits. Visitors’ centres can simply be
portacabins outside the prison and others are
purpose-built, friendly centres with play areas.
Action for Prisoners’ Families (APF)
estimates there are 80 well-established centres
in England and Wales.
Families/Section 3.1
Box 6: Adfam
Adfam is a national charity providing support to families of substance misusers. To
address the specific needs of prisoners’ families, a ‘Road to Release’ programme
was established in 1996. Key activities include:
• Producing ‘Prisons, drugs and you’, a booklet for the families and friends of
prisoners with addictions. Distributed through visitors’ centres, this booklet
provides information about drugs and the Criminal Justice System, and helps
people think about their options for the future.
• Providing counselling, group and one-to-one support for family members of the
women on the detoxification unit at HMP Holloway. Similar services are offered at
HMP Brixton and at Feltham Young Offenders Institution.
• Training other organisations working with the families of addicts in the Criminal
Justice System. Adfam also holds an annual conference to disseminate good
practice to around 200 practitioners.
An evaluation of the charity’s work at HMP Holloway found that families felt that
Adfam’s support had helped them make informed decisions about how to support
their loved ones. Family members felt that they had more effective coping strategies.
Drugs workers found that, by mediating between women and their families, the
project was contributing to a calmer atmosphere on the detoxification wing.
Expenditure for the year ending March 2004 was £527,000, of which approximately £200,000 was
spent on prison projects. Adfam has 12 staff.
Research undertaken by the Prison Reform
Trust (PRT) and APF found that governors
believed that the benefits of Visitors’ Centres
included: reduced tension throughout the visits
process, a comfortable/relaxed place to wait,
making visits are less stressful; better relations
between visitors and the prison; better support
for visitors and a more efficient visiting
service.59
Although most visitors’ centres receive some
funding from the host prison in the form of inkind support, such as covering utility bills, for
the most part, Visitors’ centres are highly
dependent on charitable income. PRT and
APF’s research found that costs of Visitors’
Centres ranged from under £10,000 to over
£70,000 per year. Of the 50 Visitors’ Centres
researched by PRT and APF, 28 were run by
registered charities60, such as Prisoners’
Advice and Care Trust or the Ormiston
Children and Families Trust (OCFT). The
same report highlighted the lack of finances, a
shortage of volunteers and space as the
primary hindrances to the development of
Visitors’ Centres.
Improving the experience of visits for
prisoners’ children.
This includes the development of supervised
play areas where children can play during
prison visits and extended child-centred visits
where prisoners are able to play with their
children, as illustrated in Box 7.
27
Inside and out
Families/Section 3.1
Advocating for change
Box 7: Kids VIP
Kids VIP enhances relationships between children and their imprisoned parents by:
• Training new prison officer recruits about the impact of imprisonment on children,
the value of family ties to the Prison Service, and how prison officers can make
visits for children a positive experience for them and their parent.
• Supporting the work of prison play coordinators operating in 96 prisons. Regional
meetings, training programmes and the bi-annual newsletter spreads good practice.
• Providing training and advice on setting-up prison play areas and child centred
visits. This enables the prisoner to play with their child during visits, which
enhances their relationship.
Kids VIP has a annual budget of approximately £100,000, employs two paid staff and operates in
England, Scotland and Wales.
Prisoners and
their families are
highly
dependent on
charities to
provide the
support they
need and to
help maintain
family ties.
28
Developing creative means for parents to
keep in touch with their children.
For example, Story Book Dads, enables
fathers and mothers in prison to record stories
and messages for their children on tape. Other
projects enable parents to make books,
games or story boxes for their children. Such
activities help overcome communication
barriers resulting from poor writing skills.
Organisations such as Action for Prisoners’
Families (APF), the Ormiston Children and
Families Trust and the Prison Reform Trust
(PRT) play a key role in influencing policy and
improving prison facilities to enhance
relationships between prisoners and their
families. Such activities involve research (such
as PRT’s and APF’s report on the role of
Visitors’ Centres), advocacy (for example, APF
is trying to have prison visits recognised as an
authorised absence from school so children do
not have to play truant to visit a parent in
prison), the documentation and dissemination
of good practice (such as the work of Kids
VIP described in Box 7), and campaigning
(such as APF’s ‘family friendly prison’
challenge to encourage prisons to run family
friendly events, such as a children’s party or art
exhibition).
Conclusion
As a society we deeply value the importance
of family ties. For prisoners, the maintenance
of family ties can help reduce reoffending.
However, statutory support is wholly
inadequate. Prisoners and their families
therefore depend on charitable activities that in
turn depend on charitable income. Donors and
funders can therefore make a significant
difference by supporting charities that work in
this field.
3.2
Education and pathways
to employment
Summary and key facts
On entering prison, more than half of
prisoners have literacy and numeracy skills
at or below the level expected of an eleven
year-old child. On release, many exprisoners face challenges securing
employment because their educational
qualifications remain low and they can face
discrimination on the part of employers.
Employment on release reduces the risk of
reoffending by between a third and a half.
People who do not take part in education
or training in prison are three times more
likely to be reconvicted. However people in
prison face many obstacles to attaining the
training or education they need and to
securing employment on release. Although
improving basic skills is a priority for
statutory services, existing provision is not
reaching all prisoners. For example, just
under a third of the prison population
attends education classes at any one time,
and only one in five prisoners gain a
qualification while in custody.61
Charities can make education and training
more engaging and relevant to prisoners’
needs. They act as advocates for prisoners
seeking employment on release, and work
with employers to change their attitudes.
Charitable funding is necessary to support
activities that complement or enhance
statutory provision.
Prisoners’ education and
employment profiles on entry
to prison
As illustrated in Section 1, compared to the
general population, people entering prison have
significantly lower educational levels. More than
half of male and more than two thirds of female
prisoners have no qualifications at all. The
majority of prisoners have poor basic skills,
affecting their employment prospects. Two
thirds of prisoners were unemployed at the time
of imprisonment, which means they have an
unemployment rate 13 times higher than in the
population as a whole. Ninety six per cent of all
jobs require basic skills at or above National
Curriculum Level One, which is expected of
most eleven year olds. As Figure 4 illustrates,
the majority of prisoners do not meet this level.
Qualifications affect employment rates: 80% of
those with a qualification at GCSE or National
Vocational Qualification level 2 are in
employment, compared to 50% of those with
no qualifications. Nearly a third of all prisoners
were regular truants when at school, an issue
explored further in NPC’s report School’s out?
Figure 4: Percentage of prisoners with skills at or below national
curriculum level one62
Punctuation
Spelling
Reading
Numeracy
0
20
40
Education, training and
employment during custody
The focus of the government’s efforts is to
increase educational attainment and reduce
unemployment. There has been a shift in
recent years towards improving prisoners’
basic skills levels, as indicated in Key
Performance Indicators (KPI) in Appendix 5.
Basic skills education can contribute to a
reduction in reoffending of 12%.63
60
80
100
65% of male
prisoners have
numeracy levels
at or below
the level
expected on an
11 year-old.
Prisons can provide a range of programmes
ranging from literacy and numeracy through to
NVQs in painting, industrial cleaning and
decorating. A national ‘core curriculum’
includes literacy and numeracy skills, English
as a second language and information
technology. The total funding for prisoner
education in 2002/2003 totalled £66.7m,64
equating to an average of £1,185 per prisoner.
However, the money invested in education per
prisoner varies between comparable prisons
from £200 to £2,000 per year.65
However, existing statutory provision is not
reaching all prisoners. Just under a third of the
prison population is attending education
classes at any one time, and only one in five
prisoners gains a qualification during custody.66
Remand and short-term prisoners have fewer
opportunities to access education and training
when in prison. One short-term prisoner told
the Social Exclusion Unit: ‘I’ve never been in
prison long enough —they say it’s not worth
me bothering with classes.’ 67
Employment on
release from
prison reduces
the risk of
reoffending
between a third
and a half.
29
Inside and out
Education and pathways to employment/Section 3.2
Box 8: Transco
“It costs just £1,000 to train a prisoner for our industry, but to keep them in jail it will
cost society over £30,000 a year”, says Mary Harris, head of the National Grid Transco
Foundation.
National Grid Transco needs more than 3,000 new gas engineers in the next five
years, and to meet this target it has turned to working with a young offenders’
institute to train and employ prisoners. The scheme has been so successful it will be
rolled out to include more institutes and prisons.
Targeting a skills shortage in the south of England, the National Grid Transco
Foundation’s Young Offenders Programme initially funded a forklift driver training
scheme. To date, more than 80 inmates have qualified and some 70% found
employment. Only five were reported as reoffending.
The success of the scheme led the company to train young offenders for the gas
industry, which is short of skilled labour. Under this £100,000 training scheme, young
offenders first undergo a risk assessment to ensure they have completed their anger
management or drug rehabilitation courses. Training is then provided in a purposebuilt centre and prisoners are put on job placements with contractors. On release
from jail they start work immediately.
“We have had some failures but the reoffending rate is incredibly low”, says Harris.
“I doubt the scheme will solve all our recruitment problems but it can provide us with
100 or so workers who are motivated and determined to succeed”.
Transco has identified a number of factors that it defines as critical to the success of
the projects:
• identification of skills shortage in the local area;
• establishment of a public/private partnership between the company and the prison
establishment;
• strong business leadership in bringing together the scheme partners, including
lead contractors, particularly in providing the initial work placements; providing
funding for training, co-ordinating of provision and quality of training; liaising with
government departments, and monitoring and evaluating the scheme.
Sources: http://www.howardleague.org/work/roberts.doc (December, 2002) and Increasing exprisoners’ opportunity to work, Select Committee on Home Affairs, UK Parliament
Box 9: Inadequate training in prison71
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
Jim has been in prison four times, has never had paid work or been involved in
training. On arriving in prison he was told that the only work available was packing
plastic cutlery. Jim did this for five weeks, earning seven pounds a week. He was
persuaded to put his name down to join the prison job club to help in looking for paid
work on release. Before he could join, Jim was transferred to another prison, where
he was told there wasn’t a similar programme. He cleaned landings for the remaining
weeks of his sentence. Following release, Jim is still unemployed.
30
All sentenced prisoners are expected to work
while in prison. There are three main types of
work available arranged by the Prison Service:
• Work to maintain and service the prison.
This includes cleaning cells and landings,
working in the kitchen or laundry, and
grounds maintenance.
• Mundane and repetitive work for
external contractors, such as bagging
nails and stuffing envelopes.
• More complex production tasks, either
for external contractors or more usually for
internal consumption, including making
window frames and furniture and light
engineering.
Prisoners have the chance to gain key work
skills qualifications, gaining almost 110,000
related awards in 2003/2004. Low-skill
activities are unlikely to develop other skills
sought by employers, such as communication
and teamwork. Most training provision is
driven by the availability of prison instructors
rather than assessment of prisoners’ or
industry’s needs.68 Although there are a few
examples of good practice (as illustrated in
Box 8) overall, too few connections are made
between education and training in prison and
the learning and employment opportunities
outside. A recent Home Affairs Select
Committee recommended that greater
opportunities for day release for education and
employment need to be developed and that
labour and skill gaps in the external labour
market should drive vocational training and
work programmes in prisons.69
Insufficient education or training opportunities
(as illustrated in Box 9) are not the only
explanations for the challenges involved in
enhancing skills and employability. Many
prisoners have had poor experiences of school
education, and do not engage well with formal
education. Education and training in prison is
not always delivered at the appropriate time
and in the right way for prisoners with mental
health or drug issues.70 Furthermore, only one
third of education managers regularly receive
prisoners’ records following a transfer from
another prison.
In 2002, less than one in five prisoners said
they received employment advice in prison.
Friends and former employers still remain the
most common sources of help for those
wanting to find a job on release.72 Since then,
the government has initiated a £30m three
year ‘Custody to Work’ programme. This aims
to get more people leaving prison into job and
training places. From 2003–2004, this worked
with 22,000 prisoners who entered education,
employment or training on release.73 Jobcentre
Inside and out
Plus, a government agency that aims to help
people into work, has two initiatives that may
benefit ex-prisoners. One, ‘progress2work’,
focuses on people recovering from a drug
addiction, another on people who are
particularly struggling to get into work.
Employment and training
on release
Ex-prisoners in work are between a third and a
half less likely to reoffend.74 Prisoners who
have a job on entering prison have a one in
three chance of losing it by the time they
leave. In 2003, a quarter of prisoners had a
paid job arranged after release. A further 5%
had a training or educational place arranged.
The Department for Work and Pensions
admits that employer discrimination is one of
the biggest influences on the unemployment of
ex-offenders 75. Fifty seven per cent of exprisoners seeking work say that they have had
difficulties because of their criminal record. The
1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders Act intends to
‘strike a balance between giving reformed
offenders the chance to reintegrate themselves
into society and the need to protect society
from those who might offend again’. It requires
disclosure of convictions on demand for a set
period of time. For ex-prisoners, this period
depends on the severity of their offence.76 The
government’s Social Exclusion Unit believes
that the law does not get the balance right
between protecting the public and enabling
low risk ex-offenders to move into
Education and pathways to employment/Section 3.2
employment.77 The government commissioned
a review of the act in 2002, which
recommended that the disclosure period for
custodial sentences terminated at most two
years after the end of the sentence.78 Although
the government has accepted most of its
recommendations, it has still not published a
bill for review by parliament.79
Other factors that influence an ex-prisoners
ability to secure and sustain employment on
release include lack of motivation, confidence,
childcare issues, alcohol or drug misuse or
erratic behaviour.
Employer
discrimination is
one of the
biggest barriers
to the
employment of
ex-prisoners.
There are strong economic arguments for
enhancing the ability of people to secure
employment on release. Reduced
unemployment saves taxpayers’ money on
benefits. NPC estimates that ex-prisoners
receive £45m in Job Seekers Allowance
each year.80
Examples and results of
charitable activity
NPC found a number of charities that seek to
enhance the skills and employment
opportunities of people in prison and on
release. Their activities and possible results of
their work are illustrated in Table 8.
NPC has not looked into charities focusing on
prisoners with special educational needs.
Table 8: Results of charities’ activities
Activity
Desired results
Education, training and
motivational work in prison
• Prisoners have a greater appetite for education,
employment and training
• Prisoners increase skills for learning and the workplace
• Reduced unemployment and under-employment on release
Peer support
• Prisoners learn positively from each other
• Prisoners build team-working and leadership skills
Understanding and addressing
employer attitudes
• Charities increase understanding of barriers to employment
• Employers increase awareness of ex-prisoners’ skills.
• Increased employer interest in employing ex-prisoners
• Reduced unemployment and under-employment
Brokering education
opportunities
• Ex-prisoners increase in confidence and experience
• Better use of ex-prisoners’ skills and experience
• Reduced unemployment and under-employment
31
Inside and out
Education and pathways to employment/Section 3.2
Box 10: The Inside Out Trust
The Inside Out Trust helps offenders make a positive contribution to society and
offers the following activities that can enhance their skills:
• renovating unusable bicycles or wheelchairs, to be sent to charities in Africa;
• repairing disused computers for local charities; or
• transcribing books into Braille or large print for people with visual impairments.
According to the charity and prisoners themselves, the Inside Out Trust offers more
interesting and skilled work than the majority of prison workshops.
All Inside Out Trust projects are run by a prison officer, or by prisoners themselves.
These ‘self-managed’ workshops can provide prisoners with a greater sense of
responsibility for managing their own time, and can build team skills. The charity
works in 60 prisons, involving around 3,000 people a year. In some cases, prisoners
gain an accredited qualification for their work. In 2003, the charity aimed to
recognise 2,000 prisoners’ achievements with qualifications.
NPC visited a Braille and large print transcription workshop in HMP Parkhurst. One
man said: ‘Ten years ago I was a real shit, you wouldn’t want to have known me. I
can’t ever change what I’ve done, but at least through doing this, I can give
something back.’
When released in 2003, Rhana told employers:81“Having the chance to do a
community placement just before I was released was one of the best things that could
have happened to me. I was so pleased that someone recognised that I was not just
a number, but a human being who had made terrible mistakes. I was given a chance
to be a valued member of society and learn skills in the workplace and to learn new
social skills. I never thought I would lead a drug-free life and be able to cope with the
day-to-day obstacles that life sometimes throws in your way. My confidence has
grown, I have a full-time job and I’m now planning to take some more NVQs.’’
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
Expenditure for the year ending 30 September 2004 was £790,000. The organisation has 21 staff.
32
More engaging education and
training opportunities
The Inside Out Trust, described in Box 10,
provides prison-based training and
employment programmes that benefit other
charities. Their work gives prisoners the
opportunity to contribute to society. The
benefits of this are explored in more depth in
Section 3.10.
Charities such as Clean Break use the arts as
a medium to enhance people’s appetite for,
and ability to participate in, education and
training. Arts-based activities are endorsed by
the Chief Inspectors of Prisons and Probation,
whose 2001 report commented: ‘The focus on
education should not be at the expense of
providing recreational and cultural
opportunities, which may be the pivotal thing
that a prisoner responds to.’82 The value of the
arts for people who are, or have been in prison
is explored in Section 3.12.
Brokering employment
opportunities and tackling
employer discrimination
There are a number of charities that broker
employment opportunities and tackle employer
discrimination, such as the Apex Trust and
Community Links for Ex-Offenders,
described in Box 11.
Inside and out
Other charities have also worked to change
employers’ mind-sets. For example, between
March 2003 and June 2004, The Inside Out
Trust ran seven events attracting 266
employers on ‘Turning prisoners into
taxpayers’. These events emphasised the
economic and social benefits of employing exprisoners. Nacro has also written a guide to
83
recruiting ex-offenders.
Conclusion
Education and employment are two of the
most important factors influencing reoffending.
While the Prison Service offers some
opportunities, these are unlikely to engage
those with poor histories of education and
training and statutory provision remains
insufficient. Charities can complement or
enhance statutory provision and can develop
more creative means of enhancing skills and
aspirations of prisoners by using the arts (as
discussed in section 3.12).
Box 11: Community Links for Ex-Offenders (CLEO)
CLEO supports people in prisons in the Bristol area when they return to the
community. The charity provides advice and information on any matter affecting an
ex-prisoner’s life, including benefits, housing and drug rehabilitation. A family
support worker addresses family issues before and after release.
As well as offering advice on job applications and disclosing a criminal record, CLEO
can act as an intermediary between an ex-prisoner and a potential employer. In one
case, a client wanted to work full-time as a painter and decorator at the University of
Bristol. Before the client submitted a job application, CLEO wrote in confidence to the
University’s Human Resources team, who were responsible for dealing with
disclosure of criminal records. The University responded by saying that they would
be happy to consider the client’s application. After interview, the applicant and a
CLEO project worker were invited to meet the people making the recruitment
decision. As a result of this meeting, the University’s concerns about recruiting an exprisoner were overcome, the applicant was offered the job and CLEO provided
ongoing support during employment, including participation in three monthly
progress reviews. Despite CLEO’s support, the ex-prisoner lost his job after ten
months because of accommodation and family problems.
CLEO also runs disclosure training workshops for employers. These cover the
practical and legal issues involved in recruiting ex-offenders. Workshops aim to give
organisations a more realistic view of ex-offenders as potential employees.
Set up by an ex-offender in 1999, this charity has an annual turnover of £120,000 and is run by
three staff.
Charities can enhance the skills and
employment opportunities for people
in custody and after release.
Photograph supplied by Inside Out Trust
Furthermore, the government makes
insufficient efforts to tackle an important part
of the problem—employer discrimination.
Charitable funding can be used to transform
prejudices and disseminate good practice.
Funding is also needed to enable charities to
provide ongoing support to ex-prisoners
during employment.
Education and pathways to employment/Section 3.2
33
Attitudes and self control
‘
Prison is like a
bad parent. It
pays attention
to bad
behaviour and
ignores good
behaviour.
‘
Erwin James
Summary
Although individual circumstances and
motivations vary, there are some common
themes in prisoners’ accounts of their
behaviour. Some turn to crime as a way of
dealing with difficult circumstances. Others
believe that their crime has no victim or
serious consequences. Some are incapable
of understanding the behaviour that led
them to offending.
The Prison and Probation Services have
made significant investments in ‘offending
behaviour programmes’. These aim to help
prisoners examine the effects of their
behaviour and develop new ways of
coping. Although the aim is sound, the
evidence for the overall efficacy of these
programmes is weak, suggesting flaws in
the process. Certain programmes do have
an impact, but they are not widely enough
available to reach all prisoners and
offenders who could benefit from them.
Charities are attempting to improve and
expand activities in this field to address
criminal behaviour, many of which are
dependent on charitable funding.
Motivations for criminal behaviour
Individuals commit crimes based on a complex
combination of circumstances, attitudes and
behaviours. For example, substance abuse,
mental health problems, and chaotic
upbringing can lead to criminal behaviour.
Prisoners may have an inadequate sense of
responsibility and be incapable of
understanding that actions have consequences
for themselves and their victims.84
Some types of crimes do not have an obvious
victim from the perpetrator’s point of view.
Handling stolen goods, credit card fraud, and
drunk driving are examples of crimes in which
a person does not necessarily identify a
specific victim. The offender may remove
themselves from any responsibility for the
adverse consequences of their actions on
victims, communities or society as a whole.85
Certain environments may breed a sense that
crime and prison are an inevitable part of an
individual’s fate. According to the Social
Exclusion Unit’s 2002 report Reducing reoffending by ex-prisoners, many offenders do
not believe they will be caught.86 Young or new
prisoners may have felt that the risk involved in
committing a crime is worth the reward.
34
3.3
Repeat offenders are often unable to see how
their behaviour patterns lead to crime.
Returning to a prison system focusing on
punishment does not always break the cycle
of reoffending.
The effect of prison on attitudes
It is possible, indeed desirable, for prison to have
a positive impact on inmates’ attitudes and
behaviour. Erwin James, a Guardian columnist
who spent 20 years in prison, believes this. Yet,
James says, “Prison is like a bad parent. It pays
attention to bad behaviour, and ignores good
behaviour.” The Social Exclusion Unit noted
similar view among prisoners. Some felt that
prison confirmed their lack of respect for
authority and rules; others felt that certain
regulations worked against positive outcomes
within prison, rather than for them.
Prison often separates prisoners from the
consequences of their crime. The need to
build a temporary new life within prison often
takes precedence over considering the impact
of their actions. The isolation from the wider
community allows prisoners to convince
themselves that their crimes have little effect
on others.
‘Learned helplessness’ is another response to
life in prison. Along with the loss of freedom
naturally imposed on prisoners, certain day-today responsibilities are also removed. This can
lead to an inability to manage the important,
sometimes complicated details of life once an
offender re-enters the community.
More seriously, some prisoners are vulnerable to
having their negative behaviours reinforced in
prison by other inmates. They can end up
learning more criminal techniques, instead of
preparing for a law-abiding life outside of prison.
Statutory services
In recent years, the Prison and Probation
Services have invested resources in offending
behaviour programmes. These programmes
aim to bring home the effect of prisoners’
behaviour on others and teach better coping
strategies in order to prevent reoffending. Most
are based on cognitive behavioural theory, the
premise of which is that it is a person’s attitude
to a situation, not the situation itself, that
determines behaviour.
