Government will be breathing a secret sigh of relief, and hoping that this week’s tiny drop in the prison population marks the end of a series of record weekly highs in custody numbers. The bulging prison population was becoming a real headache with spiralling costs and extra strain on an already pressured custodial estate. In a recent hammer blow, the Chief Inspector of Prisons found that the imprisonment of high numbers of rioters was fuelling gang violence and undermining safety in jails. Furthermore, despite welcome sentencing provisions for offenders with addictions, yesterday’s Sentencing Council guideline on burglary offences did not take the opportunity to halt the already much-inflated sentences for domestic burglary offences over the last few years, which have contributed to higher prison numbers.
Ministry of Justice figures released on 15 September show beyond doubt that the courts took a more punitive approach. In the magistrates’ courts almost half of offenders were sentenced to custody, compared with 12 per cent for similar offences in 2010, and sentence lengths were much longer – perhaps reflecting a hostile public mood and the influence of a ‘tough’ political discourse.
But the headline prison population statistics mask the very practical difficulties facing those rioters now starting to come out of prison. Two-thirds of those who held a job before going into prison will lose their employment during their sentence and thereby their income once they are released. With any previous job gone, it is not surprising that a significant proportion of prisoners will need to claim benefits. However, many have to wait long periods before they receive their first benefit payment. A 2010 Department of Work and Pensions report found that a majority of ex-offenders reported delays of a month or more in receiving their benefits on release from prison, and some waited three months.[1]
To help ex-prisoners cover the period between release and their first payment, a discharge grant of £46 is provided but even the government recognises that this amount is hardly enough to live on until benefits arrive. Any of the rioters initially remanded to custody, and later released from the court are not eligible for this grant. This flies in the face of evidence that not having enough money increases the danger of a prisoner reoffending within the first few weeks after release, thus creating further victims.
Many prisoners also lose their home while in prison, coming out to find that their best chance of somewhere to live is in a hostel, which is much easier to get than council accommodation. However, demand for hostel places far exceeds supply. Where it is not possible to return to family or friends, ex-prisoners may try to find a deposit for private rented accommodation or go to emergency hostel accommodation.
Once immediate obstacles like money and housing are navigated, those who broke the law will begin to realise the impact of their actions on their future life chances. Under the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, rioters receiving custodial sentences of more than six months but less than two and half years will have to disclose their offence to prospective employers, if asked, for the next decade until it becomes spent. (Under the current legislation, custodial sentences of more than two and a half years can never become spent and must be disclosed evermore). Employers and insurers can ask about unspent convictions and refuse to offer jobs or insurance accordingly. An increasing number of occupations from accountants to traffic wardens to lawyers and dentists require ex-offenders to disclose their offences for the rest of their lives. In 2008-9, 3.9 million criminal record checks were carried out.
The result is that vast numbers of positions are increasingly becoming ‘no-go’ areas for people with convictions. For those coming out of prison securing work will now pose a real challenge, despite the fact that employment can reduce reoffending by between a third and a half.
Insuring homes and property too is a problem; unspent convictions of anyone living in a property must be declared to an insurer, and the consequence will inevitably be that the insurance policy is cancelled, leaving whole families’ homes and contents uninsured and mortgages affected.
Having a conviction can also impact on accessing higher education. While having a conviction isn’t a bar to going to university, some courses may be out of bounds, notably where the course is linked to a profession such as medicine, law or social work. Given that two-thirds of those brought to court thus far are under 25 years old, this will have a serious impact on their future.
Resettlement has long been the weak link in criminal justice chain. Even the most fantastic programme in prison can be undermined by dumping prisoners at the prison gate with no support, and expecting them to survive on minimal cash, with no real job in sight and often nowhere to live. Unsurprisingly perhaps, the road back to crime is the path for survival and around two-thirds of ex-prisoners will be reconvicted. And so the cycle is repeated and the prison population increases. In the aftermath of the riots, the government should be brave and outline a clear plan to cut the prison population. It is time to deliver the much-needed ‘rehabilitation revolution’.
—————————————————————————————
Vicki Helyar-Cardwell is Director of the Criminal Justice Alliance a coalition of 64 organisations involved in policy and practice across the criminal justice system.
Julie Harmsworth is deputy chief executive of Unlock, an independent charity and membership organisation led by reformed offenders
—————————————————————————————
—————————————————————————————
[1] Bird, H., Feasey, S. and Meadows, L. (2010) Investigating the prisoner finance gap across four prisons in the North East, Research report no. 715, London: Department for Work and Pensions.
p. 22: Bird, H., Feasey, S. and Meadows, L. (2010) Investigating the prisoner finance gap across four prisons in the North East, Research report no. 715, London: Department for Work and Pensions.
A review of the rather odly named Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is long over due. It simply buts barriers in the way of those who have, like many of the rioters, made a one off silly choice that has everlasting consequences for them.
We had a review in 2002 which produced a report – Breaking the Circle. Jack Straw said he agreed with all the major findings, then did nothing about them!