Inside and out
Programmes are targeted at particular groups
of offenders. Current programmes target:87
• repeat offenders;
• sex offenders;
• violent offenders;
Attitudes and self control/Section 3.3
Results of charitable activity
NPC found that evaluations of charities’
offending behaviour programmes concentrated
on short-term results, such as:
• increased self-awareness and better
coping skills;
• offenders whose crime involved anger;
• offenders who have committed an offence
where alcohol or drugs are involved;
• increased empathy, particularly a
heightened awareness of the impact of
crime on victims;
• those who need to improve their reasoning
and problem-solving skills in order to avoid
a return to crime.
• constructive management of anger; and
The government based its decision to invest in
these programmes on a single study, which
showed an offending behaviour programme
reduced reconviction rates by up to 14%.88
However, subsequent studies have not
confirmed this evidence. There is still much to be
learned about what works with who and why.89
Some did not even attempt to measure
attitude and behaviour changes. In some
cases, their funding situation did not allow for
this. Others did not seem to believe in the
value of measuring, and understanding results.
The need for charitable activities
and private funding
Understanding how to transform prisoners and
ex-offenders attitudes is critical for preventing
further reoffending. But until we understand
what works and why, donors and funders risk
getting little social return on their investment.
This should not be a reason for donors and
funders to withdraw from supporting this area
of work. At present, the National Offenders
Managers Service (NOMS) has accredited
programmes reaching 10,000 prisoners per
year. This leaves many thousands of prisoners
without an opportunity to examine their
behaviour. In 2001, the Inspectorate of Prisons
raised concerns about the lack of suitable
places for women, prisoners with emotional
difficulties, and those whose basic skills were
poor. It proposed assigning offenders to
targeted courses based on individual needs
assessment. Inspectors concluded that more
work is needed to build prisoners’ motivation
to tackle practical problems.90
Not all charitable programmes with promising
results receive financial support from the
Prison Service. Many need other funding while
they develop their programmes and evidence
of effectiveness.
• increased confidence.
Short-term results, although useful, are unable
to tell us whether attitude and behaviour
changes are sustained in the longer term. If
these results are achieved and sustained, they
are likely to have positive effects on:
• housing and financial security (see section
3.4);
• levels of addiction and recovering from
some mental illnesses (see section 3.5);
• employment and take-up of
education/training opportunities (see
section 3.2);
• maintenance of constructive family
relationships. It is reasonable to assume
that managing anger and increased
empathy will aid healthy family relationships.
Understanding
how to
transform
prisoners and
ex-offenders
attitudes is
critical for
preventing
reoffending.
However, attitude changes are dependent on
circumstances too. Prisoners with financial
problems, addictions or mental health
problems can struggle to attend courses and
build on therapeutic gains. NOMS-managed
offending behaviour programmes may neglect
to see a prisoner’s actions in the context of
his or her circumstances. Charities may be
able to design programmes that tackle
prisoners’ practical problems alongside their
damaging attitudes.
35
Inside and out
Attitudes and self control/Section 3.3
Box 12: The Hardman Trust
The Hardman Trust makes awards to prisoners who make extraordinary efforts in
their own rehabilitation. Awards are open to men serving more than ten years in
prison, and women serving more than eight years. Awards are not for activities that
will simply make a prisoner’s life more comfortable, but are given for personal or
skills development such as:
• advanced I.T. qualifications;
New Bridge’s resettlement courses address
prisoners’ adverse circumstances as well as
unhelpful attitudes. It works with about 250
prisoners each in two prisons. The
programmes, which involve a group of eight
prisoners and last a week, cover:
• developing skills to find and keep a job;
• overcoming setbacks and managing stress;
• funding for tools of a trade, eg, plumbing, joinery, computers;
• musical instruments and arts materials; and
• distance learning courses.
• understanding benefits;
By supporting hobbies that could help develop social networks, or training that might
improve employment prospects, the charity helps a prisoner’s transition to the
community.
There are two award ceremonies a year. In most cases each of the 30–35 award
winners attend, accompanied by friends and relatives.
People who receive awards are asked to keep in touch with the Hardman Trust for
three years. The charity has given hundreds of awards over the past ten years and
only one recipient reoffended. This is substantially below the rate expected for the
group of prisoners eligible for the awards. However, it is hard to attribute this to the
recognition and support that the Trust provides, as they select prisoners with an
exemplary record.
Many members of this group are ex-prisoners, some of whom received Hardman Trust awards. The
charity had a turnover of £50,000 in 2003/4.
Examples of charities’ activities
and results
Charities can
help prisoners
increase their
self-awareness
and empathy
and heighten
their awareness
of the impact of
crime.
Clean Break is a charity that uses the arts to
provide opportunities to women in prison and
women at risk of offending. It runs a
programme for women on managing anger
which helps motivate women to change and
affirms constructive behaviour. Of the 25
women completing the programme, 90% said
that it had assisted them in understanding their
own behaviour and 63% said it allowed them
to practise doing things in a different way.
The Forgiveness Project uses stories of the
impact of crime on victims and perpetrators to
help prisoners examine their behaviour. A pilot
project in Brixton prison involved 12 offenders
and several victims of crime and trauma.
Participants comments at the end of the
course were positive, but gave mixed
messages about attitude changes. More
funding could help test this approach.
Approaches that help prisoners make amends
for the crimes they have committed may also
be helpful. Activities that give a prisoner an
opportunity to contribute something positive to
society may improve their sense of
themselves, having an impact on their
behaviour in the longer term. The Inside Out
Trust, profiled in Section 3.2, provides such
opportunities. Restorative Justice, which is
described in section 3.10, allows a prisoner to
face the consequences of their actions.
36
• understanding the impact of substance
misuse;
• budgeting; and
• appreciating the impact of release on their
families and communities.
Together with the course leader, the prisoner
prepares an action plan for release. New
Bridge’s initial attempts to monitor success
were hampered by a poor response to a
reoffending survey from Probation Officers.
Prison is not always an environment that
encourages prisoner’s efforts at self-change.
Charities can encourage self-development,
providing support for fulfilling activities that
may improve a person’s life on release. The
Hardman Trust, described in Box 12, takes
such an approach.
Conclusion
Each year, thousands of people leave prison
without having examined or changed their
attitudes. This has implications for reoffending.
Charities offer prisoners alternative or creative
approaches to improving attitudes and selfcontrol which can contribute to a reduced
likelihood of reoffending or a better quality of
life in custody and on release.
Housing, debt and benefits
Summary and key facts
The impact of the problems
The three issues reviewed in this section
are closely interlinked. Prisoners will
accumulate debts if they fail to inform their
landlord of their incarceration. Debt can
lead to the repossession of a home or the
end of a tenancy. Most prisoners need
housing benefit to pay for their
accommodation on release.
Housing
• One in three prisoners is not in
permanent accommodation prior to
imprisonment, with as many as one in
twenty sleeping rough.91
• Of the 90,000 or so sentenced prisoners
who leave custody each year, nearly
40,00092 have no permanent
accommodation on release, with women
at particular risk.93 The situation is more
difficult for those with mental health
problems and addictions. A study found
that 49% with mental health problems
and 63% of those who also have a drug
problem have nowhere to go on
release.94
• Prisoners who are homeless are 20%
more likely to be reconvicted.
• Ex-prisoners with a permanent home are
more than three times as likely to be in
work.95
• One in five prisoners is in debt.
Statutory support to help people secure
housing on release or tackle debt is
inadequate. Only half of the prisons in
England and Wales have a housing and
support service. Ex-prisoners also have
difficulty accessing financial services, such
as bank accounts, necessary for daily life.
Charitable activity is essential to help
prisoners secure housing, access benefits,
prevent the accumulation of debt and get
advice on managing finances. Charities can
also offer temporary accommodation on
release as a first step to independent living.
A prison sentence often leaves an offender in a
less stable situation on release than before
their conviction. Those with stable
accommodation have a one in three chance of
losing their home while incarcerated. Not only
does not having accommodation on release
increase the likelihood of reoffending, it can
also result in problems with accessing public
services (such as primary healthcare, drug
treatment) or accessing financial services. It is
also harder to find and keep a job with no
fixed address.
If housing issues are not addressed quickly,
people in prison will quickly fall into arrears
with rent or mortgage payments. Entitlement
to Housing Benefit, which most rely on prior to
incarceration, stops immediately for all
sentenced prisoners expected to be in prison
for more than 13 weeks.96 However most
tenancies require at least four weeks notice,97
meaning that many short-term prisoners have
little chance of keeping their tenancy open
until release.98
Prisoners need to search for housing
sometime prior to release, because it usually
takes several months to secure a place to live.
However there are many challenges involved in
securing housing. With limited access to the
phone and post, people in prison have
difficulties communicating with housing
authorities. According to Nacro, many housing
providers are not good at responding to
prisoners’ letters and require follow-up.
Moreover, many housing providers do not take
on offenders thought to pose a high risk,
including those with mental illnesses and those
convicted of violent or sexual offences. People
assessed as being at high risk may be
required to live in probation hostels or other
specialist accommodation.99
3.4
Of the 90,000
or so sentenced
prisoners who
leave custody
each year,
40,000 have no
permanent
accommodation
on release.
Prisoners who
are homeless
are 20% more
likely to be
reconvicted.
This leaves many moving from friend to friend,
in a bed and breakfast, or on the streets.100
Thirty seven per cent of people leaving prison
plan to stay in a hostel or short-term
accommodation, with a further 6% (around
5,400 people) with nothing temporary
arranged.101 Ten per cent of short-term, repeat
prisoners say they had slept rough when they
102
left custody the last time.
37
Inside and out
Housing, debt and benefits/Section 3.4
Box 13: Benefits and other financial help available to prisoners on
release113
Job Seekers Allowance of £55.65 per week is the standard benefit available for all
unemployed people of working age. Claimants need to apply and have a ‘New
Jobseeker’ interview at a Jobcentre. Those who are caring for dependants, or are
sick or disabled, may claim Income Support instead.
People on a low income who are paying rent, are entitled to Housing benefit. This
covers a reasonable rent for the area. Most Job Seekers Allowance claimants are
entitled to this. Applications for Job Seekers Allowance and Housing benefit must be
made at different offices.
Released prisoners may be eligible for community care grants or crisis loans to help
them purchase essential items. Loan repayments are normally taken out of benefit
payments.
Debt and benefits
‘
I’ve been here
for over four
months, but
there’s no one
to talk to about
all the money I
owe. I know it’ll
be a big
problem when I
get out—how I
get something
to live on.
‘
Prisoner
Access to benefits has a long-term impact on
the welfare of prisoners and their families. Yet
entitlements and the Social Security system are
complex for experts in resettlement, let alone
for prisoners with low skill levels.103 The main
benefits to which people leaving prison may be
entitled, and the routes for claiming them, are
described in Box 13. Seventy two per cent of
prisoners claim benefits before imprisonment,
and 81% claim them on release.104
Almost a fifth of prisoners have problems with
debt, which has consequences for reoffending
and homelessness.105 Problems get worse in
prison for one in three offenders.106 Unless a
prisoner takes action, by the time they are
released, problems will have accumulated. In
some cases, the ex-prisoner’s property may
have been repossessed.
Problems with debt can lead to stress and
family breakdown. People may cut back on
essentials, such as fuel, food and rent in order
to meet repayments. If a prisoner has a family,
it will impact on their quality of life as well.107
Access to financial services
People with criminal records face difficulties
when seeking mortgages, bank accounts or
property insurance. Most employers pay
salaries by BACS transfer, which presents a
significant problem for ex-prisoners seeking
employment without a bank account.
Furthermore, as of 2005 all benefits will only be
paid into bank accounts, which may increase
the barriers to ex-prisoners accessing financial
support. Insurance premiums can also increase
for families living with ex-offenders, increasing
either financial burdens or insecurities.
Statutory support
Housing
Only half the prisons in England and Wales
have a housing advice and support service,
leaving many to navigate a complex system
alone. At present, the Prison and Probation
Services are not accountable for the housing
situation of ex-prisoners through their key
performance indicators.108
38
In recent years, the government has
introduced two pilot programmes to develop
better practice in housing, debt and benefit
advice. ‘Prison Service Plus’ mainly focuses on
improving prisoners’ access to employment on
release, and also tackles related housing
problems. This £29m programme operates in
28 prisons across England. People leaving
prison with no fixed abode should head to the
local Homeless Person’s Unit, which deals with
homeless people classified as ‘in priority
need’. In England, a person ‘who is vulnerable
as a result of having been to prison or
remanded in custody’ falls into a priority need
group. Yet this does not benefit all leaving
prison because not all will be classed as
vulnerable. An assessment will be made based
on factors such as:109
• whether the person has a social or family
network to rely on;
• the duration of the period in prison; and
• whether the person has been in care.
Being classed as ‘in priority need’ does not
guarantee swift access to decent
accommodation. Most face a long wait for a
place of their own, because there is a shortage
of social housing in many parts of the country,
particularly in London and the southeast.
Those who have the evidence to suggest they
meet the definition are offered accommodation
in bed and breakfast or a hostel while the
council assesses their claim.110 A council may
reject an application if a person has large rent
arrears, no local connection, or is under an
antisocial behaviour order.111
Those who are not ‘in priority need’ will be
given a list of temporary accommodation,
including private landlords and bed and
breakfasts. Several charities and independent
observers say much of the accommodation is
poor quality.112
Benefits
Many people leave prison with no money to
their name other than their discharge grant.
This is £94 for prisoners who will be homeless
on release, and £47 otherwise. Benefits are
paid two weeks in arrears, leaving those
without supportive friends or family in crisis.
Box 13 outlines the most common benefits to
which someone leaving prison may be entitled.
Debt
Despite being a widespread problem, debt is
given less attention by both Prison and
Probation Services than accommodation and
benefits.114 One prisoner quoted in the Social
Exclusion Unit’s 2002 report said: “I’ve been
here for over four months, but there’s no one
to talk to about all the money I owe. I know it’ll
be a big problem when I get out—how I get
something to live on.”
Inside and out
The Social Exclusion Unit has recently
circulated advice for tackling debt within the
Criminal Justice System. This advises Prison
and Probation Services to make use of
charities’ and Citizens Advice Bureaux’
services (illustrated in Box 14), although neither
organisation has earmarked statutory funding
to cover its costs.115
Box 14: Citizens’ Advice Bureaux (CABx)
Citizens’ Advice Bureaux (CABx) have over 70 partnerships with prisons and with
local probation areas. Most projects involve CABx advisers coming into the prison to
offer advice. These range from full services, operating on every wing for a number of
days each week, to a single adviser coming in to a prison for one session a week.
Projects mainly provide advice on housing and financial advice. Seven CABx projects
involve prisoners near the end of their sentence, and offenders under probation
supervision, receiving training and giving advice at community based bureaux. CABx
do not generally investigate the impact of their work on the resolution of their clients
problems, although a partnership with Kent probation found that offenders referred
to the project in 1997/1998 had a reoffending rate of 38%, compared to a national
rate of 57%.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Charities undertake a wide range of activities to
address problems associated with housing, debt
and benefits, as illustrated in Table 9. Given the
link between housing, financial situations and
reoffending, these results are expected to
contribute to a reduction in reoffending.
Improving ex-prisoners’ housing and financial
situations is likely to have a number of knockon effects on other factors influencing
reoffending, including:
• Mental health and addictions. People living
on the streets are more likely to have
adverse mental health and substance abuse
problems than those living in better
conditions. The same is true for people living
in poor quality or temporary housing.116
Some will experience anxiety over their
financial situations, both in and after prison.
Housing, debt and benefits/Section 3.4
• Physical health. Temporary
accommodation and homelessness
increase the risk of gastrointestinal and
respiratory infections. Infant mortality is
higher and there can also be adverse
effects on child development.
• Family ties. Prisoners who hope to be the
main carers of children on release are more
likely to be able to do this if they can
secure stable housing. Financial problems
can lead to family breakdown.
• Employment. Few employers are prepared
to take on people who do not have a
permanent address.
Charities can
help people
access housing
and tackle debt,
which can
reduce the
likelihood of
reoffending.
Table 9: Activities tackling housing and finances and desired results
Activity
Desired results
Helping people in prison shut
down a tenancy and seek
stable accommodation on
release
• Reduced debt
Working with prisoners to
consolidate debts
• More manageable debts
Helping prisoners access
financial services
• Better use of financial resources
• Reduced anxiety
• Stable housing for release/ decreased barriers to getting
stable housing
• Increased financial security
• Increased access to employment
Teaching financial management
skills
• Increased financial and housing stability due to better
finances
Post-release linkworkers
tackling housing and financial
issues and providing therapeutic
support
• Improved coping skills and more appropriate care
Short-term accommodation,
acting as a first step for
independent living
• Reduced stress due to gradual uptake of responsibilities.
• Greater income, more stable housing
• Improved coping skills and confidence for independent living
39
Inside and out
Housing, debt and benefits/Section 3.4
Box 15: The St Giles’ Trust
The St. Giles’ Trust trains prisoners in Wandsworth, Brixton, Canterbury, Stanford Hill
and Spring Hill to act as peer advisors on housing issues. The charity plans to
increase the number and type of prisons it is working with over the coming years.
Advisers carry out initial assessments and assist other prisoners with
straightforward cases. They are supported by external staff, who supervise work with
people whose affairs are more complex.
The Trust assessed over 1,300 new arrivals over five months in 2004 and had further
contact with 525. Of these, they managed to save 41 tenancies, find accommodation
for 29 and close down six tenancies, minimising further debt. At the end of this five
month period, 286 cases were ongoing. This is a positive result for less than 15% of
those the charity had further contact with. Yet this is still a good result for the charity,
given that most have little chance of getting permanent housing. For the rest, they
are often able to sort out relevant documentation for when they ask Homeless
Persons Units, hostels and day centres for help.117
There are benefits for advisers as well as advised, who gain an accredited
qualification in housing advice. The benefits of peer support are outlined in greater
depth in section 3.10. Peer advisors speak of their increased confidence, listening
skills, empathy, and sense of responsibility. Furthermore, the charity believes that
new arrivals are more likely to be open about their situation to other prisoners.
The St. Giles’ Trust has an annual turnover of £1.34m
Box 16: The Revolving Doors Agency
The Revolving Doors Agency concentrates on people with mild to moderate mental
health problems. The charity offers:
• Supported housing. The charity has a house in Islington, accommodating seven
people in a therapeutic environment. Staff help teach practical skills, in
conjunction with use of cognitive-behavioural techniques and art therapy. This
aims to aid vulnerable people’s transition to the community, preventing them being
overwhelmed by the challenges of release.
• Link workers provide practically-oriented counselling and advice, helping exprisoners in three London boroughs. This scheme, which supports over 100 people
per year, aims to keep people out of the Criminal Justice System. It has helped 53%
of clients to secure benefits, and when successful, clients obtained an average of
£133 extra per week. It advised four in five clients on finding accommodation or
sustaining a tenancy, helping to resolve rent arrears for 32%. An evaluation found
that people receiving this support were 22% less likely to reoffend than exprisoners with a similar profile. The Home Office also found that when reoffending
occurred, it was on average less serious than the previous offence.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
The Revolving Doors Agency has a turnover of £918,000 and is run by 21 staff.
40
The St. Giles’ Trust, described in Box 15 trains
people in prison to advise others on housing
issues. Its involvement is mainly in the crucial
period on arrival in prison, and towards the end
of time in custody. It is operating in some
particularly difficult environments, where prisoner
turnover is high, placing a pressure on services.
One of the most important roles charities play
is building prisoners’ skills to tackle problems
on release. There is little point in helping a
person consolidate their debts, or find decent
housing, if this is a position they are unable to
maintain on release. Good services try to avoid
reinforcing the ‘learned helplessness’ prevalent
in the prison population. Instead, they try to
support a transition to greater independence,
giving the prisoner the confidence and skills to
manage responsibilities. The Anglia Care
Trust aims to do this by teaching financial
management skills. The Anglia Care Trust also
provides ‘halfway houses’ for ex-prisoners
thought to be ‘at risk’ to help with their
transition to the community. In such an
environment, they can build up their life-skills
and have reduced exposure to situations
where they may be of harm to themselves or
others. They then have the opportunity to
progress to independent living with ongoing
support from the charity.
The Revolving Doors Agency, described in
Box 16, supports people with mental health
problems, building their skills to tackle both
practical and emotional problems.
Unlock has successfully campaigned for
financial service companies, such as Halifax,
Bank of Scotland and Community Banking to
give ex-offenders access to banking facilities.
They have also enabled ex-prisoners’ access
to insurance and mortgages.
Conclusion
The links between debt, unstable housing and
reoffending are clear. The lack of secure
housing on release can affect the health,
employment opportunities and family situations
of ex-prisoners. People who have stable
accommodation on release are 20% less likely
to be re-convicted. However, the state makes
inadequate efforts to steer people in prison
towards a better situation on release. There is,
therefore, an important role for charities and
for donors and funders to support efforts to
address this problem.
Mental health, self-harm
and suicide
Summary and key facts
The data on mental health, self-harm and
suicide is especially alarming:
• Ninety per cent of people in prison have
a mental illness, with 70% affected by
two or more disorders.
• Imprisonment can make existing
problems worse and cause the onset of
new ones.
• In any six month period, one in ten
women prisoners and one in forty male
prisoners will harm themselves
physically.118
• In 2004, there were 95 suicides in
prison.119 During the 2005 Mother’s Day
weekend, 41 women attempted suicide
in one prison alone. The suicide rate is
approximately seven times higher in
prison than among the general
population.
There are significant concerns about the
quality of statutory mental health care
services in prison, which provides a
compelling case for charitable activity.
Charities can provide support and
independent advocacy, leading to more
appropriate treatment and reduced
distress. They can also provide practical
and emotional support in the period
following release, which people with mental
health problems often find particularly
difficult. Charities can play a role in
advocating for improvements in
government policy and statutory services.
Some organisations working in this area
receive government funds, but many rely
on private funding to develop and grow.
Prevalence of mental health
problems in prison
There are two reasons to be concerned by the
mental health of the prison population, in
addition to the distress caused by living with
such problems. First of all, untreated mental
health problems can be an underlying cause of
offending behaviour.122 Research shows that
psychiatric disorders, personal distress and
certain types of temperament are associated
with higher reoffending rates.123 Mental health
problems can also make it harder to benefit from
rehabilitative programmes, such as education or
training, which can increase the likelihood of
reoffending.124 Secondly, poor mental heath
does not only impact on the prisoner affected,
but can be distressing for other prisoners.
3.5
90% of
prisoners have
a mental health
problem.
There are several reasons for the prevalence of
mental health problems in the prison population:
• Medical records do not follow people into
prisons. Screening on reception into
custody is poor at picking up problems,
with as many as three quarters of mental
illnesses going unnoticed.125 This means
that some people who should be diverted to
secure psychiatric services end up in prison.
• Although the link is often overplayed, some
types of mental health problems do make
criminal behaviour more likely. For example,
a disregard for the feelings, and sometimes
safety, of other people is characteristic of
antisocial personality disorder.126
• People with mental illness who commit
violent offences are perceived as more
dangerous than they really are simply
because of their illness. Even offenders
committing lesser offences with mental
health problems are more likely to be
remanded in custody.127
• Other factors thought to be more common
among people with mental illnesses, such
as homelessness, also make remand in
custody more likely.128
Chart 1 shows the prevalence of various types
of mental illness in the sentenced prison
population and, where known, the estimated
prevalence in the general population.120 Of
particular concern, between 12 and 15% of
the prison population (9,000 or more people)
has three of the four following problems: a
neurotic condition, a personality disorder,
psychosis and an addiction to drugs or
alcohol.121 Appendix 7 describes the features
of categories of mental illnesses.
41
Inside and out
Mental health, self-harm and suicide/Section 3.5
Chart 1: Prevalence of mental disorders in the prison population,
with comparisons129
80
Male
Male -approx in
general population
70
60
Female
Female -approx in
general population
50
Mental health problems may be made worse
by imprisonment. The prison environment can
be dirty, depressing and aggressive. The
enforced solitude and lack of purposeful
activity can leave some brooding over worries
without any outlet. Communication with
families is limited and medical care is often
inadequate; illegal drugs are often available.
The World Health Organisation states: ‘Loss of
freedom constitutes the punishment; health
and well-being must not be compromised.’
Worsening mental health problems may lead
to more crimes and create higher numbers of
victims in the longer term.
40
30
20
Self-harm and suicide
10
0
Two or more
mental health
disorders
Neurotic
disorder
Psychotic
disorder
Personality
disorder
Previous Previous
admission suicide
to mental attempt
hospital
Box 17: Sarah Campbell’s suicide
‘At the age of 15 life seemed to hold everything for Sarah Campbell. She had
ambitions to pursue a fine art degree after her A-levels and her talent at tennis had
put her on the fringes of her county's tennis squad. She also did karate (earning a
purple belt) and attended drama classes.
But within three years she was dead after becoming addicted to heroin, stealing to
feed her habit and being put in a prison that was chronically ill-equipped to deal with
vulnerable young women such as her.
Those serious shortcomings at Styal prison, Cheshire, where she took a fatal
overdose of antidepressants, were exposed yesterday at the end of a two-week
inquest. It [the inquest] learnt that, despite seven previous attempts to hang herself
there, staff acted against a doctor's warnings by sending her to a segregation unit,
shut the door on her after she had overdosed, and could not agree who should call
an ambulance to take her to hospital.
In any six month period, one in ten women
prisoners and one in forty male prisoners will
harm themselves physically.130 Not all prisoners
who self-harm will have a mental health
problem,131 but most are in some distress. Many
regard self-harm as a means of manipulation.
However, experts widely recognise that it is a
way of communicating distress or taking control
when other methods fail.132
People do not necessarily harm themselves
with the intention of killing themselves,
although the risk of suicide in the year
following an episode of self-harm increases a
hundred-fold.133 The first days and weeks in
prison are a particularly risky period. More than
a quarter of prison suicides occur within a
person’s first week in the prison and more
than two fifths within the first month.134
Most who attempt suicide have experienced
adverse life events, particularly violence and
sexual abuse.135
The inquest jury found that the prison had failed in its duty of care to Campbell, one
of six vulnerable women prisoners to die in a 12-month period at Styal. In a narrative
verdict, it detailed a catalogue of failures that led to her suicide at an establishment
where "more emphasis was put on auditing, than prisoners' welfare".
Sarah Campbell’s suicide at HMP Styal in
2003, which received widespread press
coverage, is described in Box 17.
The jury heard how Campbell's attempts to hang herself were among her 27
separate instances of self-harm at Styal between May and November 2002 …
Campbell died on 18 January 2003, three days before her 19th birthday and one day
into a three-year sentence for manslaughter.’
People at particular risk with
mental illnesses
Source: Ian Herbert, © The Independent, 25 January, 2005, How a talented teenage girl was failed
by jail ill-equipped to cope with vulnerable prisoners
During the 2005 Mother’s Day weekend, 41
women attempted suicide in one prison alone.
The profile of women’s mental health problems
is different from men’s, with neurotic and
psychotic disorders being much more
common. Causes of mental health problems
may differ as well. Women are more likely to
have family worries,136 less likely to access
drug treatment services, and more likely to be
the victim of physical or sexual abuse. Half
of the female prison population have
experienced abuse at some point and an
astonishing fifth have been abused both in
childhood and adulthood. 137
Strategies for healthcare make little mention of
women’s differing needs and there are
indications that services are inadequate.138 For
example, women are more than two and a half
times more likely to be prescribed mindaltering drugs for their condition, with more
42
Inside and out
than 50% on medication for their mental
health. The Prison Reform Trust is concerned
that this may be reinforcing dependency on
substances and addictive behaviours.139
Young men of Afro-Caribbean origin (who are
hugely over-represented in the prison system)
have high rates of psychotic illness compared
to the general population.140 Cultural or
religious obligations may make it harder for
people from black and minority ethnic groups
to engage with traditional services.141
Substance misuse is linked with mental
illnesses, for several reasons. Firstly, drug use
can cause psychiatric syndromes. Secondly,
psychiatric problems and addictions can mimic
one another. This makes diagnosis and
treatment in prison or the community more
difficult.142 This issue is explored in more depth
in section 3.6.
People at particular risk of
suicide and self-harm
Women are four to five times more likely to
self-harm than men.143 Although they account
for 6% of the prison population, they account
for half of all reported incidents of self-harm
and around 12% of suicides.144 Out of 470
prisoners at HMP Holloway, at any one time
50–60 women are on suicide watch. Staff say
it is not unusual for several women to be cut
down from ligatures each evening.145
Nearly two thirds of those prisoners who
commit suicide have a history of drug misuse
and nearly a third have a history of alcohol
misuse.146 Four factors are important in
determining suicide risk: ethnicity; time spent
in a mental hospital; poor social support; and
stressful life events, such as violence or sexual
abuse. Prisoners who attempt suicide tend to
be young, white, single, born in the UK and to
have been poorly educated.147 Those
convicted of violent or sexual offences and
those serving life-sentences are also overrepresented.148
Mental health, self-harm and suicide/Section 3.5
Prisoners with mental health problems often
struggle to adapt to the challenges of their new
environment. They may struggle to find a new
job, and to repair family relationships. Many will
lack coping skills, and may not have the
medical and social support necessary. Progress
made in custody is too often lost on release.151
A 1995 survey of offenders under community
supervision found that 30% admitted to one or
more incidents of self-harm. Seventy-two per
cent of these offenders reported that one or
more past incidents of self-harm were serious
suicide attempts.152 The suicide rate under
probation supervision following release from
prison is nine times higher than the population
as a whole, with over 50 suicides per year.153
A study of self-harming community offenders
found that they were two-and-a-half times more
likely to be experiencing family difficulties and a
third more likely to be abusing substances than
non self-harming community offenders.154 In the
general population, unemployed males are at
particular risk, and ex-prisoners are very likely to
be unemployed.155
Statutory services in prison
Government states that prisoners should ‘have
access to the same quality and range of health
services as the general public receives from
the NHS.’156 However in 2002, the Social
Exclusion Unit found that services in prison
provide unsatisfactory care for mental health
problems.157
Shortly after arriving, prisoners with serious
and noticeable mental health issues may be
diverted to the healthcare unit. Those with less
severe diagnosable problems will be sent to
the general wings and may have occasional
appointments with prison doctors. Some
receive wing-based support from ‘inreach’
nursing teams, although these are likely to be
severely stretched.
Services in
prison provide
unsatisfactory
care for people
with mental
health
problems.
Suicides in local prisons have risen by over
60% in recent years.149 These prisons tend to
be more overcrowded and have inmates
spending longer in their cells. However, this
could be because of the pressure on prison
services rather than overcrowding per se.
Mental health issues on release
The prison environment makes for an
unpleasant experience, but can also provide a
shelter from everyday concerns of community
life. For this reason, some people with mental
health problems welcome a spell in prison.150
Although prison healthcare is of dubious
quality, a spell in custody can provide a good
opportunity for respite and recovery. However,
at some time, nearly all mentally ill prisoners
need to return to the community.
43
Inside and out
Mental health, self-harm and suicide/Section 3.5
Box 18: Initiatives to improve mental health care in prisons
In response to concerns about quality of care, the Department of Health’s Prison
Health Policy Unit was set up in 2000 to improve planning and performance. The
Prison Service is still responsible for the delivery and cost of primary healthcare in
prisons, with secondary and specialist services provided by the NHS.167
In recent years, 300 mental health staff have been employed with the aim of
improving wing-based support. However, given that this is only an extra staff
member per 250 prisoners (of whom 175 will have two or more disorders), NPC
suspects this will just scratch the surface of the problem. Additionally, in the last few
years, the Prison Service has had to report delays of more than three months from
acceptance to admission to a secure hospital.168
Preventing self-harm is the responsibility of every member of prison staff. According
to the Howard League for Penal Reform, this means non-specialist staff have to
work with a group whose needs are highly complex without the support that health
or social care staff in comparable situations would have. The Safer Custody group
has developed training modules on self-injury and suicide prevention, but neither is
mandatory.169
There are multi-disciplinary suicide awareness teams in each prison, which develop
local policy, maintain staff and prisoner awareness and review incidents of selfharm. Membership includes prison staff, prisoners and external organisations such
as the Samaritans.170 In 1999, the Chief Inspector of Prisons found that their
effectiveness was variable.171
As many as three quarters of mental illnesses go
undetected during reception, leaving some
people with severe conditions on general prison
wings.158 The Inspectorate of Prisons came
across one particularly desperate case, where a
man was ‘clearly experiencing hallucinations and
delusions, who had not left his cell or washed for
several weeks.’159 Alarmingly, officers thought he
was putting on an act to stay in his cell.
Samaritans’
Listeners
schemes
operate in 85%
of prisoners.
This scheme
can alleviate
distress and
perhaps prevent
people from
attempting
suicide.
The following problems are of particular concern:
• Charities believe there is a widespread lack
of understanding of mental health
problems, which can lead to punitive
responses. Twenty eight per cent of male
prisoners who display evidence of
psychosis spend 23 hours a day or more in
their cells. This is over twice the proportion
of those without mental health disorders.160
• Experts estimate that there are at least 500
prisoners requiring transfer to the NHS
psychiatric care at any one time. Patients in
prison are usually a low priority compared
with others awaiting admission to
psychiatric services. Once in prison they
are considered to be in a place of safety
and getting adequate treatment.161 Patients
often have to wait for long periods after
acceptance for transfer to the NHS. The
Inspectorate of Prisons found people
waiting for periods as long as 18 months.162
• Seventy five per cent of patients on
healthcare wings have a mental health
problem but only 11% of doctors working in
the system have any specialist training in
psychiatry. A quarter of healthcare officers
will have specialist training in mental health
and a third of care staff will not be nurses.163
44
• The Inspectorate of Prisons requires people
on healthcare wings to spend 12 hours a
day unlocked and out of their rooms. Of
this time, six hours should be spent on
planned activity, including therapeutic work,
education and life skills training. A survey of
13 prisons found that none met this
standard. In many cases, planned activities
amounted to little more than watching
television, playing pool and cleaning. The
survey found that all patients were locked
up for more than 12 hours overnight, and in
one case they were in their cells for as long
as 17 hours.164 This supports the Social
Exclusion Unit’s view that there is not
enough consideration given to how
purposeful activity and time out of cell can
improve mental health.165
• Counselling is very hard to come by in
prison.166 Chaplains, many of whom are
experienced and compassionate, often fulfil
this role, but not all prisoners will be
comfortable speaking to a religious figure.
There have been several attempts in recent
years to improve the situation. These are
described and critiqued in Box 18. Although
positive steps are being taken, the problem is
huge and complex, and limited public funding is
available to tackle it. This makes it unlikely that
significant improvements will happen soon.
Statutory services for
ex-prisoners
The National Service Framework for Mental
Health states: ‘Continuity of care is also
essential, providing through-care as prisoners
return to their local communities.’172 However,
this principle is not played out in practice.
Prisons have an obligation to make follow-up
arrangements in the community for people
with mental health problems. Prisoners with
severe problems are required to have a care
plan and coordinator for post-release
support.173 Some prisons, such as the high
security prison HMP Belmarsh, have a positive
track record. In general, however, aftercare
arrangements are rarely completed.174
General Practitioners (GPs) provide the majority
of care for people leaving prison with mental
health problems. However, it is estimated that
over half of prisoners were not registered with
their GP prior to incarceration.175 Those with
more serious problems may get support from
their Community Mental Health Team (CMHT).
In theory, these teams should be involved in
assessing the mental health support needs
during imprisonment and in preparation for
their release.176 In practice, this can be hard to
arrange, particularly if members of the team
find an individual ‘difficult’.177 They do not help
all those whose mental health problems seem
to be linked with their offending. 178
Inside and out
Prisoners under probation supervision get little
mental health support from the officer
overseeing their transition to the community.
According to the Howard League for Penal
Reform, the service prioritises its obligation to
protect the public over any obligation to meet
the needs of the ex-prisoner.179 There is no
national guideline or policy for supervising those
at risk of suicide180 or for reporting suicides
unless people are living in a probation hostel.181
Mental health, self-harm and suicide/Section 3.5
• Employment. Only four out of ten
employers will consider taking on someone
with a mental health problem, compared to
six out of ten who will consider someone
with a physical disability.182
Improved mental health may also increase the
benefits from other programmes, including
education, training and offending behaviour
programmes.
Supporting and advocating for
people in prison
Examples and results of
charitable activity
The desired results of improved mental health
are: increased confidence and coping skills;
more self-awareness and empathy; improved
health; and reduced incidences of self-harm
and suicide.
Better treatment and support for people with
mental health problems should reduce
reoffending and improve public safety. Table 10
outlines the desired results of charities working
to address mental health issues.
Improved mental health is likely to affect other
outcomes, including:
• Secure housing. People with mental health
problems are less likely to have permanent
accommodation for release.
• Family ties. People with poor mental health
may withdraw from contact with their
families, or place a greater burden on other
family members.
Perhaps the best known form of support
available to prisoners is provided by the
Samaritans’ Listeners schemes, which operate
in 85% of prisons. Listeners are prisoners who
have been trained to fulfil a similar role to
Samaritans in the community. They provide a
listening ear to those experiencing distress at
any time of day or night. Rather than speaking
over the phone, people requesting support talk
to Listeners face-to-face. They will listen to
whatever is on someone’s mind, from family
concerns, to bullying, to fears about transfers or
release. They may suggest new avenues for
solving problems but decisions on how to act
are left in the person’s own hands.
This is clearly a humanising scheme. It
alleviates mental distress and has probably
prevented people from committing suicide at a
time when they felt ‘on the edge’. It has also
helped Listeners themselves develop valuable
interpersonal skills and access to the broader
community of Samaritans.
Table 10: Activities tackling mental health issues and desired results
Activity
Support for prisoners in distress
Desired results
• Reduced distress
• Reduced incidence of self-harm and suicide in the short-term
Direct advocacy for better care
in prison
• Reduced distress in prison and about release
• Improved coping skills
• Increased self-awareness
• Increased confidence
• More appropriate and humane car
Linkworkers for release
• Reduced distress
• Improved coping skills
• Increased self-awareness
• Increased confidence
• Better access to ongoing care
• A more sustainable situation in the community for the
longer term
Lobbying, advocacy and
increasing public awareness
Increased public awareness of
mental health issues in the
Criminal Justice System
• Improved public policy and more funding for mental health
services
• Better practice in the statutory sector
45
Inside and out
Mental health, self-harm and suicide/Section 3.5
Box 19: Bristol Mind’s advocacy service184
Since 2002, Bristol Mind has been providing advocacy services to men in HMP Bristol
and women in HMP Eastwood Park. The charity also operates in an NHS medium
secure unit, where some prisoners are transferred following recognition of their
needs. In the last nine months, the charity has worked with 144 people. The service
costs just under £60,000 per annum to operate.
In prisons, staff help people get the most appropriate treatment, by acknowledging
and acting on their views and needs. If the prison is not taking appropriate action, a
Bristol Mind advocate might ring a prison psychiatrist to explain that a person needs
to see a specialist. Advocates may also talk to people involved in a prisoner’s care to
help the prisoner get an explanation for their treatment regime.
Advocates can also help remand prisoners to write their own pre-sentence report.
This is often their only opportunity to explain the circumstances leading up to their
crime and may lead to a more appropriate sentence.
Advocates also work with prisoners nearing release to put in place appropriate
support. This will include liaising with services inside the prison and out. Exprisoners returning to the Bristol area may make use of the charity’s community
mental health advocacy service.
Bristol Mind has a turnover of £327,000, of which £60,000 is spent on the prison advocacy
service, which is run by two staff.
Box 20: The Southside Partnership
The Southside Partnership was set up to provide support to people with mental
illnesses and learning disabilities. It supports people returning from four London
prisons to any London borough. The project, which supports up to 120 people at a
time, employs key workers to aid people in the first six months after leaving prison.
Key workers meet people at the prison gate and accompany them to the Homeless
Person’s Unit to seek temporary accommodation. The worker will also take the
person to the benefits office to make a claim. If the ex-prisoner also has an addiction,
they might take the person shopping in order to prevent them spending their
discharge grant feeding their habit. The charity will also try to get the prisoner’s
Community Mental Health Team involved in their care, providing psychological
support in the interim period. Key workers endeavour to get the various agencies
involved in someone’s care talking to one another. Withdrawal of their support is
conditional on the ex-prisoner having coping skills support and support for all
aspects of their situation.
The Southside Partnership has a turnover of £4.8m.
Charities can
provide a safety
net of human
decency to
people in
distress. They
can also help
prisoners
access support
to which they
are entitled.
46
Box 19 explains Bristol Mind’s183 approach to
supporting prisoners with mental health needs.
Unlike mainstream mental health services, this
service helps people with mental health
problems convey their needs and perspectives
to those who have control over their treatment.
Other charitable activities may have a positive
impact on mental health. For example,
expressing emotions through the arts (see
section 3.12) sometimes reduces a prisoner’s
tendency to self-harm. Access to supportive
social networks can help people with mental
health problems. Activities and services
promoting family links may have a positive effect.
Supporting and advocating for
ex-prisoners
People with mental health problems may have
greater difficulty dealing with the practical and
emotional challenges of re-entering the
community. The Southside Partnership,
described in Box 20, provides key workers to
people they have assessed in prison. Aimed at
people with a mental illness, they help them
access statutory services, including
Community Mental Health Teams.
Advocating for improved policy
and government services
Both the Prison Reform Trust and the
Howard League for Penal Reform carry out
research and campaigns addressing mental
health and welfare. The Prison Reform Trust’s
‘Troubled Inside’ programme on mental health
involved a series of three conferences with
linked publications. As well as raising
awareness, these aim to reveal the current
inadequacies of the system, profile good
practice and set an agenda for change.185
The Howard League for Penal Reform is
publishing a series on suicide and self-injury
prevention, looking at both the situation in
prisons and in the community. Campaigns
raising awareness and conferences looking at
good practice have followed. According to the
charity, the Probation Service took
responsibility for suicide prevention following
release from prison as a result of its
campaign.186
Conclusion
Given the limitations of statutory provision and
the high prevalence of mental health problems
among the prison population, there are
compelling reasons for the need of charitable
activity. Firstly, charities can provide a safety
net of human decency, providing support to
people in distress, which may save lives.
Secondly, they can provide independent
advice and advocacy to prisoners with mental
health problems. Thirdly, they can fulfil a
watchdog role, monitoring and encouraging
improvements in statutory services. Some
charities working in this area receive
government funds, but many rely on charitable
funding to develop and grow.
Drug and alcohol addiction
Summary and key facts
The majority of prisoners have a history of
drug or alcohol misuse. Many people turn
to crime to feed their addictions.
• During the year prior to imprisonment,
73% of prisoners will have used illegal
drugs. In year 2003/2004, 12.3% of
prisoners were found to be using drugs
in prison during random mandatory
testing.187
• Fifty five per cent of offenders link an
offence to a drug addiction with the
need for money to feed their habit as the
most commonly cited reason.188 The
Audit Commission estimates that one
half of drug misusers’ £1bn per annum
expenditure is raised through crime.189
• Around 66% of male and 40% of female
sentenced prisoners admit to hazardous
drinking. There are 1.2 million incidents
of alcohol-related violence each year.
The annual estimated cost of alcoholrelated crime and public disorder is up
to £7.3m.190
Addressing drug and alcohol addictions
can therefore increase public safety and
improve the lives of prisoners and their
families.
Despite significant progress, statutory
provision is insufficient to meet the needs
of all prisoners. Charitable funding can help
charities develop tailored services for those
who fall between the gaps of statutory
provision, for example, alcoholics or
addicts with mental health problems. There
is also a need for more post-release
support, which charities can also provide.
Groups at particular risk from
drug and alcohol misuse
Many prisoners with addictions also have mental
illnesses. Fifty nine per cent of men and 87% of
women with a drug or alcohol problem have an
additional two mental disorders.191 Drug and
mental health treatment agencies alike can be
reluctant to treat people with both problems.
One prison drug worker commented of a client:
“We can’t help him because he has a mental
health problem. But they won’t help him with his
mental health until we’ve sorted out his drug
problem.”192 Although the situation is not as bad
in all prisons, some prisoners fall through the
gaps and receive no treatment at all.
The characteristics of women’s dependencies
tend to be different from men’s, requiring
different approaches to treatment. They are
more likely to have experienced sexual abuse
and emotional problems which may make
confrontation techniques and group settings
detrimental. Mental health issues are likely to
be more prevalent—women are more likely to
use alcohol to self-medicate depression,
emotional distress, sleeping problems,
traumatic events and self-esteem problems.
Men more frequently cite hedonistic factors.193
Statutory services in prison
Opinions about drug treatment in prison are
divided. Some criminologists believe that
imprisonment provides a crucial opportunity to
break the cycle of crime and offending.194
Others, including several members of NPC’s
reference group for this report, believe that
improving drug treatment in prison may
encourage sentencers to send minor or first
time offenders with drug problems to prison.
3.6
55% of
offenders link an
offence to drug
addiction with
the need to
feed their habit
as the most
commonly cited
reason.
Government has made a considerable effort to
increase provision of drug treatment in prisons.
All prisons now have drugs workers and a
number offer intensive treatment. Funding for
treatment in prisons and probation will amount
to £152.7m in the current financial year.195
Few prisoners access help prior to
incarceration. A Prison Officer told researchers
from the Social Exclusion Unit that he
estimated 80% of drug users had never had
any contact with treatment services.196
Remand and short-term prisoners have poorer
chances of accessing treatment. 197
Many prisoners who test positive for drugs on
reception into prison are put through clinical
detoxification. This aims to manage the
physical symptoms of withdrawal from drugs
and alcohol. However, according to the Chief
Inspector of Prisons, this is not happening
everywhere. At HMP Styal, the Inspectorate
found women fitting and vomiting in their cells
as they detoxified naturally.198 Prisoners may
be prescribed methadone, which provides a
controlled amount of opiates to control
withdrawal cravings. Unlike heroin, it does not
produce a euphoric high, but it can take longer
to detoxify from.
Many prisoners
with addictions
also have
mental health
problems.
47
Inside and out
Drug and alcohol addiction/Section 3.6
Box 21: The Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners’ Trust (RAPt)
The RAPt programme operates in ten prisons, using a 12 step programme to help
people recover from addiction. 12 step programmes assume that addiction is an
incurable, but manageable, illness.203 At step one, the addict admits powerlessness
over the substance he/she has been using. On achieving step ten, the addict is
regularly taking a personal inventory and promptly admitting when he or she is wrong.
Seven of the steps refer to God, to a higher power, or to a spiritual awakening. For
example, at step six, the addict should be ‘entirely ready for God to remove these
defects of character.’ But 12-step programmes do not require religious belief; one of
the steps refers to ‘God, as we understood him.’ The ethos is about humility, not
necessarily belief.
RAPt’s programme in prisons takes addicts through the first five steps. Two out of
three prisoners who are accepted onto the programme complete it. An aftercare
counsellor helps people to coordinate the post-prison phase. Most will go to a local
Narcotics Anonymous group, although there are a limited number of places at RAPt’s
follow-up residential programme in Hull. A small evaluation of RAPt’s prison scheme
shows that programme graduates were 11% less likely to be reconvicted than a
group who did not take part in the programme. There are not many evaluations of 12
step programmes. However, in the United States, intensive, residential programmes
similar to RAPt’s show highly unusual levels of success in reducing dependency,
relapse and recidivism.204
RAPt’s turnover in 2003 was £2.9m, of which 83% came from government sources.
Much of the
positive drugs
work started in
prison is not
sustained when
people are
released.
Returning to
patterns of misuse
can have fatal
consequences.
The mortality rate
for prisoners under
probation
supervision is 3.5
times as high as
the general
population.
Accidents, often
involving drugs
and alcohol,
account for the
highest proportion
of deaths.
48
The first point of call for a prisoner wanting
psychological help dealing with a substance
misuse problem is the Counselling,
Assessment, Referral, Advice and Throughcare
(CARAT) service. This operates in every prison
in England and Wales, providing general, lowintensity support for drug users. Although
CARAT services are not a cure-all, they are
crucial for short-term prisoners who have few
other support options available. CARAT
workers can also refer longer term prisoners to
intensive treatment programmes.
The government acknowledges that alcohol
treatment lags behind drug treatment, but there
has been no action to address this so far.199
CARAT services do not help people who solely
misuse alcohol.200 A 2003 Prison Service survey
found that only one prison of the 69 surveyed
had a dedicated alcohol strategy.201
Intensive treatment programmes
contracted to charities
Drug treatment programmes run by charities
were trailblazers during the 1980s. Their
success resulted in the mainstreaming of
services in statutory provision. A majority of
drug treatment programmes are now
contracted to charities.
The Prison Service pays for places on
intensive drug treatment programmes, taking
place in 60 prisons. These are predominantly
run by charities. From 2003–2004, 4,703
prisoners entered these programmes against a
target of 5,700 entries.202 Box 21 explains the
12 step approach to recovery from addiction
and explains how the charity RAPt uses this
in prisons.
Other programmes use a cognitive behavioural
methodology. This approach is gaining
widespread academic support for its strong
theoretical underpinnings. By looking at
evaluations of 112 programmes, researchers
have concluded that more effective treatment
programmes follow a cognitive behavioural
methodology.205
There are some perversities in access to drug
treatment programmes. Lower risk category
offenders actually commit the majority of
offences, many of which involve drugs.
However, the provision of drug treatment
programmes increases with prison risk
category. All High Security prisons have a
programme, compared to 70% of Category B
prisons and 50% of category C prisons. Low
risk offenders also constitute the majority of
the short-term population, who are at the
highest risk of reoffending on release.206
Sometimes prisoners are transferred to a
prison where programmes are available, in
contrast to before. However, more often than
not the situation is reversed, with transfers
disrupting treatment programmes. Research
shows that a third of prisons are unlikely to be
able to continue the treatment of prisoners
transferred to them.207
Statutory services upon release
Much of the positive drugs work started in
prison is not sustained in the community. A
survey of prisoners on short sentences found
that four in five had admitted taking illegal
drugs after release, with half using heroin once
or more a day.208
Returning to patterns of misuse can have fatal
consequences. The mortality rate for prisoners
under probation supervision is 3.5 times as
high as in the general population. Accidents,
often involving drugs and alcohol, account for
the highest proportion of deaths. A quarter of
post-custody deaths occurred within the first
four weeks, indicating a strong link with
overdosing.209
If there is no suitable drugs agency after release,
CARATs should provide an eight week period of
aftercare. However, a 2001 study indicated that
only 7% of a group surveyed had had contact
with their CARAT worker after release.210
Inside and out
The need for charitable activity
and private funding
Compared to other issues covered in this report,
drug treatment has received substantial amounts
of government funding. However, private funding
is still needed for the following reasons:
• Charities can use private money to tackle
areas not receiving enough government
attention, for example, dual diagnosis,
alcoholism and family support. If efforts to
tackle these areas prove successful,
charities may later secure government
funding for their work.
• Most organisations offer treatment either in
prison or in the community. Private funding
can help organisations operating in prison
offer continuing treatment and support
on release.
Dual diagnosis
People with addictions and mental health
problems are harder to treat, and sometimes
fall through the gaps. Cranstoun Drug
Services would like to provide better
treatment in the community for people with
dual diagnosis. The charity offers drop-in and
residential treatment services using cognitive
behavioural methods across the country.
Some of the charity’s services have specialist
workers, who assess people to see if they also
have a mental health problem. If a person
does, then the specialist worker coordinates
input from Cranstoun and NHS mental
healthcare. Coordinated care, recognising both
mental health problems and addictions, should
reduce the chances that a person relapses
and reoffends.
Alcoholism
CARAT teams and most intensive treatment
programmes do not provide treatment for
alcoholics. RAPt, whose staff mainly come
from a drug treatment background, would like
to cater better for alcoholics. The charity is
employing more programme staff with a
background in alcohol treatment, costing
approximately £30,000 per new staff member.
Drug and alcohol addiction/Section 3.6
Throughcare
The transition from prison to the community
can be a daunting experience for prisoners
used to a structured, institutionalised
environment. There is a danger that learning
from programmes in prison is not transferred to
the community. Research shows that results for
prisoners receiving throughcare are better than
for those only receiving in-prison support.212
Families are
often the
forgotten victims
of addiction.
RAPt has one post-release hostel in Hull
accommodating up to 30 people who could
benefit from ongoing treatment. The charity
would like to have more than one post-release
programme. It would cost around £100,000 to
redevelop a building, and £1m to build a new
unit. At present, the Hull hostel costs
£500,000 per annum to run, of which 80%
comes from government sources.
Conclusion
Statutory prison-based treatment for
addictions has come a long way in the last 25
years, but is still inadequate for many people.
Although more than half the prison population
admit to hazardous drinking, providing
treatment for alcoholics is not a government
priority. Those with mental health and
substance misuse issues too often receive
inadequate treatment. If charitable funding can
develop effective services for these groups,
then public safety as well as individual quality
of life can be improved.
Families are often the forgotten victims of
addiction. As with all activities supporting
families, very little government funding is
available. Charitable funding is crucial to help
family members cope better and form more
constructive relationships with the person
in prison.
Few prisoners can access residential aftercare
when they leave. Charitable funding can
create new residential settings, where
government funding can be harnessed to
improve former addicts’ chances of leading
full and crime-free lives.
Although
statutory
services to
address drug
addictions have
improved, NPC
has found a
number of
charities whose
work is essential
to help
prisoners with
drug or alcohol
misuse.
Family support
Anecdotal evidence suggests that appropriate
support from the family can help recovering
addicts. Adfam, profiled in Section 3.1,
provides support to families of recovering
addicts. Professionals working on the
detoxification unit at HMP Holloway believe
that Adfam’s work, contacting and supporting
women’s families, reduced prisoners’ levels of
anxiety tension.211 RAPt would like to employ
more staff to form supportive links between
people on their prison treatment programmes
with their families.
49
Physical health and disabilities
People in prison
have worse
physical health
than the general
population.
Summary and key facts
Statutory provision
People in prison have worse physical health
than the population as a whole. They are:213
As with mental health, there has been concern
that care for physical health problems does
not match up to standards in the
community.218 In 2001, the British Medical
Association claimed that ‘the Prison Service is
being consistently starved of adequate funding
to meet this clinical and social care agenda.’ 219
In response to concerns about the quality of
care, Prison healthcare is now overseen by the
Prison Healthcare Policy Unit at the
Department of Health. As a result, standards
may improve in the medium term.
• More likely to be HIV positive. Male
prisoners are 15 times more likely to be
HIV positive than someone in the
community living outside London.
Female prisoners are 60 times more
likely to be affected. At any one time,
there are likely to be 250 HIV positive
people in prison.214
• More likely to have hepatitis B and C.
There are approximately 6,000 people
with Hepatitis B in prison at any one
time.215 Rates are particularly high
among intravenous drug users, of whom
one in three have Hepatitis B.
• More likely to smoke. Seventy seven per
cent of male prisoners smoke, compared
to 28% of men in the population as a
whole. There is a similar difference in
smoking rates for women in prison.
• Less likely to be registered with a GP.
Only half of people in prison have
previously registered with a GP. This
means that some health problems have
gone undiagnosed and untreated.
In 1999, a survey showed that there were
427 prisoners with disabilities, of whom 40
were wheelchair users216 However, it is
thought that the real number may be
higher, because disabilities may not be
picked up on reception; prisoners may try
to conceal their condition for fear of
discrimination.217
In order to ensure that people with physical
health problems and disabilities are able to
access the same level and quality of
support they would receive outside of
prison, to which they are entitled, charities
fulfil an important role by undertaking
research and advocacy.
Box 22: Living with a disability in prison
A deaf prisoner told the Royal Association for Deaf People: ‘I was not granted parole
as the board said I had not been on any training courses and therefore was not
classed as wanting to change. I tried to explain through an unsuitable interpreter that
I wanted to go on training courses but there was no provisions for me to access them’
Reg Roberts is a wheelchair user with a muscle wasting disease: ‘The door of my cell
is not wide enough to get my power chair in, so I have to transfer to a five-wheel
office chair.’
50
3.7
Prisons are required to make follow-up
arrangements for people leaving prison
needing ongoing care, but this rarely happens
in practice.220 However, some prisons, for
example HMP Brixton, make efforts to register
prisoners with a local GP before release.
The Prison Service committed itself to enabling
disabled prisoners to access the same facilities
as non-disabled prisoners by October 2004. If
this has been fulfilled, cases such as those
outlined in Box 22 should not happen.
However, given the age of many prisons, and
the stretched Prison Service budget, it seems
unlikely that all facilities are now fully
accessible to disabled people. Advocacy for
improvements may still be needed.
The role for private funding
The treatment of prisoners with physical health
problems and disabilities is perhaps not as
concerning as the treatment of prisoners with
mental health problems. Fewer people are
affected and care in prison does not lag as far
behind the community. However, treatment
and support is still inadequate and there is a
role for the charitable sector. It can play an
important role in advocating for appropriate
treatment for people with disabilities and for
people in poor health. Furthermore, one charity
that NPC investigated works to clarify the link
between diet and behaviour in the prison
population. Both research and advocacy
receive minimal government funding and are
dependent on private funding.
Inside and out
Research
NPC came across one charity involved in
research into health in prisons. Natural
Justice, described in Box 23, is investigating
the link between nutrition and behaviour.
Advocacy
BID Services for Deaf People runs a national
Deaf Prison Project which trains people who
can use sign language to become visitors and
advocate on behalf of deaf people in prison.
The project also offers basic deaf awareness
training to Prison and Probation staff, and
supports prisoners’ families. 221
The Prisoners Advice Service (PAS) can
advocate on behalf of individual prisoners who
are having problems accessing appropriate
care or facilities. Box 33 gives a fuller
description of PAS, and gives an example of
how the charity helped a disabled man get
important adjustments made to his cell and
bathroom.
In 2004, The Prison Reform Trust produced a
book and audiotape for disabled prisoners and
their families, which the Prison Service is
distributing. At its launch Prisons Minister, Paul
Goggins, gave a commitment to increase
support for disability liaison officers and to
report on the implementation of the Disability
Discrimination Act.
Conclusion
Despite government efforts to improve
healthcare, prisoner’s health remains a
concern. The relative lack of charitable activity
to address physical health needs and
disabilities probably reflects the greater
concern for mental health and addictions, and
the small numbers of prisoners affected by a
condition in each establishment. Services,
advocacy and research are all needed to
improve the quality of prisoners’ lives, and
charitable funding is crucial to sustain these.
Box 23: Natural Justice
Natural Justice investigates the influence of nutrition on antisocial behaviour. Its
2002 study found that a group of young offenders taking daily multi-vitamin capsules
committed 37% less serious disciplinary offences than a group taking placebos.
Analysis shows that there is a 92% chance that nutritional supplements reduce
disruptive behaviour.
This is a finding worthy of further investigation. A larger study, perhaps on adult
prisoners, could demonstrate the influence of nutrition on behaviour with greater
certainty. If researchers studied a group of 700 people in prison, they could determine
with 99% certainty whether nutritional supplements impact on behaviour. The charity
would also like to do a community-based study on nutrition and crime and further
investigate the link between nutrition and suicide in prisons.
If the impact of nutritional supplements on reducing disciplinary incidents could be
shown with greater certainty, the Home Office might be convinced into spending
£3.5m per annum to give supplements to all prisoners. It is possible that this could
reduce re-offending, although presumably the effect on behaviour would not last
beyond the time the supplements were taken. Some would be uncomfortable with
the idea of ex-prisoners being compelled into taking supplements. Instead, one might
hope that research results would be used to encourage offenders, and wider society,
to take their diets more seriously.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Physical health and disabilities/Section 3.7
51
Women
Summary and key facts
One of the most
alarming
aspects of
criminal justice
in the last ten
years is that the
number of
women in
prison has
tripled.
Foreign national
women account
for the largest
proportional rise
in the prison
population.
One of the most alarming aspects of
criminal justice in the last ten years is that
the number of women in prison has almost
tripled. Often detained miles away from
home and family, imprisonment can
represent a harsher punishment for the
4,199 women prisoners than for the 69,841
men, especially due to their childcare
responsibilities. However most women
entering prison do so without having
committed a serious offence (as illustrated
in Figure 1 in Section 1) and without being
a risk to the safety of the public. The
staggering increase in the female prison
population does not appear to be because
of a rise in serious offending, but instead is
due to tougher sentencing guidelines and
harsher penalties for drug offences.
• In 2002, around 55% of women in prison
had a child under 16 and over one third
had a child under five. A Home Office
survey ‘Imprisoned Women and Mothers’
conducted in 1997 showed that 71% of
children had been living with their mother
just before their imprisonment.
• Foreign national women accounted for
the largest proportional rise in the prison
population between 1999 and 2003.222At
the end of June 2003, one in five women
in prison in England and Wales did not
hold a British passport. Half of those
without a British passport were
Jamaican, many driven to drug trafficking
as a result of poverty and desperation.
• Many women in prison report histories
of physical or domestic violence, and
one third of them report sexual abuse. It
is estimated that half the women in
prison are dependent on drugs.223
Women in prison are also five times
more likely to self-harm than men and
40% of women in custody have
attempted suicide at some stage in their
life. Over the 2005 Mothers’ Day
weekend, 41 women tried to hang
themselves in one prison alone.224
• In 2002, 69% of sentenced women in
prison were aged between 21 and 39.
The reconviction rate of women leaving
prison is 55%.225
52
3.8
A 2003 HM Prison Service report ‘Working
with women prisoners’ states that prison
itself is not an ideal environment to address
the many issues faced by women (such as
domestic violence, sexual and associated
problems of mental health and alcohol).
The short length of time they spend in
prison (70% receive sentences of less than
12 months) limits the opportunity to offer
long-term support or counselling.
Charities play an important role in
addressing the needs of women in prison
and influencing statutory provision.
Charitable activity includes the provision of
information, emotional support and
educational programmes. Many charities
are dependent on charitable funding as a
high number of their activities fall outside
the scope of statutory provision.
Understanding the needs and
experiences of women in prison
Imprisonment has a different and apparently
more damaging impact on women than men.
For example:
• Health problems. Areas in which women
prisoners’ needs are particularly acute are
mental health, self-harm, substance misuse
(explored in Section 3.5), maternity care
and sexual health. Half of women in prison
are on prescribed medication, such as antidepressants or anti-psychotic medicine,
and there is evidence that the use of
medication increases during custody. In
2002 there were nine self-inflicted deaths in
women’s prisons. High incidents of selfharm and suicide are thought to reflect high
levels of mental illness and drug addiction
and the histories of sexual abuse and
domestic violence among many women
prisoners. One ex-prisoner told the Prison
Reform Trust “During my incarceration I
was to discover the depths of despair one
can fall into, believing I was losing my mind,
believing I was dead, believing I was buried
alive, believing I would never be free. I
learnt about self-harm, physically and
emotionally, I learnt how to survive, yet at
the same time how it feels to want to die
everyday. … Prison is not a place for the
mentally ill, and too many women are there
already that should not be”.
Inside and out
• Accommodation. In some cases, access
to appropriate accommodation has a
bearing on a woman’s ability to re-establish
relationships with her children. However, as
noted in a report published by Nacro,
some women are caught in a ‘Catch 22
situation’ whereby the local authority
homelessness section may not consider a
woman as a ‘priority need’ for housing if
her children are defined as adequately
accommodated in the place they have
been staying during her imprisonment.
Moreover, it is unlikely that social services
will return children who were taken into
care unless the mother has suitable family
accommodation, yet the housing
department is unlikely to house the woman
unless her children are dependent on her
for accommodation.
Foreign national women
Foreign national women account for the
largest proportional rise in the prison
population between 1999 and 2003.228Almost
three quarters of women foreign nationals in
prison are serving sentences of more than four
years, compared to a third of UK national
women.229 A majority of foreign national
women, many of whom are from Jamaica, are
held for drug offences. It currently costs £25m
a year to keep foreign national women drug
couriers in prison.230
Maintaining contact with families is a major
issue for foreign national women who have a
Box 24: The struggle for survival that leads to drug trafficking
‘The holes in the clapboard walls have been patched with card, as have the gaps in
the corrugated iron roof. The rainy season has begun and soon the inside of the shack
will be soaking.’
It is all Barbara Thompson can think of as she sits in her spartan but dry cell in
Lincolnshire's Morton Hall prison. In a ghetto in Kingston, Jamaica, her children have
been left behind in what she describes as her "shitty cardboard house".
Like hundreds of other children across the city whose mothers have been jailed in
Britain for being drug mules, they are struggling to get on with daily life without her
while she serves her sentence.
The Guardian travelled to Jamaica to discover what compels women like Thompson
to stuff their stomachs full of cocaine-filled packets and board a plane to London.
The answer lies in their lives of poverty and desperation, where a lack of a welfare
state brings a daily struggle to feed, clothe and educate children.
Some women did it because family members required essential operations, one
needed to build a toilet and install running water and another was forced to do it at
gunpoint by local gangsters. None of them considered that they would end up in
prison thousands of miles from home.’
Source: Audrey Gillian, © The Guardian Newspaper Ltd, 1 October, 2003
large number of dependant children living with
them at the time of imprisonment, as
illustrated in Box 24. Over a thousand children
from outside the UK are kept apart from their
mother because of imprisonment.231 It is
common for foreign national women not to see
their children for the duration of their sentence.
Separation from children is especially traumatic
in cases where the countries of origin do not
have a welfare system. For example, in
Jamaica, children are left to fend for
themselves and may be vulnerable to abuse,
rape and recruitment to crime.
Many foreign nationals face problems with the
language barrier. Not being able to speak
English they become mistrustful and fearful of
authority. Attending to the needs of, or
communicating with, foreign national women is
a critical challenge for the Prison Service,
especially given that few prison officers are
able to speak the necessary languages.
Statutory services
Although women are able to access many
statutory services described in other sections
of this report, it is important to note that the
prison system has been designed with men,
rather than women in mind. However, it is now
appreciated that women need a wider range of
courses, educational and training opportunities
and it is not appropriate to make minor
adjustments to something prepared for men
and hope it will work for women. Statutory
provision in women’s prisons includes the core
education curriculum (as noted in Section 3.2),
and vocational training and offending behaviour
programmes. The availability of such
programmes differs across the female prison
estate and women prisoners do not necessarily
have access to the support they need.
‘
I lost
everything…my
family..my
friends…I lost
my kids through
it as well. At the
end of the day,
prison took my
children from
me…It really did
screw me up.
‘
• Childcare. The most marked contrast
between men and women in prison relates
to childcare. Each year, 17,700 children are
separated from their mother by
imprisonment.226 It is estimated that each
year the living arrangements of 8,000
children are affected by the imprisonment
of their mother.227 A Home Office survey
‘Imprisoned Women and Mothers’ states
‘Women are, in a sense, double
penalised—they are serving a sentence and
at the same time trying to make provision
for their children with all the associated
difficulties and strains’. When speaking
about her experience in prison, one women
said: “I lost everything. I lost—basically, I
lost my family, I lost friends. … I lost my
kids through it as well … At the end of the
day, prison took my children from me, and
nothing can ever repay for that. I lost
everything—I lost the house, everything, do
you know what I mean? It really did screw
me up.” Separation due to imprisonment
can be traumatic for the mother and her
children, as explored in Section 3.1. Due to
the smaller number of women’s prisons, it
is not always possible to keep female
prisoners close to home.
Women/Section 3.8
Mother in prison
53
Inside and out
Women/Section 3.8
Box 25: Hibiscus
Hibiscus works in 11 of the 17 female prisons in England and Wales. Although services
are available to all women, particular attention is paid to the needs of foreign nationals.
Support and advice is given in the fields of housing, family and community links,
preparation for reports for the courts, prisoner rights, liaison with solicitors and support
for the families of women in prison. Hibiscus also advocates for the rights and needs
of foreign nationals in prison. In 2004, Hibiscus helped 1,340 women.
In addition to its office in London, Hibiscus has an office in Jamaica, the home of many
drug mules. This branch focuses on: discouraging women and children to become
victims of the drug trade through campaigns to inform people about the severe
consequences; supporting around 457 children who lose their mothers to prisons in the
UK; and supporting the reintegration of 70 ex-prisoners on their return. Hibiscus works
closely with Foreign and Commonwealth in undertaking prevention campaigns, which
includes educating 16,000 school children about the consequences of drug trafficking.
Founded in 1986, Hibiscus has five staff. Expenditure for the year ending March 2003 was
approximately £250,000.
Established following the Prison Reform
Trust’s independent inquiry into women’s
imprisonment, the Women’s Offending
Reduction Programme is a plan of action to
respond to the needs and characteristics of
women. The intention is to achieve equality of
treatment and access to provision.232
Women in prison
and their children
are highly
dependent on
charitable activity
for support.
Charities can
provide emotional
support and give
women the
opportunity to
access
educational
programmes that
can help secure
employment and
prevent reoffending.
Upon release, women need support to access
appropriate housing and healthcare, to
maintain family ties, and help with getting jobs,
training or education. Given the high
proportion of women serving short-term
sentences who are not subject to supervision
by the Probation Service upon release, the
Prison Service is dependent on statutory
agencies and charities in the community to
support women.
The need for charitable activity
and for private funding
There are a significant number of charities
working with women in prison, many of which
are illustrated throughout Section 3. The
Women’s Estate Policy Unit’s 2003 report
‘Working with Women Prisoners’ lists 50
organisations that work with women’s prisons
(most of which work in both male and female
prisons). Many charitable activities fall outside
the scope of statutory provision and are
therefore dependent upon charitable income.
Private funders can make a significant
contribution to improving the well-being of
women in prison and their access to appropriate
services that can help reduce reoffending rates.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Table 11 illustrates the activities and desired
results of charities explored by NPC that have
a specific focus on women.
Providing information, advice,
welfare and emotional support
All charities investigated by NPC that work with
women in prison provide a range of information,
advice and emotional support, examples of
which are in Boxes 25 and 26. Other forms of
welfare support are provided by organisations
such as Women in Prison which also provides
items such as clothes, shoes, stamps, envelopes
and phone-cards to women (which can help
maintain contact with their partners and children).
Table 11: Charitable activity and desired results
Activity
Desired results
Providing advice, information
and welfare support (often in
multiple languages).
• Reduced anxiety and stress resulting from improved
knowledge of the Prison Service and visiting arrangements.
Emotional support (such as the
first night in custody scheme)
• Reduced sense of isolation and reduced desire to selfharm. Improved ability of prisoners to adjust to the prison
environment.
Educational programmes
• Increased self-confidence and improved skills, enhancing
the likelihood of accessing employment.
Research and advocacy
• Enhanced understanding of the needs of women in prison
and of ‘what works’. Improved public policy.
• Faster referrals to services available.
• Increased commitment to establish alternatives to custody.
54
Inside and out
Educational programmes for women in prison
and upon release, such as those described in
Box 27, can enhance their self-confidence and
self-esteem and improve their qualifications
and employability. Women in Prison also
helps women develop educational plans and
access appropriate programmes.
Research and advocating
for change
Over the last few years, charities such as the
Prison Reform Trust, Revolving Doors and
the Fawcett Society have produced research
that has highlighted the issue of women’s
offending and identified what needs to be
done to tackle it more effectively. All the
charities highlighted above also play a critical
role in influencing government policy. For
example, Hibiscus influences the government
about the treatment of foreign nationals.
Conclusion
The prison system was not designed for
women, and statutory support for them is
inadequate. Of particular concern is the
insufficient support given to the high numbers
of foreign national women. Funders therefore
have an opportunity to improve the well-being
of women in prison and their families by
supporting activities such as the provision of
advice and information or emotional support.
Private funders can also enhance the ability of
women to live full and law-abiding lives upon
release by supporting educational
programmes. Funding can also be used to
improve public policy and statutory services by
supporting research and advocacy.
Box 26: Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT)
PACT provides information, advice and support for prisoners’ families, including the
management of Visitors’ Centres and a drop-in centre for prisoners’ families in north
London.
PACT also runs a ‘First Night in Custody’ project at Holloway prison, which fills the
gaps in statutory services provided to women when they enter custody for the first
time. PACT offers distressed women information, advice and referrals to other
agencies that can address their needs. In an evaluation of the project, interviewees
said that the service made them less anxious by having someone to talk to and to
reassure them, and there was evidence that it sped up the referral process so women
could access the support they need.
Established in 2001, expenditure for the year ending March 2004 was £1,005,000, of which
approximately 55% covered the costs of the Visitors’ Centres at Belmarsh, Holloway, Pentonville
and Wormwood Scrubs.
Box 27: Creative and Supportive Trust (CAST)
CAST runs educational programmes for women ex-offenders, ex-prisoners and those
at risk of offending. Programmes are designed to support the emotional and
developmental needs of women returning to education, many of whom progress to
further education or employment. Courses cover:
• Self-development to increase people’s confidence and self-esteem. This includes
anger management courses.
• Information technology, to improve people’s computing skills and opportunities for
employment.
• Creative arts.
• Basic skills, to improve reading, writing and numeracy skills. Courses also improve
women’s skills to complete forms, write letters and manage their money.
In the year 2003–2004 CAST has 283 students. Approximately 33% of clients became
involved in voluntary work and 10% gained employment.
Expenditure for the year ending March 2003 was £289,000. CAST has 9 staff.
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust/Michael Grieve
Providing educational
opportunities
Women/Section 3.8
55
Inside and out
Black and minority ethnic groups
Black and minority ethnic groups
BME groups are
disproportionately
represented in
the prison
population.
However, there is
no sustainable
evidence that
people from BME
groups commit
more crimes than
the rest of the
population.
Summary and key facts
The background of BME groups
Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) groups are
disproportionately represented in the prison
population. A 2004 report published by the
Criminal Justice System Race Unit233states
that over the past two decades, it is clear
that BME groups are more likely than the
white population to be: stopped and
searched, arrested, prosecuted, and
imprisoned, and that they face greater risks
of being victims of crime. However, there is
no sustainable evidence that people from
BME groups commit more crimes than the
rest of the population. The 2002 report
Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners of
the Social Exclusion Unit shows that:
People from some BME groups are
disproportionately likely to suffer from poverty
and social exclusion. For example, in 1998,
56% of the BME community lived in the 44
most deprived local authority areas. In 1997,
over 40% of African-Caribbean and Indian
people and over 80% of Pakistani and
Bangladeshi people lived in households with
incomes less than half the national average. In
1999/2000, black pupils were three times as
likely to be permanently excluded from school
than white pupils.237
• BME men make up 19% of the male
prison population, between two and
three times the proportion of the general
population.
• BME women make up 25% of the female
prison population, over three times the
proportion in the general population.
• In 1998/1999, arrest rates per 10,000 of
the population were 117 for black
people, 44 for Asian people and 27 for
white people.
• Numbers for prison sentences per 1,000
population were over four times higher
for black people than for white people.
Asian people were under-represented.234
• Foreign national women account for the
largest proportionate rise in the prison
population during the period
1998–2003235 (discussed in Section 5.7).
One in eight people in custody is a
foreign national prisoner.236
The former Prison Service Director General,
Martin Narey has publicly acknowledged
that the Prison Service is institutionally
racist. Although the government is
committed to racial equality, combating
racial discrimination within the Prison
Service remains a challenge. There appears
to be little research about the distinctive
needs of BME groups and the degree to
which they are met by mainstream
statutory services.
Charitable attention to this matter is
scattered and appears to be less
developed than in other fields. This
presents a significant opportunity for
private funders to strengthen and build this
aspect of the sector’s work.
56
3.9
Challenges faced by BME groups upon release
can be more difficult than those faced by the
white population. For example, some are at
risk of being ostracised from their communities
and BME groups are twice as likely to be
unemployed as white people.238 The challenge
of securing employment is likely to be
especially difficult for black people with a
criminal record.
Racism and discrimination
in prison
In 1998, the Prison Service commissioned the
charity Nacro to conduct a survey of race
relations in prisons. Findings of the survey
include239:
• Prisoners from all minority groups were less
likely to assess race relations as good or
very good and more likely to say they were
poor and very poor. Thirty six per cent of
black women said that race relations were
very poor or poor compared with 22% of
white women.
• Forty-nine per cent of Asian prisoners said
they have been verbally abused, as did
27% of black prisoners.
The Social Exclusion Unit’s 2002 report also
states that 7% of prisoners asked in 2000 said
they had been victims of physical abuse and
18% of verbal abuse because of their minority
ethnic background.240
It is important to note that discrimination and
racism can occur and need to be tackled both
between prison staff and prisoners and
between prisoners themselves (as illustrated
by the tragic murder of a young Asian man by
his cell-mate, an openly racist prisoner).
Inside and out
Black and minority ethnic groups/Section 3.9
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
Statutory responsibility
and services
Tackling racism
The 1997 Prison Service order 2800 states:
‘The Prison Service is committed to racial
equality. Improper discrimination on the basis of
colour, race nationality, ethnic or national
origins, or religion is unacceptable, as is any
racially abusive or insulting language or
behaviour on the part of any member of staff,
prisoner or visitor, and neither will be tolerated.’
By mid-2000, the need for research into race
relations between staff and prisoners had
become urgent. The 1999 Macpherson report
produced evidence of institutional racism in
the Metropolitan Police, and the then Prison
Service Director General, Martin Narey, had
publicly acknowledged that the Prison Service
is institutionally racist. The 1999 Macpherson
report defines the institutional racism as: ‘The
collective failure of an organisation to provide
an appropriate and professional service to
people because of their colour, culture or
ethnic origin. It can be seen and detected in
processes, attitudes and behaviour which
amount to discrimination through unwitting
prejudice, ignorance, thoughtlessness, and
racist stereotyping which disadvantage
minority ethnic people’.
Nacro’s report ‘Race in prisons; Where are we
now?’ states that ‘While an enormous amount
remains to be done to combat racism and
promote race equality across the prison system,
there is now a comprehensive range of policies
and an unprecedented mood of determination
at the most senior level to eradicate racism from
the Prison Service’.241 The means through
which the commitment is being put into
practice includes: the involvement of governors
on race relations teams, the development of
diversity training, and the use of disciplinary
procedures for racist behaviour. The Prison
Service now has Diversity and Equality Groups
and a racial equality Key Performance Indicator
(see Appendix 5).
However, there continues to be a challenge of
putting policies into practice and Nacro’s report
states that the priority prisons give to race
equality work remains variable in practice and
disturbingly dependent on the enthusiasm and
commitment of individual staff. There are
therefore significant variations between one
prison and another. However there is an
increasing understanding of the unacceptability
of racist conduct and appreciation of the
necessity to translate racial equality into practice.
Addressing the distinctive needs
of BME groups
Given that the Prison and Probation Services
and related statutory services have largely
been designed by white people with the white
majority in mind, it would be fair to question
whether the distinctive needs of BME groups
are met. However, there appears to be little
research about this matter.
The Social Exclusion Unit’s 2002 report states
that coming from a BME background is likely
to have an impact on rehabilitation. For
example, research suggests that BME
prisoners are more likely than white
counterparts to have taken part in further
education outside prison and have attended
education classes in prison. However research
also indicates that there is a strong conviction
among black prisoners that they have greater
difficulty in accessing offending behaviour
programmes than their white counterparts.
Black prisoners met by the Social Exclusion
Unit also claimed they felt pushed onto
courses that imply stereotypes, such as anger
management, regardless of their needs.
Moreover, cultural or religious obligations may
make it impossible for some BME groups to
engage with traditional services,242 for example,
the interpretations of hearing voices in different
cultures has very different meanings.243Also,
differential patterns of substance use and
attitudes towards the use of certain substances
are reported to reduce the likelihood of ethnic
minority prisoners accessing and engaging with
drug treatment services. The prevalence of
crack cocaine use among black prisoners
suggests that the deficit of treatment options is
a problem for this group. Research has found
that there is a shortfall in substance misuse
workers from BME groups, which negatively
impacts on prisoners’ willingness to access
services in general, and rehabilitation services
in particular. Reluctance to access services
was said to be grounded in the expectation
that they would be “the only black person
there” and would encounter both a lack of
understanding of their culture and racism.244
More research
is necessary to
establish the
degree to which
statutory
services
address the
distinctive
needs of BME
groups in prison
and to identify
unmet needs.
For many BME prisoners, the basics, such as
information and access to translators are a
priority. Concerns have been raised about the
patchy availability of hair and skincare products
and dietary requirements are not always met.
57
Inside and out
Black and minority ethnic groups/Section 3.9
Box 28: Partners of Prisoners and Families Support Group (POPS)
POPS provides two services for black prisoners:
1) Black Prisoner Support Project: Casework and Mentoring. This project links black
mentors with ex-prisoners to assist them with their reintegration in the community.
The focus of the mentor’s work is established after discussions with the client and
their probation officer. During the period 2003/2004, POPS assisted over 100 black
prisoners supported by 15 mentees. Issues addressed have included assistance with
CVs and searches for accommodation and employment.
2) Black Prisoner Group Work. This project supports black prisoners located in five
prisons. Monthly sessions help black prisoners to explore their culture and build their
confidence. All group work sessions lead towards a presentation in October to
celebrate Black History Month.
The need for charitable activity
and private funding
Funders should
invest in
enhancing and
growing the
work of charities
that can support
BME prisoners
and their
families.
Diversity in our prison population presents
challenges and opportunities for charities in the
same way that it does the Prison and Probation
Services. With the exception of the examples
below, there appear to be few charities that
specifically target such groups. Although other
charities, such as those mentioned in this
report, will support BME groups within the
scope of their activities, there remain questions
about the capacity of charities to address the
specific needs of BME groups. BME-led
support for BME prisoners can prove to be a
particular challenge in cases where prisoners
are held in prisons close to predominantly white
communities. This gap presents a significant
opportunity for private funders.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Photograph supplied by Prison Reform Trust
The work of charities explored by NPC can be
divided into the following categories:
58
Support and service provision
Hibiscus, described in Box 25, addresses the
specific needs of foreign national women in
prison. The IQRA Trust supports Muslim
prisoners. The Prisoners’ Advice Service
described in Box 33 has a dedicated race
discrimination advisor. Partners of Prisoners
and Families Support Group, described in
Box 28, supports black prisoners.
Research and advocacy to
tackle discrimination and racism
Charities such as Hibiscus, the Prison Reform
Trust and Nacro have played a key role in
undertaking research and campaigning for
improved conditions for BME groups in prison.
Conclusion
It appears that some BME groups can face
double jeopardy when held in custody and
upon release. For example, while in custody
they may face racism. Upon release BME
groups are twice as likely to be unemployed as
the white population.
Racism and discrimination within the Criminal
Justice System is well documented and while
some progress has been made to tackle
related problems, much work is still to be
done. Despite the disproportionate number of
BME groups in prison, NPC found few reports
about their distinctive needs and the degree to
which they are being met. This raises
concerns about the capacity of both statutory
and charitable agencies to respond to these
needs.
The lack of research and charitable activity
addressing the needs of BME groups provides
a significant opportunity for donors and
funders. Support could be given to charities to
undertake more research in this area. Donors
and funders could also strengthen service
provision by supporting BME led charities or
by enhancing the ability of other charities, such
as those mentioned throughout this report, to
work with BME groups.
Summary
This section explores how the concepts of
citizenship and community play out in
practice in relation to prisoners.
Charities play an important role in bridging
the divide between prisons and the
community. They also contribute to
enhanced rehabilitation by giving prisoners
the opportunity to engage in constructive
and responsible activities. This can also
help prisoners feel they are making amends
for their offences by helping the
community. If people are to leave prison
with respect for the rights of others, it is
important they are treated with fairness
while in custody. Charities can provide the
advice and information they need to secure
their rights.
Charitable work in this area falls outside
the scope of statutory support and is
therefore dependent on charitable income.
Citizenship and community
Citizenship and community can be understood
from a number of perspectives when
considering people in prison. David Faulkner, a
senior research associate at Oxford University
writes that the application of citizenship to
people in prison can be defined as follows:
• ‘the treatment of prisoners themselves in
ways which preserve and respect their
status as citizens;
• the responsibility of prisoners themselves to
behave and work as active citizens so far
as they can be enabled to do so.’245
Citizenship can be defined as: ‘The voluntary
contribution by individual citizens to the
common good through the participation in and
exercise of civic duty and the encouragement of
such activities by public and private institutions
as part of citizenship’.246 In relation to prisoners,
active citizenship can be defined as: ‘The
involvement, taking of responsibility and
participation of prisoners in a range of activities
including the opportunity to have a say in the
running of the institution’. Volunteering can be
defined as: ‘An activity without payment, which
benefits individuals or the environment. Within
prison establishments however, there may be
occasions where payments, qualifications or
pre-release plans are made for some
‘volunteering type’ activities.’
3.10
A 2002 survey conducted by the Prison
Reform Trust states that one way in which the
prison system can encourage active citizenship
and prisoners’ sense of responsibility is through
involving prisoners in the running of the prison
establishment itself. This can include
involvement in race relations, suicide prevention
or anti-bullying committees, or wing
representatives on prisoner councils. The 1991
Woolf report published by the Home Office
states: ‘They [prisoners] should be able to
contribute and to be informed of the way things
are run. … If prisoners have a greater
understanding of what is happening to them in
prison and why, they are less likely to be
aggrieved and become disaffected. This should,
in turn, improve relations between staff and
prisoners’. However, as noted by the Oxford
University Criminologist, David Faulkner, in
practice the demands of security and the
pressures of overcrowding are given priority over
attempts to treat prisoners as citizens whose
rights, expectations, duties and responsibilities
they should be enabled to exercise.
In total, the Prison Reform Trust found that
3% of prisoners were involved in the prison
regime. Prisoner involvement is sporadic and is
not enshrined in legislation as it is, for
example, in Canada.
Prisoners’ rights
Losing the right to vote
The right to vote is the indispensable
foundation of a democratic society. However,
people lose their right to vote when sentenced
to prison irrespective of their length of
sentence or gravity of their crime, a relic from
19th century legislation. Juliet Lyon of the
Prison Reform Trust writes: ‘In passing a
custodial sentence, it is not the expressed
intention of the courts to strip offenders of
their rights and responsibilities or to render
them invisible. Yet prisoners often have to
struggle to avoid losing everything, including
their voice and identity.’247
‘
In passing a
custodial
sentence, it is not
the expressed
intention of the
courts to strip
offenders of their
rights and
responsibilities or
to render them
invisible. Yet
prisoners often
have to struggle to
avoid losing
everything,
including their
voice and identity.
‘
Citizenship, community
and restorative justice
Juliet Lyon, Prison Reform
Trust
Prisoners’ rights in prison
The prison system is subject to a whole range
of covenants, treaties and standards to which
the government of the UK is a signatory.
There is a lack of accessible information made
available to prisoners about their rights.
Prisoners can experience problems, such as
prevention of visits from loved ones, racism,
transfers that move them far from their
communities and families, assaults or bullying.
59
Inside and out
Citizenship, community and restorative justice/Section 3.10
Box 29: Restorative Justice case-study
‘The burglar was moving towards his victim's back door when a neighbour saw him
in the shadows and dialled 999. As Alexi Estathiou, desperate for money to buy heroin,
was overcome by two policemen in the kitchen, his intended victim, Maria Vassiliou,
ran in from her sitting room, terrified and weeping …
Now Mrs Vassiliou is facing her greatest dread. Estathiou, a grey-faced man of 37,
dressed in a purple T-shirt and tracksuit trousers, is staring her in the eye.
This time, though, she is on his turf. They sit in a bare classroom in Pentonville prison,
north London, with a trained police facilitator, a university researcher, Mrs Vassiliou's
son and daughter, Estathiou's uncle, Spiros, and me [the journalist].
Today's immediate aims are to give Mrs Vassiliou peace and reparation, and to make
Estathiou want to give up drugs and crime. At first, neither looks achievable. Estathiou
moans that his wife and children have left him and that his drunken father used to
beat him. His uncle tells his nephew several times that he is useless.
Mrs Vassiliou shakes and cries. She had not wanted to come here. Her children stare
with loathing at Estathiou. Then a different story starts to emerge, explaining why a
crime that involved no loss or violence damaged the Vassilious so deeply. 'Think what
my mum went through,' her son, Nick, shouts at Estathiou. 'She thought you would
take a knife out and kill her. Our dad is dead. There is no one to take care of her.'
Estathiou tells Nick, a City lawyer, of his troubled childhood. 'You have had all the
chances,' the housebreaker says. By now Mrs Vassiliou's daughter, Athena, is crying
with anger. Her father, she says, was, like Estathiou's, an impoverished Greek Cypriot
who drank. He collapsed with a heart attack soon after his 50th birthday. Athena, then
aged 12, held her mother's hand as his body was taken away. 'I had never seen her
look like that again, until the day you burgled her,' she tells Estathiou.
As Estathiou grows mortified by the Vassiliou family's struggle against adversity, their
mother looks at him with growing pity. 'I'm scared of you,' she says. 'But I am trying
to be strong. You could get a job and get off drugs. If you give them up, Alexi, I will
invite you for tea.' Two hours later, all the participants sign an agreement in which
Estathiou says he will apply for drugs treatment and look into getting a job in the
fitness industry. His uncle says he will send him some new trainers.
Mrs Vassiliou advises him to stay off heroin, but she sounds now as if she is talking to
a recalcitrant son, not a monster. When the crying stops and the shabby room is empty,
it feels as if a séance has been ruptured. Senior judges, used to adversarial justice,
have gone away from similar meetings full of evangelistic fervour.’
Source: Mary Riddell, © The Guardian Newspaper Ltd, 5 December, 2004
Although most prisoners are entitled to legal
aid, some cases are simply ineligible for such
support. Free advice is therefore necessary to
ensure that time in prison is spent as
constructively as possible and so the likelihood
of reoffending is reduced.
There is a lack
of accessible
information
made available
to prisoners
about their
rights.
60
Restorative justice
Restorative justice engages and asserts the
rights and responsibilities of citizens, whether
as offenders, victims or concerned members
of communities. The restorative justice process
involves a facilitated ‘conference’ that brings
the offender together with others (which may
include the victim, family members, police
officers and representatives of the community)
to talk through the offence and an appropriate
response. The process can help offenders to
understand what they have done, repair the
damage and feel remorse, but also can result
in other citizens helping the offender’s
rehabilitation and the victim’s recovery.
Participation in the process is voluntary.
The government has expressed its
commitment to using the restorative justice
process, as set out in the 2003 report
‘Restorative justice: the government’s
strategy’. Restorative justice has been
introduced as a core element in the
arrangements for dealing with young offenders
in England and Wales. It has no statutory basis
in relation to adults but there is growing
interest in its use. For example, the Thames
Valley Police have been running a restorative
cautioning initiative since 1997, where the
conferences are run by police officers.
There are a number of anecdotal success
stories, as illustrated in Box 29, and some
evidence of success in the longer term. For
example, in the two years following arrest,
violent offenders who went through a
restorative justice process were 50% less likely
to reoffend than those who did not. The
positive effects for victims are consistent: they
display substantially less anxiety, anger, posttraumatic stress and inclination to avenge the
crime.248
However, the approach does not always work.
Research from Australia shows that restorative
justice does not have any significant effect on
offenders who had committed crimes which
lack a personal victim, such as shoplifting.249
Others have raised questions over the Criminal
Justice System’s capacity to deliver
programmes, such as drug treatment and
basic skills, which the victim and the
perpetrator have agreed are necessary.
The need for charitable activity
and private funding
Government or statutory agencies cannot
realistically control crime or repair the damage
alone. There is therefore an important role for
the general public and for charities to engage.
Charities play a key role in bridging the divide
between the general public, prisons and the
people held in custody. They provide
opportunities for the general public to
understand and work with prisoners through
volunteering, and give prisoners the
opportunity to prepare for release. They also
enable prisoners to help one another.
Activities described in this Section fall outside
the scope of statutory funding.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
The involvement of prisoners in voluntary work
and active citizenship has considerable
benefits for the individual and for society. Table
12 illustrates the activities and desired results
of charities explored by NPC.
Inside and out
Citizenship and community
A 2002 report published by the Prison Reform
Trust251 analysed how volunteering and
citizenship can be developed in all prisons
regardless of security type or type of prisoner.
The survey analysed the scope and benefits of:
prisoners helping each other, prisoners helping
the community inside and outside the prison
and prisoners’ involvement in the prison regime.
Two key areas that involve charitable activity are:
Prisoners helping each other
Within a closed prison environment, one way
that voluntary work can take place is through
peer support, which includes activities such as
Listener Schemes (as illustrated in Box 30 and
referred to in Section 3.5), substance misuse
peer support, and housing advice. Peer
support is one of the clearest examples of
volunteering and active citizenship available
within prisons. It is based on the principle that
people have something to offer each other that
cannot be provided by professionals.
Figure 5 illustrates the range of peer support
programmes and their prevalence in prisons.
Other types of peer support include Gamblers
Anonymous, a sex offenders’ peer support
group, assertiveness training, translation
support, anti-bullying, anger management and
religious and faith work. Box 31 illustrates
prisoners helping one another develop their
reading skills.
Table 12: Charitable activities and desired results
Citizenship, community and restorative justice/Section 3.10
Box 30: Samaritans Listeners’ Schemes
Prisoner Listener Schemes are based on the belief that Samaritan principles of
confidential and sympathetic listening can be applied formally within the prison
setting. Listeners are trained and supported by the Samaritans to befriend those who
feel vulnerable and suicidal. Twelve years since the Listener schemes started they
have become embedded in many prison cultures.
The Prison Reform Trust found that Listener Schemes provided the most
opportunities for prisoners to be involved in peer support because they are in
operation in 85% of prisons and 1.8% of prisoners are Listeners. In response to the
survey, prison staff commented that prisoners often only open up to other prisoners
and therefore may find the delivery of services more acceptable from members of
their peer group.
The Samaritans has also developed a project called ‘Insiders’ who are trained prisoner
befrienders who are available to talk to upon reception into prison. This scheme is not
confidential and therefore enables the befriender to warn prison staff if they believe a
new prisoner is at risk.
Despite widespread belief that it is beneficial,
peer support is not systematically linked to the
chance to gain qualifications or to sentence
planning. The Prison Reform Trust believes
that the Prison Service should recognise that
peer support may serve as a useful way of
helping prisoners achieve qualifications and
demonstrate progress through a sentence.
They argue, however, that it should be seen as
complementary to, and not separate from, the
need for professional workers.
250
Activity
Desired results
Facilitating peer support.
Results dependent on the type of peer support. For example,
Samaritans schemes can reduce anxiety, and housing advice
can enhance the possibility of maintaining or accessing stable
housing. For the prisoner, peer support can reduce a sense of
isolation. For the mentor, skills and self-confidence can be
enhanced which can contribute to other factors, such as
attaining educational qualifications or employment.
Enabling prisoners to help the
community from inside prison
(for example, through charity
workshops).
Improved self-esteem, self-confidence and increased skills
which can enhance a prisoners’ ability to access employment
post release.
Enabling prisoners to help the
community outside of prison
(such as volunteering).
Improved transition from life in custody to the community,
enhanced self-confidence, social and inter-personal skills, all
of which can improve employment opportunities. Prejudices
can be reduced through contact between the general public
and people in prison and there is evidence that the general
public who express emotional attitudes to crime develop
different attitudes when given responsibility for solving a
practical problem of an individual offender.
Advocating for prisoners rights.
At a group level, this can result in changes in public policy,
such as voting rights. At an individual level, prisoners’ rights
can be secured.
Promoting restorative justice.
Enhancing the understanding and use of restorative justice as
a means of rehabilitation and empathy on the part of the
prisoner and the victim.
Peer support
programmes are
an important
means through
which prisoners
can help one
another.
Prisoners can
help each other
with education,
securing
housing or
provide
emotional
support.
61
Inside and out
Citizenship, community and restorative justice/Section 3.10
Despite these benefits, the Prison Reform
Trust notes that full potential results of
prisoners helping the community from inside
prison have yet to be realised. For example,
just over a third of prisons link opportunities to
help the community from inside prison with
sentence planning. This means that the skills
and experience prisoners gain from such
activity often does not count towards
demonstrating that they have addressed their
offending behaviour or prepared for release.
The Prison Reform Trust found that concerns
were also raised about the fact that several
prisons favoured commercial workshops which
would make the prisons money, rather than
charity workshops which can help prisoners
feel they are making amends for their offences
by helping the community.
Box 31: Shannon Trust
The Shannon Trust works with prisons to develop mentor teams of inmates who run
daily one-on-one lessons for illiterate fellow prisoners. This scheme uses a manual
called ‘ToebyToe’ that guides the mentor. No exercise is considered mastered until
the mentee has done it correctly on three separate days. Most mentees learn to read
in less than 12 months. There is a representative of the Shannon Trust in nearly every
prison in England and Wales that help prisons develop the programme.
Established in 1995, the budget for the Shannon Trust for 2005 is approximately £110,000.
Figure 5: Percentage of prisons with peer support schemes
Other
7
Parenting
9
Violence
Prisoners helping the
community outside prison
12
15
Health
Employment
education/housing
27
Sport
36
48
Substance missuse
Minority Ethnic
51
Listener/buddying
85
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
Prisoners helping the
community from inside prison
Volunteering in
the community
can enhance
rehabilitation
and increase
ex-prisoners’
chances of
securing
employment on
release.
62
Most prisoners only have the opportunity to
help the community from inside prison.Such
activities can involve the manufacturing or
repairing of goods on behalf of charities’
workshops (for example, over 30 prisons are
involved in Braille transcription work, providing
services for visually impaired people) or
fundraising on behalf of charities. The Prison
Reform Trust found that such activity was
available in 47% of prisons and that they
originated from charitable organisations,
prisoners and members of prison staff and
not the Prison Service. For example, the
Inside Out Trust (highlighted in Section 3.2),
employs prisoners in charity workshops to
repair wheelchairs and bicycles, make blankets
for homeless people and refurbish and
upgrade computers.
In many cases, prisoners felt that volunteering
had provided their first chance since
imprisonment to do something constructive
and responsible. This can improve self-esteem
and help prepare prisoners for life after release.
The Prison Service states that, ‘All prisoners
will have the opportunity to maintain and
develop appropriate community ties and to
prepare for release.’ This aim can be met by
enabling prisoners to go into the community
on temporary licence to help others. Research
undertaken by the Prison Reform Trust found
that one in 95 prisoners help others by
volunteering in the community. This can play a
crucial role in preparing for life after release
because it provides a gradual and structured
transition from custody to community. HMP
Hollesley Bay reported: ‘In all placements
everyone gains something: the prison through
reaching targets and good PR, the prisoner,
through self esteem and rehabilitation and also
the chance of employment on release, and the
placements benefit through an increase in
labour force.’
Since 1986, the Prison Service has funded the
work of the charity Community Service
Volunteers to train and provide placements for
prisoners eligible for release on temporary
licence. Despite the fact that the benefits of
volunteering in the community are widely
recognised and that release on temporary
licence appears to be working effectively, the
Prison Reform Trust noted concerns about
the drop in the number of resettlement
temporary licences despite the increase in the
prison population.
Prisoners’ rights
Campaigning for the right to vote
Charities have taken the lead in campaigning
to overturn the ban on prisoners voting, as
illustrated in Box 32.
Inside and out
Prisoners understanding and
applying their rights
While many charities provide information and
advice to prisoners and their families, NPC
found one charity that provided free legal
advice to people in prison, described in
Box 33.
Other charities that address the legal rights of
people in prison include Justice, Liberty and
the Howard League for Legal Reform.
Citizenship, community and restorative justice/Section 3.10
Box 32: Unlock and the Prison Reform Trust
In March 2004 the Prison Reform Trust and Unlock, the National Association of ExOffenders, launched a campaign to overturn the ban on prisoners voting. Following
an appeal from a serving prisoner, the European Court of Human Rights has declared
the blanket ban on prisoners’ voting to be unlawful under Article 3 of the European
Convention of Human Rights. The government’s response was to refer the matter to
the Grand Court, rather than to embrace it as an opportunity to be incorporated into
the civil renewal agenda.
So far, the cost of this campaign has been £10,000. Additional funding is needed to continue.
Restorative justice
The Restorative Justice Consortium
promotes, and informs people about,
restorative justice across the whole Criminal
Justice System.
Conclusion
The vision for increasing the ability of people in
prison to exercise their rights and
responsibilities as citizens is a powerful one.
Activities such as peer support schemes or
volunteering programmes help people improve
their self-confidence and skills, often giving
them the opportunity to do something
constructive for their community. No matter
how severe their crime, people in prisons still
have rights. Securing rights can be a challenge
without the support of charitable advice
services. Activities that address prisoners’
rights and responsibilities also challenge the
perception of prisoners as passive recipients of
services and enhance the potential of them
becoming more responsible citizens upon
release from prison.
The practice of active citizenship, reciprocity
and volunteering has traditionally been
promoted by the charitable sector. Charities
are therefore well-placed to provide such
opportunities for people in prison and upon
release. With the exception of government
support for restorative justice programmes,
there is no statutory support focused on
enhancing prisoners’ rights and
responsibilities. Charities are highly dependent
on private funding to succeed.
Box 33: Prisoners’ Advice Service (PAS)
PAS provides prisoners with access to free information and offers advice to prisoners
who are finding prison hard to cope with, or whose rights are being infringed. General
and legal support is accessed through a freephone number. PAS also responds to
letters and provides face-to-face support through advice surgeries in prisons. In
2004 the Prisoners’ Advice Service received over 12,000 telephone enquiries, 2,500
written enquiries and opened 176 new cases. As of April 2005, PAS had 109 open
cases.
Mr F was a disabled man who contacted PAS about the difficulties he was
experiencing at HMP Whitemore. He required a safety bar to enable him to lift himself
in and out of the bath, a chair for use when washing and a remote control to enable
him to use his cell bell. The prison was aware of his needs but had failed to make the
necessary adjustments. PAS wrote to the prison, raising concerns that it was failing
to comply with its obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995. After
several months of correspondence, Mr F was provided the equipment he required.
Mr T was denied use of the showers due to a foot infection unless he wore suitable
footware, which he could not afford. Thanks to the intervention of the Prisoners’
Advice Service, the prison agreed to provide him with the appropriate footware and
allow him to access the showers.
“PAS played a large part in winning me the right to see my children while I was
detained … it is a debt I can never repay and I shall forever be indebted to them.”
(prisoner)
Established in 1991, PAS has 5 paid staff and 15 volunteers. Its annual budget is approximately
£210,000.
Charities play an important role in bridging the
divide between prisons and the community.
They also contribute to enhanced
rehabilitation by giving prisoners the
opportunity to engage in constructive and
responsible activities.
Supplied by Prisoners’ Advice Service
To date, representatives of statutory agencies,
such as police officers, have played a key role
in organising restorative justice conferences.
However, in the long-term, it has been
suggested that it may be more ideal for the
process to be organised by an independent
agency, such as a charity.252
63
Public policy and
public awareness
‘
Everybody
thinks our
system is soft
and wimpish. In
point of fact it’s
one of the most
punitive
systems in the
world.
‘
Lord Bingham
Only one in ten
people believe
that more
offenders in
prison would do
most to reduce
crime in Britain.
Summary
This section explores public perceptions of
imprisonment and the role of the media and
public opinion in shaping government policy.
Lord Bingham states: “Everybody thinks
our system is becoming soft and wimpish.
In point of fact it’s one of the most punitive
systems in the world.” However, evidence
suggests that the population is less proprison than is thought to be the case.
Charities play an important role in both
influencing government policy and helping
the public to better understand prison and
its alternatives. This is achieved through
research, advocacy and public awareness
campaigns. Many charities that focus on
influencing public policy are entirely
dependent on charitable income, because
independence from government is critical
in maintaining their objectivity and
effectiveness. This presents an obvious
opportunity for funders interested in
making long-term sustainable
improvements to the penal sector.
Public perceptions and
public awareness
Although public attitudes are complex and
often contradictory, evidence shows that the
population is less punitive than it is often
thought to be. An analysis conducted by
Strathclyde University suggested that the
general public have lost confidence in criminal
justice and are looking for a simple and robust
solution. They want safety, and fear produces
punitiveness.253
The Esmée Fairbairn Foundation’s Rethinking
Crime and Justice programme confirms this
analysis, finding that there is:254
64
3.11
• A desire for better alternatives. More
than half the public would prefer tougher
community punishments to be developed.
• Support for treating rather than
punishing underlying problems. More
than half of the public think that the best
way of dealing with prison overcrowding is
to build more residential centres so that
drug addicted offenders can receive
treatment.
A 2004 Home Office255 report shows that the
public’s confidence in, and perception of, the
Criminal Justice System is driven by factors
such as familiarity with the Criminal Justice
System agencies and their perceived
effectiveness.
The role of the media
A 2003 survey conducted by MORI found that
the public mainly obtain information on how
crime is being dealt with through television
news and documentaries, newspapers or
through the experiences of friends and family.
These sources are typically trusted to tell the
truth about how crime is being dealt with.
However, the media often misrepresents the
level and nature of criminal acts and there are
links between media consumption and fear of
crime.256 For example, two thirds of the
country believes that crime is rising when it
actually falling.
The Open University257 conducted research in
2002 which found that:
• Crime stories are common in entertainment
and information television programmes.
• Most viewers know little about sentencing,
are negative about sentencers and
understand little about alternatives to
prison.
• A good deal of support for prevention.
When asked to choose from a list of
options which would do most to reduce
crime in Britain, 60% of people say better
parenting, 55% more police, 45% better
school discipline and 41% more
constructive activities for young people.
• Viewers learn a lot about crime and
policing, but little about punishment and
sentencing. As much information is gained
from dramas and soaps as from factual
programmes.
• A good deal of scepticism about prison.
Only one in ten people think more offenders
in prison would do most to reduce crime
in Britain.
• Focus groups show that people can change
their views when confronted with different
perspectives on sentencing, although
entrenched views are hard to dislodge.
• Tabloid newspapers are more influential
than television in shaping punitive attitudes.
Inside and out
Public policy
The media, public awareness and public
opinion play a critical role in shaping our
Criminal Justice System. The lack of public
support is cited as a barrier to any major
government policy shift. During his time at the
Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Rob Allen wrote:
‘If members of the public are inclined to
exaggerate the extent and gravity of crime on
the one hand, while underestimating the
nature of sentences on the other, then
something should surely be done to correct
such misunderstandings. Moreover, if the very
same misunderstandings then go on to
influence criminal justice policy formation, then
the need to inform public opinion arguably
becomes more pressing still.’258 Research has
found that the ‘informed public’, who have
been given key facts, were less punitive in their
sentencing preferences than the general
public. However, attitudes to crime will
always contain a strong emotional element
and the subject is a political hotcake during
election periods.
Charitable activity and the need
for private funding
The work of ‘pressure groups’ is diverse. For
example, they can act as the conscience of
the Prison Service, articulating deeply held
values (such as treating prisoners as
individuals with particular needs). They can
also be a useful adjunct to what the Prison
Public policy and public awareness/Section 3.11
Service itself believes, for example in relation
to concerns about overcrowding. Pressure
groups can also undertake important
consultative roles when new ideas are being
discussed and can also influence public policy
and the presentation of evidence to official
inquiries. Well-recognised pressure groups
usually have a place at the policy table and
many members of the Prison Service are, in
their private capacities, supporters of one or
another of the pressure groups.
Many charities that focus on influencing public
policy depend entirely on support from nongovernmental sources in order to maintain
their objectivity and effectiveness. Funders
wishing to invest in long-term systemic
change of the Prison and Probation Services
may find investing in activities that seek to
change public policy and public awareness
particularly attractive.
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Charities, such
as the Prison
Reform Trust,
play a
fundamental
role in
enhancing the
effectiveness of
the penal
system.
Table 13 illustrates the range of activities
undertaken by charities active in this field, their
target groups and desired results. The potential
scope and impact of such charitable activity is
wide. Although services for individuals can
reduce the likelihood of prisoners reoffending or
increase the quality of life in custody for
prisoners and their families, the activities
described in Table 12 can fundamentally
improve the penal system or statutory services,
therefore affecting more people.
Table 13: Examples of charitable activities and desired results
Type of activity
Target groups
Desired results
Research, advocacy, provision
of independent advice and
information
Policy-makers, political
parties, experts, practitioners,
charities, statutory agencies,
political parties, academics
• Improved public policy,
enhanced statutory services
• Improved Prison and
Probation systems
• Enhanced understanding of
the effectiveness of
alternatives to prison
• The possibility of scaling-up
/mainstreaming effective
charitable activities
Watch-dog activities
Statutory agencies (including
prisons)
• Improved accountability of
statutory agencies and of
Government
Public awareness campaigns
General public, media
• Enhanced public awareness
and reduced prejudices,
which can lead to improved
public policy
65
Inside and out
Public policy and public awareness/Section 3.11
Box 34: Prison Reform Trust (PRT)
PRT works to create a just, humane and effective penal system through research,
education, support and campaigning. Objectives are to ensure that: prison is only used
as a last resort, prisons provide constructive regimes in decent conditions, and
prisoners and their families are treated with humanity and respect. During the period
2003–2006, the organisation’s primary objectives are to: improve prison conditions for,
and the treatment of, prisoners and their families; and reduce prison numbers to an
unavoidable minimum and to promote alternatives to custody.
In 2004, PRT was engaged in 26 projects that fall within the following categories:
• Pressing for change. This includes the Smart Justice crime reduction campaign,
which raises awareness among the media and general public about effective
community sentences in order to reduce prison numbers and increase public safety.
• Research. This includes surveying sentencers to examine factors that tip the balance
between custodial or community sentences. It reviews prison education from the
prisoners’ perspective.
• Supporting prisoners and their families. This includes the production of Prisoners’
Information Books translated into 20 languages for people in custody and their
families. Advice and information is given to 4,500 prisoners and their families each
year. Where possible, their concerns are used to effect policy.
Successes include the introduction of sex offender treatment programmes and helping
to end ‘slopping out in prisons’. PRT’s report ‘Growing old in prison’ prompted the
Department of Health to develop a health policy for older prisoners. To influence
improvements in the treatment of, and conditions for, prisoners and to improve the
penal system, PRT undertakes and widely disseminates research.
Given its in-depth knowledge of the penal system and of the needs of prisoners, PRT is
well positioned to influence policy and maintains a critical friendship with the Prison
Service. In 2002 it was appointed to provide the secretariat to the All Party
Parliamentary Group on Penal Affairs and acts as a consultant to institutions such as
the UN Committee on Human Rights, the Home Affairs Select Committee, the ministerial
roundtable on prison suicides and the Sentencing Advisory Panel. PRT also monitors
and reports on prison privatisation. In addition to contributing to policy consultations on
penal affairs, PRT has established expert committees and independent inquiries,
including that on women’s imprisonment which underpinned the 2001 government
strategy on women offenders.
Established in 1981, PRT has 15 staff and 5 volunteers. Total expenditure in the year ending March
2004 was £676,000. The organisation has a policy of not accepting any government funding. PRT
estimates that research can cost between £10,000–£50,000.
The two principal charities that can be
identified as pressure groups, think tanks,
catalysts for change and/or independent
advisory bodies are the Prison Reform Trust
(see Box 34) and the Howard League for
Penal Reform.
The quality of research undertaken by PRT,
much of which NPC has drawn upon for this
report, is highly commendable.
In addition to the two charities described above,
there are a number of other organisations or
national federations that influence public policy
or practices of the Prison or Probation Services
including, Action for Prisoners’ Families,
Revolving Doors, Nacro, Hibiscus and
Clinks. Larger and well-recognised charities are
well placed to influence public policy or even
act as ‘whistle blowers’.
66
Conclusion
Many people who read this report may, quite
legitimately, be frustrated by the inadequacies of
our current Prison and Probation Services. For
years, charities and individuals have played a
critical role in trying to create a more just,
humane and effective penal system. Historically,
one of the most well known agents of change is
Elizabeth Fry, whose image is printed on five
pound notes. In the 1800s, Fry helped to
improve the conditions for women in prison.
Today, charities such as the Prison Reform
Trust, play a critical role in reforming and
improving our penal system. Such
organisations entirely depend on private
funding to maintain their independence and to
succeed. Supporting research and advocacy is
an obvious choice for private funders who have
a vision of a more effective penal system and
wish to see long-term systemic improvements.
Summary
The impact of the arts on the individuals
and on the prisons in which they are held
can be considerable. Arts programmes can
make a prison sentence more constructive,
develop basic and vocational skills, and
improve public awareness about people in
prison. They can also transform behaviour
that may contribute to reoffending.
Arts-based activities are rarely run by the
Prison Service—they are almost entirely the
preserve of the charitable sector. Most
would cease to exist without private
funding.
Access to the arts in prison
Some prisons offer arts-based activities,
although this is not a priority for most
establishments. Only 19 of 138 prisons state
that they use the arts as part of their regime.259
Public funding for arts-based activities, mainly
run by charities, are given at the discretion of
individual governors. At an Institute for Public
Policy Research seminar on the arts in prisons,
participants expressed concern that the arts
were the first thing to be cut when budgets are
tight. Private funding is crucial for arts-based
work in prisons to continue.
Potential benefits of arts projects
The impact of arts activity on individuals, the
institutions in which they are held, and on
communities into which they are released, can
be considerable. Levels of awareness and
understanding of the role of arts in
rehabilitation remains low. Many people who
have witnessed the impact of the arts on
offenders will testify to its life affirming and life
changing possibilities. The shortage of hard
evidence remains a challenge for arts’
charities. Most evidence is qualitative and
relates to the immediate impact on a prisoner.
However, three research studies from the
1970s, 1980s and 1990s used quantitative
measures: scores for egocentrism, incidents of
rule-breaking and reoffending levels
respectively. Each showed reduced
undesirable behaviour relative to a control
group.260 Advocates and sceptics alike think
that a deeper understanding of why and how
the arts affect personal change could help
charities secure more funding.261
In 1910, Winston Churchill said that the mood
of a nation can be judged by the way it treats
its criminals, and that there is a treasure in the
heart of every man if only you can find it.
3.12
Advocates of the arts believe that they are
among the most effective ways of making
prison conditions, humane, safe, constructive
and purposeful. Senior figures in the Prison
Service, as well as practitioners, praise the arts
for their humanising effects.262
Prisoners are less likely to change their
behaviour if their thoughts are dominated by
263
destructive emotions and fear of failure.
People in prison may be anxious about being
separated from their family, angry about their
treatment, or burdened by guilt for their crime.
These are understandable emotions, but if
they become preoccupations, they may lead
to disruptive or self-destructive
264
behaviour. The arts can be used to express
and explore emotions that are difficult to
verbalise. This may ultimately lead to thinking
and behaviour change. Sue Saxton, the Head
of Learning and Skills at women’s prison HMP
Bullwood Hall believes that, by providing an
outlet for the emotions, the arts can reduce a
prisoner’s tendency to self-harm.265
Some prisons have carefully planned how their
education, training and rehabilitation
programmes can be supported by the arts.
According to Mark Woodruff of the Sainsbury
Family Charitable Trusts: ‘Prisoners lives are
often those of damaged and disordered
people: to break the cycle of reoffending,
making the vital interventions on drugs,
behaviour, parenting, violence, literacy and life
skills effective is something to which the
creative arts often hold the only key.’ As an
example, he gives Pimlico Opera’s
performance of ‘West Side Story’ in HMP
Winchester in 2002: ‘This was not only a first
for the prison service, it was an ideal vehicle
for exploring the raw realities of anger, street
crime, social exclusion, gang violence, race
and broken relationships that many prisoners
can immediately identify with. The production
achieved more in a few months with the
prisoner artists and their captive audience then
many months of courses designed to cover
the same territory.’
‘
Prisoners lives are
often those of
damaged and
disordered people:
to break the cycle
of reoffending,
making the vital
interventions on
drugs, behaviour,
parenting,
violence, literacy
and life skills
effective is
something to
which the creative
arts often hold the
only key.
‘
The arts
Mark Woodruff, The
Sainsbury Family Charitable
Trusts
As discussed in Section 3.2, many prisoners
had poor experiences of formal education. It is
questionable whether compulsory school-style
education in prison will have a long-lasting
effect on prisoners’ skills and abilities. Arts
projects that use language, imagination and
intelligence in a different way have the potential
to create swifter progress and deeper learning.
These activities offer a route through and
beyond education and training beyond basic
and key skills.
67
Inside and out
The arts/Section 3.12
Box 35: Clean Break
Community based-courses
Clean Break offers acting, technical theatre, writing, singing and comedy courses for
women who have offended or are at risk of offending. Courses, which reach 100
women each year, are run from Clean Break’s studios in north London. Women may
have come across the charity during their time in prison, or have been referred by
their probation officer. An initial interview helps the charity direct a woman to courses
meeting her needs and aspirations. Women can get emotional support and
signposting to practical help from a welfare officer. The charity pays for women’s
travel and childcare. Women can progress through programmes for up to two years,
finishing with an access to higher education course, or a work placement with an
arts-focused company.
Anecdotal feedback shows that women gain in confidence and ambition, as well as
achieving new skills and qualifications. Clean Break does not track all leavers’
destinations, although it does have some great success stories. A woman who first
came across Clean Break in HMP Send five years ago was allowed out on day release
to attend one of the charity’s courses. After completing several courses, cumulating
in its Access to Theatre in the Community Course, she studied at the Central School
for Speech and Drama. After successfully gaining her degree, she set up her own
theatre company and has recently become one of the charity’s trustees.
Work in prisons
Clean Break runs around six short-term programmes in women’s prisons. These
include creative writing programmes, the annual touring theatre production and
accompanying education work, and drama-based programmes as part of a national
partnership aiming to get more women into work.
Touring Production
Clean Break puts on an annual eight week touring production. The charity
commissions a playwright to work with women in prison and with students on Clean
Break’s courses to develop a script. One play followed the stories and relationships
of a foreign national woman hiding her imprisonment from her children and another
woman complicit in the sex abuse of a child. Professional actors tour England and
Scotland, reaching up to 2,000 people. Post-show discussions and education work
allow the audiences to examine the issues raised. During one discussion, a student
described his negative attitudes to women offenders before the show and how the
play had changed them. He saw the play as ‘the beginning of a journey’ for him.
The charity also tours the production to women’s prisons. After the main
performance actors and experienced workshop leaders use ‘forum’ theatre, replaying
a scene, but allowing the audience to talk through and decide what choices the
characters should make. Some women have become very engaged with this, coming
up onto stage and taking on a part. This enables them to reflect on their own
experiences and actions.
Photograph supplied by Sarah Ainslie/Clean Break
Clean Break has 16 full-time staff, 20–30 freelance trainers and 12 short-term production staff.
Annual turnover is just under £1m.
68
Examples and results of
charitable activity
Arts in prison are almost entirely the preserve
of charities. For example, performing arts
programmes are run by charities such as the
London Shakespeare Workout Prison
Project (see Box 36) and Dance United,
which uses dance to inspire marginalised and
socially excluded people to realise their full
potential. Theatre can be used as a tool to
understand people’s needs and
perspectives.266 Clean Break (see Box 35)
uses theatre to build self-confidence and as a
route to further training and employment. It
predominately works with ex-offenders and
people at risk of offending.
Other forms of arts-based activity in prison
include pottery, prison radio (such as Radio
Wanno in Wandsworth prison), creative writing
(encouraged by competitions such as one run
by the Prison Reform Trust), poetry and
painting. The Koestler Trust’s annual awards
scheme recognises creativity and selfexpression through the arts. It receives over
4,000 entries each year from people in prisons
and High Security Psychiatric hospitals. There
are 62 judges for awards ranging from
sculpture to film-making, from poetry to
engineering design, from calligraphy to
tailoring. The recognition from the Trust, from
fellow prisoners and other supporters, is often
a new experience for prisoners with chronically
low self-esteem.
The Anne Peaker Centre for the Arts in
Criminal Justice acts as a coordinating body
for 60 organisations and individuals involved in
arts-based work with offenders. Charities can
take part in its training courses, which share
good practice, and may benefit from its work
influencing policy on Criminal Justice and the
arts.
In 2004, the Centre commissioned researchers
to: review the literature on the effectiveness of
the arts; and put together a framework for
evaluating arts projects, by working with six
schemes in prisons.
This framework may become a ‘gold standard’
for tracking the impact of arts work. It may
make use of psychometric testing before and
after participation in a programme. The Anne
Peaker Centre may commission a longitudinal
study at some point. At present, the difficulties
in tracking prisoners beyond their participation
in a programme makes such studies
prohibitively expensive.
Inside and out
Private funding is needed to keep the arts for
offenders going, to inspire and transform
prisoners and to build their confidence and
skills. As well as having valuable direct results,
such as reducing the tendency to self-harm,
the arts can help engage prisoners in other
important activities, which may reduce
reoffending. As the Inspectorate of Prisons
recognises, the arts may be ‘the pivotal thing
that a prisoner responds to’—a springboard to
a more fulfilling, crime-free life.
Research undertaken by the Esmée Fairbairn
Foundation’s Rethinking Crime and
Punishment programme indicates that most
arts activity is short-term and sporadic.
Projects that make the greatest and most
sustainable impact are those that last months
instead of days. There is evidence of the
cumulative effect on individuals who have
repeated opportunities to participate. Funders
should consider supporting projects operating
over longer periods.
Arts programmes could
cease to exist without the
support from donors and
funders.
Box 36: The London Shakespeare Workout Prison Project
‘My first day in prison I felt very afraid, trapped and alone. Then on a piece of paper,
inviting me to take part in a London Shakespeare Workout, I placed my name. It
would be an understatement to say that from there ‘things changed’. My first day in
the Workout I felt nervous … as there were a group of professional actors immensely
enjoying themselves with a bunch of prisoners. Now that’s scary! Seriously, however,
for the first time in a long time I felt worthy. I felt like more than just a number.
Although I was still incarcerated, for the first time I felt free.’ Darren Raymond, Dream
Factory Core Member
In 2004 LSW worked with 2,985 inmates in 42 prisons. 172 prison officers also took
active part alongside a total of 2,311 professional performers ranging from Juliet
Stevenson to Kenneth Branagh. 48 ex-offenders were engaged through prison/exoffender schemes and programmes. Not one has been re-incarcerated. The same is
true of the ex-prisoners who were engaged in the preceding year.
HMP Brixton invited the charity to establish the first professionally accredited
vocational arts training programme in an adult UK prison. The course lasts a year, and
suitable prisoners have been brought together from several establishments to
embark on the training as they come up for release. Those who are released during
the training are allowed to come back to the prison as visitors to continue until
completion. The three-hour workouts with other prisoners on the wings, and on
remand, at Brixton and elsewhere continue at the same time.
The company’s production, ‘Blacking Iago’, a version of Othello including original
prisoner writing, was featured on the BBC2 Culture Show and led to the three
principal actors, all prisoners and core members of the Dream Factory training
programme, receiving immediate offers of work and representation on release. They
will have made their West End debuts in May 2005.
LSW has one full-time member of staff and buys in the services of numerous professional actors,
directors and technical experts. In 2004, its turnover is projected to be in the region of £200,000.
Photograph supplied by Sarah Ainslie/Clean Break
Conclusion
The arts/Section 3.12
69
Conclusion and recommendations
There is a
compelling case
for charitable
activity in
prisons.
Crime has damaging effects on our society
and economy. It often has severe
consequences for victims and communities. It
also has negative consequences for the
perpetrators of crime and their families.
Prisons are an important part of our Criminal
Justice System, playing a role in public
protection and deterrence. But punishment
alone does not deter people from reoffending
and prison has a poor record of turning people
away from crime. Many people in prison have
multiple problems, including illiteracy, poor
mental health, and drug or alcohol addictions.
To equip prisoners to lead full and law-abiding
lives after release, rehabilitation should be a
priority. Government rhetoric increasingly
emphasises rehabilitation, and in recent years
has made significant efforts in this direction.
However, reoffending rates remain high and
rehabiltative activities inadequate.
A desire to reduce reoffending rates is an
important motive for wanting to support
people in prison. However there are additional
reasons for action. Some donors and funders
may feel that addressing prisoners’ basic
needs and rights is a powerful enough motive.
For example, the suicide rate in prisons, and in
particular the numbers taking their life in the
first days and weeks, is shocking. Addressing
the anxiety and guilt many feel on reception is
vital for reducing this. To give another example,
enabling prisoners to maintain family ties is not
only an essential part of humane treatment but
can also help reduce reoffending.
This report has illustrated that there is a
compelling case for charitable activity in prison
and that charities make a distinctive
contribution to many aspects of prison life.
Charities are focused on the needs of
prisoners, and provide an extended range of
services which receive little or no government
support. They provide a critical link between
prisons and the community and are critical to
penal reform. As former Chief Inspector of
Prisons, Lord David Ramsbotham, comments,
‘I do not believe that the public at large
realises just how much it owes to the voluntary
sector for what it does in prison.’
70
4
Charitable activity can be clustered into the
following categories: service provision;
enabling peer support, research, and
advocacy. In order to enhance the outcomes
of charitable interventions, some charities also
focus on infrastructure and capacity building.
The benefits of charitable activity include:
• improved rehabilitation, contributing to a
reduced likelihood of reoffending;
• improved quality of life of for people in
custody and for prisoners’ families;
• improved public policy, statutory provision
and public awareness; and
• improved capabilities of charities to address
the needs of beneficiaries.
Although the state contracts some activities
charities undertake, many activities highlighted
throughout this report are dependent upon
donors and funders. These include:
Activities that fall outside the
scope of statutory provision.
The Prison and Probation Services concentrate
their resources on attaining their key
performance indicators. Funding for other
activities receives lower priority. Although the
government recognises the importance of
family links, there is no ring-fenced statutory
money to support this. Charities, such as the
Ormiston Children’s and Families’ Trust, play
a key role in helping maintain family links,
through managing Visitors’ Centres. Although
experts in the Prison Service recognise the
value of the arts, this rarely translates into
financial support for charities. The Koestler
Trust provides opportunities for prisoners to
learn skills through the arts. Private funding is
needed to enable prisoners to make a positive
contribution to society, both within and outside
of prison. Peer support programmes such as
the Samaritans’ Listeners scheme can build
prisoners’ skills and reduce isolation. The
Prison Service does not have a dedicated
strategy to deal with the high number of foreign
national prisoners. Charities are key in
attending to the needs of this group. For
example, Hibiscus provides emotional support
and advice to foreign national women in prison.
Inside and out
Activities that complement
statutory provision, but adopt
alternative or innovative
approaches.
For example, although much drug treatment is
funded by the state, charities such as the
Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust
are working to improve services for alcoholics.
In education and employment, the
government’s focus is on improving basic skills.
Charities such as Community Links for ExOffenders fulfil a complementary role, brokering
employment opportunities for people on
release. Despite the fact that the government
funds offending behaviour programmes,
charities can develop approaches for specific
groups. For example, Clean Break has
developed a programme to reduce damaging
manifestations of anger in women. Services
within the prison system are often designed
with the needs of white men in mind. Charities
have developed services tailored to the needs
of women and black and minority ethnic
groups. The Creative and Supportive Trust,
for example, runs educational programmes for
female ex-prisoners to increase their skills and
access employment.
Conclusion and recommendations/Section 4
This report highlights ways in which funders
and donors can make a difference through
their charitable giving. Charities succeed
despite insufficient and insecure funding, the
scale of prisoners’ problems and the
challenges of working in a prison context. NPC
has been inspired by the achievements of
charities in meeting individual needs and
influencing penal reform and has identified a
number of high-impact charities that help
reduce the social and economic costs of
crime. Donors and funders interested in
supporting work with prisoners and their
families are encouraged to contact NPC for
detailed charity recommendations.
NPC has been
inspired by the
achievements of
charities
working with
people in prison
and with their
families.
Activities that advocate for
improvements in public policy
and statutory provision.
Pressure groups that seek to fundamentally
improve the penal sector, such as the Prison
Reform Trust, have policies of not accepting
government money to maintain their
independence. Charities such as Prisoners’
Advice Service also advocate on behalf of
individuals to secure prisoners’ rights. They
can also help individuals access the statutory
support to which they are entitled, for
example, benefits or appropriate health care.
Activities that strengthen the
capabilities of charities to
respond effectively to the needs
of prisoners.
The Prison and Probation Services
acknowledge the importance of the charitable
sector. However, there is a need to improve
relationships between charities and prisons.
Moreover, in order to meet needs effectively,
charities need to improve their skills through
training and performance measurement.
Charities such as Clinks are critical in
strengthening the work of the charitable sector.
Donors and
funders interested
in supporting
effective
charitable
activities are
encouraged to
contact NPC for
detailed charity
recommendations
71
Appendix 1
Acknowledgements
This report would not have been possible without the tremendous support and guidance from a wide
range of people working in this field. NPC would like to thank everyone for their valuable contributions.
Reference group
Rob Allen, Director, Rethinking Crime and Punishment, Director, International Centre for Prison
Studies, King’s College London
Jo Gordon, Head of Voluntary Sector Unit, National Offender Management Service
Erwin James, The Guardian
Peter Kilgarriff, Chief Executive, The LankellyChase Foundation
Clive Martin, Director, Clinks
Una Padel, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, King’s College London
Lord David Ramsbotham
Consultative readers
Rob Allen, Director, Rethinking Crime and Punishment, Director, International Centre for Prison
Studies, King’s College London
Jo Gordon, Head of Voluntary Sector Unit, National Offender Management Service
Eryl Foulkes, Tudor Trust
Erwin James, The Guardian
Peter Kilgarriff, Chief Executive, The LankellyChase Foundation
Juliet Lyon, Director, Prison Reform Trust
Clive Martin, Director, Clinks
Neil Moore, Prison Services Voluntary and Community Sector
Una Padel, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, King’s College London
John Podmore, Governor, HM Prison Brixton
Lord David Ramsbotham
Mark Woodruff, The Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts
72
Inside and out
Appendix 1
Charitable organisations reviewed
The following charities were reviewed for NPC’s research:
Action for Prisoners Families
Adfam
Anglia Care Trust
Clean Break
Community Links for Ex-Offenders
Cranstoun Drug Services
Creative and Supportive Trust
Forgiveness Project
Hardman Trust
Hibiscus
The Howard League for Penal Reform
Inside Out Trust
Justice Research Consortium
KIDS VIP
Mind (The National Association for Mental Health)
Bristol Mind
Nacro
Natural Justice
New Bridge
The Ormiston Children’s and Families Trust
Partners of Prisoners and Families Support Group
Prison Reform Trust
Prisoners Advice Service
Rehabilitation of Addicted Prisoners Trust
Revolving Doors
Restorative Justice Consortium
Samaritans
Southside Partnership
St. Giles’ Trust
Unit for Arts and Offenders
Unlock
Women in Prison
Other informants
Michael Daniels, Resettlement Officer, HM Prison Holloway
Ray Fishbourne, Thames Valley Partnership
Esther Forster
Eryl Foulkes, Tudor Trust
Victoria Hornby, The Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts
Sir Charles Pollard, Chair, Justice Research Consortium
Dr John Reid, former Inspector of Prisons and member of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
Dr. Heather Strang, Australian National University
John Podmore, Governor, HM Prison Brixton
Mark Woodruff, The Sainsbury Family Charitable Trusts
Kay Worley, Resettlement Coordinator, HM Prison Holloway
73
Appendix 2
Research methodology
The findings in this report build on an analysis of information gathered through:
• Desk research. NPC analysed published and unpublished materials produced by: government,
statutory agencies, charitable organisations, grant-making trusts and foundations, universities,
think tanks and the media.
• People as informants. NPC gathered information from representatives of: government, statutory
agencies (including prisons), private agencies (including prisons and corporations), academics,
grant-making trusts and foundations and other key informants. As far as possible, NPC also
spoke with prisoners when conducting visits with charitable organisations.
• Research on charitable organisations. NPC examined 34 charitable organisations supporting
adults in prison and upon their release in England and Wales. Where possible, site visits were
conducted to the charity or to the prison in which the charity operates. The purpose of the site
visits was: 1) to gather information to feed into the report and 2) to identify possible recipients of
funds that NPC may leverage once the report is published. Given that there are approximately
900 charitable organisations working in this field, NPC selected a sample of organisations to visit
which differed in issue-focus, size, capacity and geographic scope.
• Reference group. NPC developed a reference group with expertise in the field to aid the
research process (see Appendix 1).
• Critical readers. In order to ensure that the final report is accurate and comprehensive, the final
draft was reviewed by critical readers who have expertise in this field and, as far as possible,
represent NPC’s key stakeholder groups.
74
Appendix 3
The prison and probation services
The purpose of the Criminal
Justice System
The Criminal Justice System aims ‘to deliver
justice for all, by convicting and punishing the
guilty and helping them to stop offending,
while protecting the innocent. It is responsible
for detecting crime and bringing it to justice
and carrying out the orders of the court, such
as collecting fines, and supervising community
and custodial punishment.’267 The system has
three goals:
• to reduce crime by bringing more offences
to justice;
• to raise public confidence that the system
is fair and will deliver for the law-abiding
citizen, increasing the satisfaction of victims
and witnesses with the treatment they
receive;
• to work with partners to prevent crime from
happening in the first place and in so doing
meet the wider needs of victims and to help
turn offenders away from crime.
The Criminal Justice System includes agencies
such as the Police, the Courts, the Prison
Service, the Crown Prosecution Service and
the National Probation Service. The work of
these agencies is overseen by three
government departments: the Home Office,
the Attorney General’s Office, and the
Department for Constitutional Affairs.
The Prison and Probation Services use Key
Performance Indicators (KPIs) to measure
performance (see Appendix 4). These KPIs
provide an important framework for
understanding priorities in the allocation of
statutory funding and identifying the many
gaps in provision, further illustrated throughout
Appendix 4. Even when statutory funding is
targeted to address a particular rehabilitative
need of prisoners, Appendix 4 illustrates that in
some cases the Prison Service has failed to
achieve its targets. For example, the Prison
Service aims to provide each prisoner with 34
hours of ‘purposeful activity’ each week,
including education, work within the prison,
family visits and planning for release. In 2003
and 2004 the Prison Service only provided 23
hours on average, suggesting prisoners are
spending too much time locked up.269 In the
last ten years, purposeful activity has
increased on average by only ten minutes a
day for each prisoner, which is in part due to
overcrowding.270
The purpose of the
Probation Service
People serving community sentences, and
many who have been released from prison, are
supervised by the National Probation Service.
The National Probation Service aims to:271
• protect the public;
• reduce reoffending;
The purpose of the Prison Service
The stated duty of the Prison Service is to look
after people in prison with humanity and help
them lead law-abiding and useful lives in
custody and after release. A prison sentence
marks a strong public disapproval of an offence
and is a punishment for the offender, but it also
presents an opportunity to reduce the
likelihood of reoffending through rehabilitation.
During 2001 and 2002, the Prison Service’s
net operating cost was £2.45bn. There is little
data available about the proportion of funding
allocated to rehabilitation as opposed to
security or staffing. Prisons spend between
70% and 80% of their budgets on staff, but
some staff do work to rehabilitate prisoners in
addition to their responsibilities for discipline
and security.268
• enforce the punishment of offenders in the
community;
• ensure offenders’ awareness of the effects
of crime on the victims of crime and the
public; and
• rehabilitate offenders.
Other duties include supporting victims of
crime and helping communities to prevent
crime. The Probation Service budget is around
£525m, up by over 50% in the last ten years.272
In 2003, 42,000 ex-prisoners, less than half
the total people released during that year,
began supervision by the Probation Service.273
At present, prisoners on short sentences are
not supervised by the Probation Service on
release. However, from 2006 all people
released from prison will have to be supervised
by Probation.
75
Inside and out
Appendix 3
Future of the Prison and Probation
Services; the National Offender
Management Service
In 2003, the government commissioned Lord
Carter to undertake an independent review of
the correctional services. This report found that
existing services were uncoordinated and too
many offenders were falling in the gaps
between prison and probation. It concluded
that Prison and Probation Services needed to
be merged into a single organisation.
The National Offender Management Service
(NOMS), the integrated service for the
management and supervision of offenders,
came into being in June 2004 with an annual
budget of £3.2bn, Unlike the separate services,
NOMS has accountability for overall outcomes,
with a key target of reducing reoffending by
10%. Offender Managers will be responsible for
end-to-end management of offenders from presentence to post-release stages, producing a
sentencing plan, supervising the sentence,
assessing needs and providing appropriate
interventions.274 Although the advent of NOMS
has led to uncertainty and upheaval in the
Criminal Justice System, the Esmee Fairbairn
Foundation’s Rethinking Crime and Punishment
programme believes it may: ‘enable a more
integrated approach to meeting the needs of
offenders in prison and in the community’.
Furthermore, it ‘should lead to better outcomes
for offenders on community sentence, in prison
or after release.’275 However, it will take many
years before the success of NOMS in producing
better outcomes can be judged.
NOMS plans to put some services, currently
provided by Prison and Probation Services, out
to tender on a regional basis. Organisations
from public, private and charitable sectors will
be able to bid to run services. The government
has stated that it does not matter who provides
services, as long as they are cost effective.276
Some are concerned that quality will be a
secondary consideration.
Reasons for the ineffectiveness
of prison
Drawing on the 2002 Social Exclusion Unit’s
report Reducing re-offending of ex-prisoners,
the reasons for the limited effectiveness of
prison include:
• Over-use of prison. Too many people sent
to prison should not be there, such as those
who could be diverted to mental health
treatment. Prison overcrowding also has
significant consequences on the conditions
in which people are held and limits the ability
of the Prison Service to attend to
rehabilitation. There are also significant
concerns about the effectiveness of
imprisonment on those serving sentences of
less than 12 months who are more likely to
be reconvicted. In 2002, approximately
76
40,000 men were sentenced to less than 12
months, accounting for over half of
sentences passed in that year. The Prison
Service believes that the length of their
sentence is insufficient for any programmes
to benefit them. Many experts believe that
rehabilitation would be enhanced if they were
offered rigorous community punishments.
• Limited capacity. Prison security is
important, but there needs to be a shift in
investment towards the key services that can
reduce reoffending before, during and after
prison. Too few prisoners have the
opportunity to change the behaviours that
led them to offend.
• Unclear accountability. Accountability for
the results of any given sentence is unclear
because the courts have never been
required to state what outcomes they expect
from a sentence, less still their success in
achieving them. The Social Exclusion’s Unit’s
2002 report Reducing re-offending by exprisoners states: ‘There is unclear
accountability for reducing reoffending. No
individual has responsibility for the individual
prisoners, with the result that accountability
is fragmented. Moreover, different people
have responsibility for different outcomes,
but no one is responsible for pulling these
together.’277
• Insufficient joint working. Services outside
the Criminal Justice System need to have
the right balance of resources, policies and
targets to support a reduction in reoffending
after release.
• Lack of innovation. There has often been
little encouragement or support for the
innovative practices which may harness the
input of all those, such as employers and
communities, who can reduce reoffending.
Alternatives to prison
There are a number of alternatives to sending
adults to prison. These include Community
Rehabilitation Orders, Community Punishment
Orders, Curfew Orders with electronic
monitoring and Drug Treatment and Testing
Orders. Community punishment deals with
nearly four times as many people as prisons
for only 40% of the cost.278 Reoffending rates
differ little between prison and community
penalties, but the profile of offenders
sentenced to each does.
Although there is still a lack of clear information
about the effectiveness of such alternatives,
some experts believe that developing better
alternatives will have an impact on reoffending
rates.279 NPC has not explored this area indepth. However, a number of charities noted in
Section 3.10 play a role in raising the profile
of, and gathering evidence for, alternatives
to prison.
Appendix 4
Categories of prisons for adults
Prisons for adult males
Local prisons: Where almost all prisoners
begin their time in prison, either on remand or
as newly sentenced prisoners. These are the
largest prisons and are subject to the greatest
number of prisoner movements. Once a
prisoner has received their classification, they
may be transferred to another establishment,
although some, particularly those with short
sentences, serve the entirety of their sentence
in a local prison.
High security prisons: Holding prisoners
whose escape would be highly dangerous to
the public, police or national security.
Closed training prisons: Where the majority
of prisoners will serve most of their sentence.
Housing medium-risk inmates, these closed
prisons usually offer dedicated education,
training and in-prison work.
Open and semi-open prisons: For the lowest
risk prisoners. Emphasis is placed on phased
progress towards eventual release. Inmates
are likely to have increased contact with their
family and may be able to work outside prison.
The aim is to aid the prisoner’s transition to
rejoining the community.
Prisoner categories
Prisoners will be held in a prison at or above
their security classification. In the male system,
all Category A prisoners are in High Security
establishments and category D prisoners are
eligible to live in open prisons.
Many remand prisoners will be held here. High
security prisons are for prisoners categorised
as category A or B and are constructed to the
highest security specifications. Category B
and C prisons have progressively lower
security levels.
Prisons for women
Women are not assigned to security Categories
B, C and D, but are categorised as being in
need of closed conditions or suitable semiopen or open conditions. Only a few women
are considered to require the highest level of
security who are classified as Category A and
allocated to the high security estate in Durham.
In 2001, 17 of the 136 prisons in England and
Wales held women prisoners. There are only
three open prisons for women and no
resettlement prisons at all.280 The six most
frequent offences for which adult women were
received into custody in 2003 were: theft and
handling (51%), drug offences (17%), violence
against the person (13%), fraud and forgery
(9%), burglary (5%) and robbery (4%).281
Category A prisoners are those whose
escape would be highly dangerous to the
public, or the police, or the security of the
State, no matter how unlikely that escape
might be; and for whom the Criminal Justice
System’s aim is to make escape impossible.
Category B applies to prisoners for whom the
very highest conditions of security are not
necessary, but for whom the escape must be
made very difficult. Prisoners on remand are
classified as Category B or above.
Category C applies to prisoners who cannot
be trusted in open conditions, but who do not
have the resources and will to make a
determined escape attempt.
Category D applies to prisoners who can
reasonably be trusted in open conditions.
Unless they are deemed to be category A,
women prisoners are not given a graded
security level but are deemed to be suitable for
either open or closed conditions.
77
Appendix 5
Prison service key performance indicators 2004-2005
Escapes
Staff sickness
KPI: To ensure that no category A prisoners
escape
KPI: To ensure that the average rate of staff
sickness does not exceed 12.5 working days
per person
MET: No category A escapes
KPI: To ensure that the rate of escapes from
establishments and from escorts expressed as
a percentage of the average prison population
is lower than 0.05%
MET: The escape rate was 0.03%
Serious assaults
KPI: To ensure that the number of serious
assaults, expressed as a proportion of the
average prison population, does not exceed
the level recorded in 2003–2004 (1.54%)
Race equality
KPI: To ensure that the number of minority
ethnic staff in the Prison Service, expressed as
a proportion of the total workforce, is at least
6% by April 2005
NOT MET: 5.7% of staff were from minority
ethnic groups
Education
MET: The total rate of serious assaults was
1.47%
KPI: To achieve 15, 870 awards at Basic Skills
Entry Level
Drug testing
MET: Prisoners achieved 20,372 Entry Level
Awards
KPI: To ensure that the average rate of positive
random testing for drugs is lower than 10%
NOT MET: The rate of positive tests was
11.6%
Overcrowding
KPI: To ensure that the number of prisoners
held two to a cell designed for one, expressed
as a percentage of the average population,
does not exceed 18%
KPI: To achieve 21,890 awards at Basic Skills
Level 1
MET: Prisoners achieved 23,816 Level 1
awards
KPI: To achieve 14,500 awards at Basic Skills
Level 2
MET: Prisoners achieved 14,759 Level 2
awards
NOT MET: The average rate of ‘doubling’ was
21.7%
KPI: To achieve 113,010 Key Work Skills
awards
Self-inflicted deaths/suicides
MET: Prisoners achieved 162,966 Key Work
Skills awards
KPI: To ensure that the rate of self-inflicted
deaths in 2004––2005 does not exceed 112.8
per 100,000 of the average prison population
MET: The rate was 121 (in 2003-2004 there
were 92 self-inflicted deaths)
Offending behaviour
KPI: To ensure that at 6,500 prisoners
complete programmes accredited as being
effective in reducing reoffending
MET: 7,744 offending behaviour programmes
completed
KPI: To ensure that at least 1,100 prisoners
complete the Sex Offender Treatment
Programme
MET: 1,167 Sex Offender Treatment
Programmes completed
78
NOT MET: The average rate of staff sickness
was 12.7 days per person
Resettlement
KPI: To ensure that 34,890 sentenced
prisoners in 2004–2005 have a job, education
or training outcome within one month of
release
MET: There were 37,733 education, training or
employment outcomes
Appendix 6
Challenges faced by charities
Scaling-up effective
charitable activity
The are four means through which charitable
activity can be scaled-up, each of which
presents its won challenges:
• Dissemination of good practice. This can
occur either through the evaluation and
documentation of good practice that is
distributed, or through the sharing of
lessons learned through networking and
training. Good practice can be shared
within and between charitable, statutory
and private agencies working with people in
prison. For example, the Revolving Doors
Agency disseminated the results of the
evaluation of its first link worker scheme to
help other agencies establish similar
services that addressed unmet needs.
Dissemination of good practice is perhaps
the most feasible form of scaling-up.
• Partnership. The charitable sector is by
nature competitive, especially given the
limited resources available. Developing
partnerships between charities can
therefore be difficult. However there is
evidence of larger scale charities working
together. The presence of voluntary sector
coordinators in prisons may also help
develop partnerships.
• Increasing the scale of a charity. There
can be many risks involved in this
approach. For example, some small scale
charities may not wish to expand because
it could impact on the quality of existing
and future activities. Limited resources
available for this field also suggest it could
be high-risk for all parties involved,
especially with regards to sustainability and
securing on-going costs.
• Incorporating charitable activity into
statutory provision. Although there are
examples of charitable activity that have
been mainstreamed into statutory provision
(such as drug services), there is no
structured process through which
charitable activity can be mainstreamed.
The government does not make
commitments to adopting effective
charitable activity. Moreover, there is no
agreed evaluation procedure that must be
undertaken before the government will
consider mainstreaming. Nevertheless,
some charities pursue the accreditation of
their activities and there are some success
stories. For example, the Revolving Doors
Agency used private funding to develop
and evaluate a link worker scheme for
people with mental health problems. Having
shown that it reduces reoffending by 22%,
the charity now receives all funding for this
scheme from statutory sources.
The ‘right’ ingredients
Given the diversity of the prison estate, both in
terms of the differing categories of prison and
the varying needs of people in different
prisons, it is important to consider that what
works in one prison may not necessarily do so
in another. For example, the ‘ingredients’ of
what works in one prison context or for one
particular group (such as men or women) may
not be easily established in different prisons or
work for other groups.
The ‘right’ ingredients that can contribute to
effective charitable activities include:
• Positive and stable relationships between
charities and the prisons in which they
operate.
• Stable financial resources.
• A sound understanding of, and
communication between, agencies that
affect the desired results of charitable
activity.
• A trusting relationship between charity staff,
prisoners or their families and the ability of
charities to work sensitively and effectively
with beneficiaries.
• The timing of any given activity. For
example, most people entering prison will
benefit from immediate advice on their
housing and financial situation, so that they
can act to avoid debts accumulating.
Careful consideration must be given to the
nature of the ingredients that have contributed
to successful activities and the feasibility of
developing them in other contexts.
79
Inside and out
Appendix 6
Challenges involved in achieving
the desired results of charitable
activity
The journey involved in charities achieving their
desired results is a challenging one, not least
because of the fact that they have little or no
control over the prisons in which they operate.
Expanding on the 2003–2004 annual report of
the charity Clinks282, other factors that can
limit the effectiveness of charities working in
this field, many of which are outside the
control of the charities themselves, include:
• Lack of control over desired results. For
example, the provision of excellent housing
advice may not always result in a positive
result if the housing agency does not fulfill
its role. Moreover, change can come about
as a result of a personal decision of an
individual and cannot be imposed.
• Underdeveloped and inconsistent
relationships between statutory services
and charitable organisations. For
example, the effectiveness of charities can
depend on personal relationships between
charities and prison staff. This is especially
challenging given the regular transfers of
prison staff. Some prisons show a lack of
commitment to charitable activity.
• Poor coordination. Despite the presence
of voluntary sector coordinators in all
prisons, there still appears to be poor
tracking of, or coordination between,
charities working in the same prison. Lack
of funding to develop partnerships between
charities does not encourage organisations
to improve outcomes through leveraging
human and financial resources.
• Limited opportunities to influence or
contribute to policy development at
national, regional and local levels.
• Funding difficulties, including short-term
contracts and complicated and inconsistent
procurement arrangements. Charities
contracted by statutory agencies are often
unable to secure the full costs of their work
and face significant financial risks as a
result of the constraints. There is also a
concern that they have unequal access to
tenders.
• Payment delays, often causing cash flow
problems.
• Problems associated with ‘whistle
blowing’. Criticism from a charity can result
in it being shunned by the prison in which
they operate.
• Lack of adequate funding for capacity
building (such as staff development or
performance measurement).
80
The establishment of the new National Offender
Management Service (NOMS) will have an
impact on the charitable sector. It is anticipated
that NOMS will be an advantage to larger
charities that bid for statutory contracts, such
as Nacro, as it will mean they will only have to
deal with one agency. However, there are a
number of anticipated disadvantages and
threats to the charitable sector. For example,
charities will have to compete for contracts with
private sector and public sector organisations,
which may prove to be a significant challenge.
Smaller-scale charities, such as some of those
highlighted in this report, have little experience
of bidding for statutory contracts and lack of
capacity to deliver services on a regional basis,
which will be required by NOMS. Many
charitable activities may still fall outside the
scope of statutory priorities.
Challenges involved in measuring
the performance of charitable
activity
Measuring the performance of charities
working with people in prison and upon their
release is no mean feat. As with many
charities, tracking and measuring success is
an underdeveloped and under-resourced skill.
However, a survey undertaken by the Centre
for Crime and Justice Studies, King’s College
London, suggests that the sector is trying to
evaluate its work.
Challenges faced by charities wanting to
evaluate their work include:
• The lack of funding available for
performance measurement, both from
private and government sources. Also,
short-term project funding does not allow
for long-term thinking and planning which is
necessary to understand and measure
results.
• The attribution problem. Given the wide
range of agencies involved in the lives of
people in prison and upon release, and
other factors such as family relationships, it
can be difficult or impossible for charities to
gauge the degree to which their
intervention resulted in a desired result.
• The lack of control over the environment in
which charities operate and of the people
they help. For example, prisoners are
frequently transferred from one
establishment to another with no warning
to the agencies that work with them. In
such cases contact with the prisoner is
likely to cease.
• There is no system that tracks the progress
of prisoners through the Prison and
Probation systems and post release.
Longitudinal studies may be impossible or
even inappropriate for some charitable
activity.
Inside and out
Appendix 6
• The limitations of user-involvement in
undertaking evaluation given the nature of
prison. Confidentiality can also be a
challenge when undertaking performance
measurement.
• The complexity for charities in managing
the expectations of all parties involved with
any activity (the charity, funders, the prison,
prisoners). For example, charities depend
upon a complex jigsaw puzzle of funders,
many of which have different reporting
requirements and different expectations
from monitoring and evaluation.
• Poor coordination between agencies
working with the same prisoner.
Judgement of the need for, or quality of, any
given activity is also highly influenced by one’s
values. For example, as a society we value
family relationships, therefore it could be argued
that Visitors’ Centres that help maintain these
relationships are important in of themselves.
81
Appendix 7
Types of mental health problems
Neurotic illnesses283
Neurotic illnesses include anxiety and clinical depression. These share common characteristics,
including sleeping difficulties and indecision. Symptoms of depression include a feeling of unreality,
loss of pleasure in life, loss of interest in food, low libido and self-harm. Symptoms of anxiety include
mood swings, an inability to concentrate, a persistent feeling of fear, nausea and high blood
pressure. Although many experience such symptoms at some point during their life, in order to be
diagnosed and treated, symptoms must be persistent and debilitating.
Personality disorders284
In psychiatric circles, the word ‘personality’ refers to the pattern of thoughts, feelings and behaviour.
Most people are able to learn from past experiences and to adapt their coping mechanisms as they
do so, but someone who has a personality disorder is likely to be quite inflexible. Their range of
attitudes and behaviours is limited, and likely to be very different from what others might expect
from their background and culture.
There are ten personality disorders, which have very different characteristics. With antisocial
personality disorder (sometimes known as psychosis) people affected may start fights with
weapons, sexually abuse others or be cruel to animals and people. In contrast, people with
dependent personality disorder are clinging and submissive to other and those with schizoid
personality disorder may behave very eccentrically and have difficulty forming close
relationships.Their attitudes and ways of behaving often cause distress to them and to others. Some
features, such as disregard for the feelings or even safety of others, are common to a number of
these disorders and do make offending more likely.285
It is not unusual for people with any one of these disorders to have other mental health problems,
such as depression or an addiction.
Psychotic disorders286
Manic depression and schizophrenia are the most well-known psychotic disorders. A psychosis is
an experience during which a person can’t distinguish their own thoughts, ideas, perceptions and
imaginings from those of other people familiar to them.
Most manic depressives have periods of mania (where the person feels capable of everything and
anything, and may indeed be very creative and productive) and periods of depression. A person
may look back on their behaviour in a different phase of their illness as totally unbelievable. Mania is
most commonly controlled with lithium.
Schizophrenia is a disorder which has a broader definition that is often imagined. Disordered
thinking, such as being unable to follow a logical sequence of thought, is a symptom, as are
delusions. Hearing critical or disturbing voices or believing that other people can control their
thoughts would identify schizophrenia but these are not necessary for a diagnosis. All these
features can affect an individual’s judgement and make criminal behaviour more likely.287
Schizophrenia is most commonly treated with anti-psychotics, which may either cause a sedative
action or extreme restlessness.
82
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(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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35
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.95 N.B. 30% of those leaving prison have
nowhere to go. It is tempting to see the fact that 33% do
not have permanent accommodation prior to imprisonment
(see p 95 of Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners) as
indicative that prisoners’ housing situation improves while in
prison. Yet this would be mistaken, for there is a flow of
offenders in and out of prison, which makes the number in
prison during the course of a year very different to the
numbers in prison at any one time. Additionally, losing
permanent accommodation does not mean someone has
nowhere to go. Unfortunately, without detailed analysis of
the housing profile and flow of offenders out of prison, we
are not able to calculate the number of people going from
secure to impermanent, or from impermanent to no housing
at all.
9
Hough, M, Jacobson, J, Millie, A. (2003), The Decision to
Imprison: Sentencing and the Prison Population, Prison
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10
The Economist, 22 January 2005, Jail break, p.34
11
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
Trust, London, p.3
12
Carter, P (2003), Managing offenders, reducing crime; a new
approach, p.12
13
www.crimeinfo.org.uk
14
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.5 and calculated from Total Managed
Expenditure 2002/3 as given in http://www.hmtreasury.gov.uk/newsroom_and_speeches/press/2004/press
_99_04.cfm, visited 11t January 2004
15
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.125
16
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.125
17
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.125
18
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.5
36
(2001) Through the Prison Gate: a joint thematic review by
HM Inspectorates of Prisons and Probation, p 76.
19
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.6
37
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit. p.95
20
Memorandum submitted to the Select Committee on Home
Affairs by the Prison Reform Trust
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/cgibin/ukparl_hl?DB=ukparl&STEMMER=en&WORDS=prison+vi
sit+&COLOUR=Red&STYLE=s&URL=/pa/cm200405/cmselec
t/cmhaff/193/193we29.htm#muscat_highlighter_first_match
38
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.9
39
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.61
83
Inside and out
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40
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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41
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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42
Bryans, S, Martin, C and Walter, R (2002), Prisons and the
Voluntary Sector: A Bridge Into the Community, Waterside
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43
Info from Clinks
44
63
Initiatives: skills for life (literacy, language and numeracy),
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64
Braggins, J and Talbot, J (2003), Time to Learn; Prisoners’
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p.4
65
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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From discussion with Clive Martin
66
45
http://www.jdi.ucl.ac.uk/downloads/crime_science
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Exclusion Unit
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46
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit., pp.43-51
68
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
Trust, London, p.24
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.54
69
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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(2005) Home Affairs Select Committee Press Notice:
reducing re-offending, rehabilitating prisoners.
70
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
Trust, London, p.24
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit
71
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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72
51
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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73
52
Loucks, N (2001) Just Visiting? A Review of the Role of
Prison Visitors’ Centres, Prison Reform Trust and Action for
Prisoners’ Families, London
http://www.dfes.gov.uk/offenderlearning/init_p.cfm?ID=17 and
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/docs3/annrep2004sec3b.html
74
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.116
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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75
Home Office, Reducing Re-offending; National Action Plan,
The Home Office, p.37
Fletcher et al (2001), Recruiting and employing offenders,
Joseph Rowntree Foundation, York, p.1
76
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news
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(2003) Recruiting ex-offenders: the employer’s perspective,
Nacro p18
77
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit, p.112
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit., p.9
78
Quote from research undertaken by the Ormiston Children
and Families’ Trust
Home Office (2002) Breaking the circle: a report of the
review of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act
79
58
http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/newsprprisonvisits.html
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/act.html visited 20 April 2005
80
59
Loucks, N (2001), Just Visiting? A Review of the Role of
Prison Visitors’ Centres, Prison Reform Trust and Action for
Prisoners’ Families
60
Loucks, N (2001), Just Visiting? A Review of the Role of
Prison Visitors’ Centres, Prison Reform Trust and Action for
Prisoners’ Families
61
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
Exclusion Unit
Data on length of Job Seekers Allowance claims from:
http://www.dwp.gov.uk/asd/asd1/jsa/jsa_aug04_pub.xls,
visited 1 March 2005; Data on number of people leaving
Prison from (2004) Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison
Reform Trust, London, Department for Work and Pensions
(2004) Helping the hardest to help: What have we done?
What have we learnt?
http://www.cesi.org.uk/events/events_2004/breaking_barrier
s/presentation_info_files/s_murphy.ppt
81
(2004) Turning prisoners into tax payers: employment inside
and out, The Inside Out Trust, p.12
47
48
49
50
53
54
55
56
57
62
84
Home Office (2003) Prison statistics in England and Wales
2002, London: Stationery Office
visited 17th February 2004.
Inside and out
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103
(2003) Benefits and debt: information for people working
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83
Nacro (2003) Recruiting ex-offenders: the employers’
perspective
104
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84
Drawn from (2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners,
The Social Exclusion Unit, p.79
105
(2004) Action on debt: why it matters and what you can do,
The Social Exclusion Unit
85
Drawn from (2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners,
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106
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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86
Drawn from (2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners,
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107
(2004) Action on debt: why it matters and what you can do,
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87
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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88
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109
(2003) Finding a home: information for people working with
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110
(2003) Finding a home: information for people working with
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111
(2003) Finding a home: information for people working with
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91
(2004) Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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112
92
Extrapolation from data from (2001) Through the Prison
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(2003) Finding a home: information for people working with
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93
(2004) Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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113
(2003) Resettlement practitioner guide: benefits and debt,
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114
(2001) Through the Prison Gate: a joint thematic review by
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115
(2004) Action on debt: why it matters and what you can do,
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116
Health in London – determinants of health – housing,
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94
Where do they go? Mental health, housing and leaving
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95
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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96
Prisoners on remand retain entitlement full entitlement for a
year.
97
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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117
July 2004, Prison Reform Trust Factfile, The Prison Reform
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Penn, C. (2005) Best practice: an inside job, Society
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118
(2003) Suicide and self-harm prevention: the management
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119
(2005) Suicides occurred in 52 prisons last year, Community
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120
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98
99
(2003) Finding a home: information for people working with
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100
(2002) Reducing re-offending by ex-prisoners, The Social
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101
(2001) Through the Prison Gate: a joint thematic review by
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102
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85
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(2002) Women who challenge: women offenders and mental
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72% of people who caused their own death had a mental
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They are more likely to be at a distance from their children,
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care and have attributable behavioural difficulties than
children of male prisoners. Furthermore, an astonishing one
in five have experienced physical or sexual abuse both
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(2004) Joint Committee on Human Rights: third report,
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Note the local branches of Mind are separate registered
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Inside
and out
People in prison and life after release
A guide for donors and funders
Other publications
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• Just the ticket: Understanding charity fundraising events (2003)
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• Advocacy and systemic change (2006)
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People in prison and life after release
A guide for donors and funders
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